Saturday, October 28, 2006

Pisac and Ollyantaytambo!

We headed to Pisac and Ollyantaytambo, which are Incan Ruins in the Sacred Valley.

At Pisac, we saw the biggest Incan cemetry - they used to bury them in holes in the mountains so that they would be close to their gods. We walked around the mountain above the Inca terraces (used for preventing erosion, farming and decoration) and arrived at the settlement, which was impressive. They worshipped the Sun and the Moon and had temples for both of these in the middle of the settlement (althought the Sun Temple was the bigger as it was more important).

We carried onto Ollyantaytambo, which is where we'll be staying the night. The buildings here were not finished by the time the Spanish invaded and there are large rocks lying around. Their engineering was brilliant - they did not use any form of cement to join the bricks together of any religious buildings - they just cut them to the correct size.

That afternoon, we bought our supplies for the Inca Trail - walking sticks, drinks, sweets & chocolates!

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