The next day of our tour took us through the Sacred Valley of the Incas towards Machu Picchu with stops at Chinchero, Ollantaytambo, and Aguas Calientes.
I had done a lot of research before this trip, but hadn't looked into the small town of Chinchero. The art center we stopped at there ended up being one of my highlights of the whole trip.
We got out of the tour vans, not realizing that we were about to have the textile experience of a lifetime
They put a hand woven poncho and a Cantua flower necklace on each of us as we entered.
We kind of thought this was just a shop we were stopping at, so we had fun trying on the silly hats before we were escorted into a back room.
In the back was a dirt floor workshop, complete with their own alpacas. They gave us a fascinating presentation on how they process and dye the wool.
The table has the materials used to dye the wool hanging above.
They passed around this lumpy potato. It had nothing to do with dying wool, but I liked it.
This lady did the whole presentation with her adorable 8 month old son tied to her back. We were all missing our kids and a little obsessed with him.
She demonstrated scrubbing some wool with a grated soapy root, then showed us how she makes red dye from cochineal bugs. This was very exciting for me because I'd actually heard of cochineal before as they live on prickly pear cactus! Now I have a goal of making cochineal colored play dough.
In the picture above, she's holding some of the bugs which she then smooshed and put on as lipstick. She put some more in a bowl, smushed up a bit, and poured boiling water on them. It was amazing how deep of a red color it turned the wool!
Chinchero also had some nice Incan ruins, complete with these crazy flagpoles that must have been made out of an entire tree each.
Who doesn't love a good terrace? Keep in mind that we were there at the end of their winter. I assume this is nice and green during the summer.
We hopped back in the vans and drove a while further to Ollantaytambo, which is a very well preserved Incan town. I was impressed with the water flowing along almost all of the streets.
No, we didn't eat here. Playing with the guinea pigs before eating them is an interesting business model.
Our guides took us to these really old houses that double as shops, although it was clear that the owners live there. Significantly, the floor was guinea pigs.
You can zoom in and see the real human skull hanging out in the shelf to the right of this picture. Apparently it was common to keep skulls of your loved ones in your home. There were also mummified/skeletal animals used for decor mixed in with foods hung up to dry. The past was a very different place!
We had been on the hunt for lucuma ice cream since our food tour in Lima. I found some in Ollantaytambo right before we entered the archeological site... where there was sign saying "no ice cream allowed." We had to scarf this bad boy. Let the record show that the best Lucuma ice cream can be found at the Hot Ice in Cuzco.
The ruins were AMAZING. The walls were built over a long period of time with varying construction styles. The lower terraces pre-dated the Incans and lacked the distinctive workmanship.
Here's a close up of the walls. Truly mind boggling. How did they do it??
We took the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, which is the town at the base of Machu Picchu. It's pretty standard to spend the night in Aguas Calientes before visiting Machu Picchu the next day. There was an... interesting? performance on the train where two actors lip synced to what I'm sure was a very poetic love story in Spanish, but the English translation was quite cheesy.
I was amused to see my Swedish heritage represented in our hotel's "Sven Mapi" sign.
We managed to break the front door of the hotel, which led to a group repair project
We found a place with empanadas for dinner, then wandered the town for a bit. We need to watch Paddington in Peru to further appreciate this picture at some point in the future.
We found a potato museum in the back of a restaurant! I took their lovely informative brochure home as a souvenir.
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