Day 2: Sacred Valley -- Ollantaytambo & Chinchero

 This morning we woke up and breakfasted at the hotel, then we hit the road again.

 

Then it was off to Ollantaytambo, a town (where our guide's father was from!) and archaeological site. We started in the winding streets of the town, where Incan stone walls were topped off by Spanish walls and tiles.

Then we went into a store/someone's house and they were guinea pig breeders. There were tons of them, making video-game chirping sounds. They are sold for food eventually (very hard to conceive of them as food when we are used to them as pets).

^the woman who owns the store's niece was there, harassing the cats who live there, too

^The skulls of their ancestors to protect them. And a dead condor (the important Inca animals were condor, puma and snake) and a dead llama. Our guide said the condor and llama were fake but the skulls were real.

The temple behind us is the llama temple and it's supposed to have the shape of a llama. I found this picture online to try and understand it:

Then we saw Lucy Willner's relative in the street! She hopes Lucy is doing well:

Tributary from the glaciers above, those are original Inca walls beside the river: 

Amazing irrigation work by the Incas, still in use for crops: 

And then we made it to the Temple site!

^anti-earthquake architecture -- having that curve in the bottom rock means that the whole situation is much more stable

^our guide explaining that those protrusions from the rock were so that they could put tree trunks underneath to lift them into place

^Inca choirs would sing into these alcoves so that the sound was amplified during temple events

Here, on the way down, our guide said that she wanted to photograph us "touching the mountain," which sounded dramatic but came out like this: 

Then (surprise, surprise) Martin fell asleep on the way to Chinchero, another town and archaeological site.  

Except Chinchero is  at higher altitude--higher even than Cusco--making it the highest place we have ever been. So in all the following  pictures we were huffing and puffing and telling ourselves that it's time to up our cardio.

^This is something that the Incas would pour liquid into and depending in which direction it flowed out, they would have a yes or no answer to a question. Is that a confusing description? Yes it's because we only partly understood it. 

This next picture shows alcoves in which the Incas would place mummies of important people. And they would dress them up for special events. And if they relocated, they would bring the mummies with them. Our guide showed us the second picture so that we can see an imagined mummy-in-an-alcove--you are welcome for the nightmares.

Then we got some huge corn and cheese on the street -- incredible.

A viewpoint on the way: 

Then we went to Tunupa restaurant with our guide for lunch. It was very pleasant and had very beautiful grounds (see the following).

Can't have enough llamas!

Path from restaurant leads to Urubamba river-- the river that winds through the Sacred Valley.

^This llama appears to have given up.

Then we went back to the hotel for a rest. Sylvia finished her book so Martin can have his Kindle back. We hung out on these great hammocks while reading.