Peru Day 7 - morning Sacred Valley Tour

The Sacred Valley of the Incas or the Urubamba Valley is a valley in the Andes of Peru, close to the Inca capital of Cusco. The valley was formed by the Urubamba River.

Today we drove along the valley, stopping at various sites along the way. Our first stop was this Quechua village where they raise llamas/alpacas/guanacos/vicunas/and other varieties of similar animals. The native people of Peru, descendants of the Incas, still speak the native language Quechua. They are farmers, using the land much in the same way as during the inca period.

 Here a Quechua woman shows how they use the alpaca wool- dying it using natural dyes, 

 and weave it to make decorative clothing and handicrafts.

 Houses of air-dried clay bricks, with roofs of straw

 Showing many different types of potatoes and corn, important crops that they grow:

Continuing on our way. 

Overlooking the sacred valley:

 The valley down below and the ancient fortress on the hillside. That is where we are headed to tour the ruins:

 These terraces are everywhere along the mountainsides. The terraces prevent erosion and create flat areas for growing crops. 

In the Andes mountains, farmers have used terraces for over a thousand years to farm potatoes, maize, and other native crops. Terraced farming was developed by the Wari' and other peoples of the south-central Andes before 1000 CE, centuries before they were used by the Inca, who adopted them. The terraces were built to make the most efficient use of shallow soil and to enable irrigation of crops.

The Inca built on these, developing a system of aqueducts to direct water through dry land and increase fertility

 With our tour guide:

 You can see holes in the mountainside. These are burial sites:

 Ancient water canals, still running today:

 The magnitude of these terraces was just astounding.

 Look in the background, above the terraces. More ruins of houses. We walked and toured those as well!

Driving through more Quechua villages:

 Stopped at a large street market. Tons of vendors, mostly Quechua people selling their handicraft.