Last post about Cusco

Now I ought to tell you about Machu Picchu! Once we climbed down from Huayna Picchu, Jesús showed us around Machu Picchu!! Oh man!! That place is cool!!!

It was such an awesome day! Machu Picchu is an amazing place. I really can't find words to explain what it was like. On one hand, there are these absolutely mind blowing ruins. And on the other hand, there are these mountains all around that are covered in thick jungle. It's unlike any place I've ever been to in my life. It was just super cool to be there and to share that experience with such cool people!!

This is part of Machu Picchu!!!

I don't actually remember this picture being taken. But... here it is! And there I am with everyone at Machu Picchu! 

Okay, before I post some more Machu Picchu pictures, I should tell you about this place. Oh man! Okay, so the Incans built this place a long time ago. How long ago? Well, the Incan Empire lasted from . The people who lived here evacuated while the Spanish were destroying Ollantaytambo, and the Spanish never discovered the trail to Machu Picchu. And, at the beginning of the 20th century, a fellow named Hiram Bingham "discovered" Machu Picchu. I say "discovered" because he didn't actually truly discover it. Local people knew about it, and there were actually some people living there, but the rest of the world had no idea that it existed. Hiram Bingham was looking for a city of gold when he "discovered" Machu Picchu. A little boy in a nearby town told him that there is no city of gold, and he offered to take him to see Machu Picchu. Hiram Bingham eventually did some excavations at Machu Picchu and took thousands and thousands of pieces of pottery and stuff to Yale to put on display. Technically, the stuff belonged to Peru, but the president of Peru had a son who wanted to go to Yale, so they made a little deal: President's son gets to go to Yale, and Yale gets lots of Incan antiques. But in the past few years, Yale has returned the entire treasure to Peru.

When we got back from Machu Picchu, we ate lunch at a buffet and had about 2 hours  of free time in Aguas Calientes before we had to get on the train to go back to Cusco. We walked around Aguas Calientes, and did some shopping. I'm a bit tired of shopping, though,  so I was thrilled when Don told us about a waterfall that he had found! So we went and found it, too!! And here we are at the waterfall!!

I took this picture from the train. It took about four hours to get back to Cusco, and it was a beautiful ride!! And the company was lovely, too!! We had some good conversations about the Peace Corp and Dutch tourists in Peru, and of course we laughed a good bit.

By the time we got back to Cusco, we were all quite tired. It was getting late, but I went to a restaurant with Amy and Sydney and ate a really great pizza! And then we went back to the hotel and slept. The next day, we got up and went to Saqsaywaman, which are some Incan ruins very close to the city of Cusco. This place was a religious place for the Incans, and quite a bit of it was destroyed by the Spanish. In fact, historians and people think that much of the structure is actually underground because the Spaniards came and covered a lot of it with dirt and ground.

Okay look at this. See how there are indention-type-thingies at the bottom of these rocks on the second row? Well,  those are there because the Incans used tree trunks to suspend these rocks a bit above the rock beneath so that they could make sure that the rocks would fit together PERFECTLY. Once they knew that they would fit, they removed the tree trunks that were holding the rocks up and set the rock on top of the one beneath it. Cool!!!

That big rock is THE biggest rock used by the Incans. It weighs approximately 250 tons. I know this because.... our guide friend told us.

After spending some time at Saqsaywaman, which was a super neat place, we went to Qenqo, which is where the Incans did mummification. They didn't mummify everyone--only royalty. The picture below is of a table made of rock. This is where they mummified the bodies of dead royal people. This is a good table for that kind of thing, because for some scientific reason, the rock is super COLD! I touched it (yes, I touched the table where dead Incans were mummified) and it is a LOT colder than I expected. In fact, if a person who is alive laid on that table for 30 minutes, they would die. It's cold. And, I guess that makes it good for preserving dead bodies.

This is just a beautiful view of part of the city of Cusco from up in the surrounding mountains where the ruins were.

This place is called Pukapukara. It was a pre-Incan fortress, but after the Incans defeated it, they made it into a check-point place for the messengers who ran messages around the empire. Each messenger would run 10 kilometers. After 10 kilometers, they would get to another messenger who would take his turn. This way, the message never stopped and never slowed down until it got to where it was going.

Hey look at these cool people! Here I am with Emily, Amy, and Sara. I like them.

And this is a picture of the valley from Pukapukara. Look at it!!!!!

After our morning at Saqsaywaman, Qenqp, and Pukapukara, we had a free afternoon. I ate lunch with most of the group, and then went to a few museums in Cusco with Emily, Lauren, and Fuller. One of the museums had a bunch of stuff about the history of Peru from the pre-Incans to today. And the other museum... it was a Chocolate Museum. And it smelled SO GOOD there. They made chocolate. Unfortunately, it was quite expensive, so I didn't eat any. There really isn't much chocolate here. That's a sad thing. Later on, I went to one of the markets with a couple other people. I was tired of shopping, so I didn't get anything, but it was fun to look around and hang out with cool people.

We went to bed on Sunday night, and then Monday morning we took a plane back to Arequipa. The bus ride from Arequipa to Cusco was 10 hours long. But the plane ride back was less than 45 minutes. Planes go faster than buses. I sat next to a woman from Oregon, and she tried to convince me to look for a teaching job in Texas. We got back to Arequipa, and I went to the university for classes!

It was a great great great time!!!