Cusco Food, Arts, and Culture

Urubamba * Ollantaytambo * Chinchero * Cusco

Our bodies needed a solid, nights sleep. Even after a good nights rest in a comfortable bed we have very sore muscles! Arms, back, calves, thighs, it hurt to walk this morning.

Roger let us sleep in just a little bit (in comparison to the Inca Trail) and we met him in the hotel lobby at 900 a.m. Our first stop this morning was a local market in Urubamba. It was great because we were the only gringos in town. If felt very authentic. Roger walked us around the market, grabbing small samples for us to try. Roger seems to have friends everywhere. In the market Irene purchased some peas and then proceeded to eat them raw, the ladies in the vegetable stands did not like that at all. They said we should cook them.

After the market we drove to nearby Ollantaytambo to visit a traditional mountain home, complete with guinea pigs running around and a corner dedicated to their worship of idols and ancestors. Ollantaytambo was built hundreds of years ago and the streets are narrow with water channels down the sides and middle. After our city walk, we climbed a nearby hill to visit the old grainery, but mostly to get a good view of the Ollantaytambo site. Our legs screamed as we climbed up the mountain.

The most impressive part of the Ollantaytambo site are the huge stones that are perfectly carved and shaped together like a big jigsaw puzzle for the Temple of the Sun.  The temple is unfinished because the Incas abandoned it when the Spainards arrived. We looked at the ramp at the back of the site where the Inca likely moved the stones from the valley floor up to the top of the site to build their temple.

After Ollantaytambo we had a yummy lunch with traditional food and Marinera horse and people dance. The horses pranced around on their light feet and were beautiful. Lunch was followed by a fun pottery class at a local artist studio, Senor Seminario has been an artist in Cusco for over 40 years. His inspiration comes from all the ancient Peruvian cultures, but he has become more famous and even has some pieces in the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. We enjoyed learning about his art and then making our own clay tile and mask.

Our final stop today was the high town of Chincero to learn about how traditional clothe is made. The workshop was run by a coalition of single women, and they did an amazing job of teaching us about traditional methods of collecting wool, dying it, and then weaving it into clothe. They had an amazing selection of blankets, sweaters, and other items that of course we couldn’t resist buying several items.