seekingmygreaterperhaps

After quite a rough landing in Cusco, I was happy to start my adventuring! I used Cusco as a base to explore some beautiful areas of the Sacred Valley. Looking back, I am sad that I essentially lost a day due to the chaos of arrival, so I didn’t get to actually explore the city of Cusco. Alas, I enjoyed seeing the natural beauty that Peru offered me.

I booked a tour with Machu Picchu Reservations for an easy day in a van so that I could acclimatize. Cusco is HIGH, and breathing was tricky. First up: a stop for learning about textiles and how they are made.

While super touristy, I really enjoyed learning about the different dyes and how indigenous people first began (and continue) to use natural ingredients to dye the wool! I am a big fan of bright colors, and feeling the baby alpaca and alpaca wool was really delightful. One of the coolest things I learned at this stop was that the cactus looking thing you see in the picture above, if you pull off the spines and get some of what looks like mold and rub it between your fingers, it turns a bright shade of red. I simply wasn’t expecting that, and it put in awe of how people from so long ago discovered these things.

Next was the main reason I chose the tour, a visit to the Salineras de Maras! These salt mines are beautiful and seem to go on forever! They wrap around the mountain, so it gives the illusion as going on as far as the eyes can see. These are natural pools that current residents of Maras collect and sell salt from. Our tour guide said that you can only buy a salt pool if you were born in Maras, or if you marry someone who was born in Maras. That’s one way to keep things local.

It was quite hot when we got down to the salt fields, so I can understand how the salt dries so quickly there. I’ve been to Uyuni in Bolivia and seen the salt flats, but this was a little different because of the placement of the salt field.

The next stop on this day trip was to see Moray, an ancient Inca agricultural sight. My first toe dip into ancient Inca structures in the Sacred Valley. It was pretty cool I suppose. We walked around it, the sun was bright and beautiful, and we learned how the Incas figured out that crops grow differently at different altitude levels. So a potato planted on the top ring would turn out to be a different size than those planted in the inner circle. Wild!

The tour also stopped at a local chocolate shop so we could “try” (cough- buy) some local chocolate. Overall, a great day trip.

Total cost for this day tour: $15.

For dinner I met up with my EAB family. These are the same people who did the Ironman 70.3 with me, and also cheered me on if they weren’t racing. I love them. Left to right: Marc, Aidan, Karen, John, Karin, me. You can see the beautiful Cusco main plaza behind us.

If you know me really well, you might notice that I am wearing my glasses an awful lot. Well, I forgot to pack my contact lenses, which is very unlike me. Sigh. Thank God for South America- I just went to an “optica,” said my prescription that I needed, and bought new ones. Didn’t have to show a doctors note or anything, just had to say what I needed. That being said, I didn’t get back early enough from my excursions to do that until the 3rd day. Just in time for Machu Picchu. 🙂

My second big day trip was to Lake Humantay. I decided to go here instead of Rainbow Mountain on my second day because I was having a really hard time with the altitude. Rainbow Mountain is at 5,200 meters (17,060 feet) above sea level. Lake Humantay is at 4,200 meters (13,780 feet). Someday maybe I’ll go back to Rainbow mountain, but on this trip I chose Lake Humantay, for what I thought would be more comfort.

HA! It was SUPER HARD for me. The hike itself isn’t that far in distance, but it was quite the hike UPWARD. I was huffing and puffing. It got to a point where I would count to 20 steps before I needed to stop and take a break to get my heart rate down. I have a fancy Garmin watch and could track my heartrate. It is not that I am so out of shape (although I have been lacking in cardio since my foot injury), but the altitude made me feel like I was having a heart attack constantly.

The guide we went with kept offering me to pay for the horse ride up to the top, but I am stubborn and wanted to make it all the way on my own. The pain is worth the glory and all that.

And glory it was. Lake Humantay is absolutely beautiful. It (of course) started to rain just as I crested the top to see the lake, but with a little patience, the sun came out for a quick hello, and I witnessed the water sparkling off the lake.

Soaking up all the views because the hike up was so challenging I really wanted to enjoy every bit I could.

On the way down, it absolutely dumped rain on us. Raincoat schmaincoat, it did nothing. I was soaked through to the bone by the time I made it back to the van, and it was cold. Travelling by myself has the downside of not being able to talk to someone consistently. I found myself focusing on how miserable I was feeling because there was nobody to distract myself with. I was tired and a little grumpy because I was soggy. This tour included breakfast and lunch, so that was nice, at least I wasn’t hungry!

Total cost: $25.

I wish I had more time to spend in Cusco and surrounding areas, but what I saw truly took my breathe away (sometimes literally.) I highly recommend taking time to see the natural beauty in this region in Peru.