We had an earlyish morning today, getting up at 6.45 am. Unfortunately I woke up with a sore throat today and lost my voice completely a few hours later.
However, we had a taxi tour booked to go and see the Pisaq ruins then on to Sacsaywamán (pronounced "sexy woman").
We beat the crowds to the extensive Pisaq ruins. They consist of layer upon layer of agricultural terraces as far as the eye can see (across the valley) along with a couple of small villages, a hill top fortress and a tunnel carved through the mountain.
It took us several hours to explore only about a third of the sites by which point the crowds were flocking in and the midday sun was beating down on us. As we wanted to explore Cusco in the afternoon we decided to make a move onto Sacsaywamán.
Sacsaywamán is the largest known Incan ruins, larger than Machu Picchu. It too was a site of another short lived Incan victory. The same leader as at the Ollyantambo ruins led the rebellion, temporarily recapturing the site before being forced from it once again and moving onto Ollyantambo.
Not much remains at Sacsaywamán as the Spanish destroyed the fortress, using the stones as building materials for their own houses.
Near the Sacsaywamán site is a large cloth covered cross and on the opposite hill stands Christo Blanco, a replica of the statue that protects Rio De Janeiro but a third of the size. Both overlook the city of Cusco, protecting it.
At the site of the cross there are superb views of the city, sprawling across the valley and up its sides almost to the top.
A path leads down from Sacsaywamán to the centre of Cusco so we decided to wall back into town. When we arrived at the main plaza we had afternoon tea and watched life go by. We also got to see death go by with a funeral procession leaving one of the churches on the plaza, slowly walking around the square throwing petals onto the coffin. After a short pause they entered the other church on the plaza.
No sooner had the procession moved on had the road sweeper cleaned up the petals and for once the beeping of car horns ceased!
And that was our day. We're now on the bus to Puno and expect to arrive around 5am tomorrow!
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