Incan adventure - 1 (18th - 19th Feb)

Thur 18th
We spent today wandering around to see what Cusco has to offer, we found a fab Indian restaurant and loads of shops selling all manner of handicrafts..... and of course we couldn't resist a few things. We have organised a private guide to take us round some of the major Inca sites around Cusco that are still open and we have confirmed that we definately will not be able to get to Macchu Picchu as the government has closed it and posted military personal around the perimeter to prevent anybody just walking in. Apparently they are being over cautious after the bad press they got when the flood hit. Macchu Picchu was completely untouched it is just the access routes that have been affected, the rail line washed away and the roads full of landslides. We just have to accept that we will have to come back another time (good excuse!).
Fri 19th
Up at 7am to start our Inca discovery tour at 8am with our guide Walter. First we drove up and out of Cusco (which is situated in a high valley surrounded by mountains; apparently it used to be a lake in the ice age) over the mountains to the North to an Inca town called Chinchero. Here we were introduced to the Inca raised town with terraces all around (the Inca never built houses along rivers, always on raised ground, the recent floods and the damage to so many properties may explain why); an incredible amount of work for each town. Of course the conquistadors have ruined the place by demolishing the Incan temples and building their own church on its base. Chinchero was a typical administrative centre for the Incas, it had 3 sections; a military area with a huge square or parade ground (this has a raised platform at one corner for announcements); a religious area with temple and niches for important mummies (of past priests) and another square for religious activities including weddings; the third area was for housing. The Incan marriage was monogamous and by choice on both sides, if a man wished to marry a girl he would offer her a pair of shoes, if she accepted then they were engaged; he would give her the shoes and ask if she would walk with him (for the rest of their lives), if she accepted she put on the shoes and then set about making him a woven jacket.
Each Incan town had a population of no more than about 1000, so they weren't huge but very impressive. We saw original flooring made of clay that was then burnt (so it was sort of like a ceramic floor, one huge tile), we saw the differenece in the military and religious style of building, both using the impressive interlocking stonework but the military style used larger stones with polygonal shapes (varying numbers of sides and sizes) whereas the religious sites were built with even rows (even height) of stones and they were quadrangles. The colonial era church was quite impressive with a completely painted ceiling and other wall paintings directly onto the plaster, again we weren't allowed to photograph but I shot from the hip so hopefully I will have caught a few memories! In the religious square there were loads of locals selling their amazing handicrafts and just outside there was a shop where the women showed us how they teased, died, and wove wool to make table coverings, hats, ponchos etc. It was all an incredible start to our day.
Next we drove on a track that at one point caused me to stop the car and switch to 4 wheel drive, to the base of a mountain where a pre-Incan Wari culture agricultural site called Moray amazed and stunned us. According to local lore a meteorite crashed here and made several depressions in the earth; according to archeologists an underground cavern collapsed; any way, however they were formed, the Wari made full use of the depressions. They built circular terraces in the hollows with retaining walls of stone with 'floating' steps in the walls to aid ascent and descent. As you go down the levels the average temperature rises by about 5 degrees and the Wari (and then the Inca) used the terraces to test which species will grow in which climates and also to adapt species to differnt climates. They brought plants (e.g. cocoa) from the jungle areas and planted it in the warmest place, at the bottom. Once the plant was growing well they would plant it on the next level up, many plants would die, but some would survive and adapt to the cooler temperature. They would repeat this process until they were able to collect seeds for a jungle plant that would now grow in some mountain climates. Conversely they could do this with mountain plants, starting on the top terraces and working downwards, so that they would be able to grow them at much lower altitudes. How incredibly advanced is that, this was happening in the first millenium! Since the area has not been used in centuries we asked how they (the archeologists) knew that this is how they were used. The site has no nearby town and there is evidence of pollen and seeds from many different plants and from many different varieties of these plants. The pollen is found very mixed on all levels of the terraces but the seeds are more organised and are found in higher concentrations on the levels (the temperatures) at which they would grow best. Some tourists were taking part in some sort of energising ceremony in the bottom of one of the circles lead by an Incan man who claims that the area is full of spiritual energy, I didn't feel energy (especially as we climbed out of the circles, the Wari were small people but their floating steps were so far apart!), I just felt awe.
Our last stop before we had a break for lunch was to go to another Wari (and later Incan) site called Salineras. On the way Walter was keen to clear up some myths about the Incan way of life. According to some early chroniclers (mostly mistiso men (i.e of mixed indigenous - Spanish parantage)) the Incan's never practised human sacrifice. They agree that some of the tribes that were conquered by the Incas continued this practice even though it was against Incan law. They state that the Spanish reported human sacrifice as being prevelant in order to spread disgust or loathing amongst the Spaniards back home in order that they would fund more campaigns to stop these ungodly horrors! (It sounds like all the misinformation/propoganda that was published during the world wars e.g. the English announced that the Germans killed babies by bayonetting them and then feeding them to pigs.) We just have to decide who to believe, the evidence for human sacrifice is scant, 5 cases have been discovered and these are in conquered areas, no evidence of human sacrifice has been found in the Incan homelands around Cusco.
We wound around a dirt track on the side of a hill until suddenly below us we could see hundreds of tiny terraces, built to store water from a salty spring. The water then evaporates or drains away from the terraces leaving a crusty layer of salt. More water is then allowed to enter and evaporate so that more salt is deposited, and then this is repeated again and again until a thick layer of salt forms which is then scraped up using a wooden rake type instrument. Another awesome sight, this is Salineras, the salt mine of the Wari and Inca. Appar
ently the people here had a rich lifestyle as people from near and far came to trade goods for salt. Celso tasted the water from the spring and said it was more salty than even sea water. As we went to take a closer look we found a man who made carvings out of solid blocks of salt (Walter tasted one and confirmed that it really was salt) and more people trying to sell their goods.
We drove down in to the Sacred Valley (named in republican times (after independence from the Spanish)) to attract tourists! The river was sacred to the Incas who used to burn offerings of llamas, weavings, and the best corn and rice, and then sprinkle the ashes into the river. They called the river the sacred river because it received their offerings, but the valley was never sacred! Our lunch was barley soup with potato and other veg (delicious) in a restaurant in a town that had been hit by the recent flooding. In fact, the restaurant's neighbouring adobe house collapsed entirely in the flood and now the family had to live in a plastic tent that had been handed out by the government. We spotted more and more of these tents by the side of the road as we made our way along the river in the afternoon.
Our next stop was probably my favourite of the day, Ollantaytambo, another town and administrative Incan centre. Originally the place was a village and resting place (tambo means resting place in Quechua, the Incan language and Ollantay was the governor of the place); resting places were built every 20km along Incan trails because that is how far men and llamas could travel in one day. Ollantay fell in love with the Incan ruler's daughter and persuaded the local people to fight the ruler, who was captured and then died (of old age), when his son came to power he did not want to fight and allowed Ollantay and his sister to marry, but because she was noble Ollantaytambo then became a much more important place. As we arrived we passed the original entrance gates into the town, there are two gates so that both the military and religious leaders could enter at the same time because they were both of the same rank! Then we drove through the town which again was destroyed by the conquistadors so that now the colonial age houses have the bottom half of their walls in the Incan stone style and the top halves in adobe. There are some fantastic streets with original Incan water channels and some huge imposing Incan stone doorways into some of the houses. This town too had suffered some damage from the rains and its bridge had been completely destroyed and was now replaced by a temporary bridge. We crossed this to enter the military and religious parts of the town. An enormous number of terraces rose in front of us up the side of a mountain. The mountain is made of a soft type of rock (I think it may be shale) and the terraces ensured that there were no landslides down onto the religious complex at its base. The military area was atop the terraces and at the time that the conquistadors arrived was being remodelled because a decree had been sent out that all the building work should now be in the style of Macchu Picchu with enormous stone blocks intricately carved so that they fitted together with perfection. The arrival of the conquistadors stopped this work in its tracks so that huge stones lie where they fell and apart from a couple of magnificent walls it just looks like the building site that it was! As we stopped half way up to take a breath, we turned to look back over the town to the other side of the valley and up on the mountainside we could see huge warehouses where freeze dried potatoes were stored for up to 10 years, it seemed incredible that they would build them so high up, having to carry the goods up there seemed like just too much hard work; however the sites were not chosen at random, the winds at those locations meant that the stored goods did not get damp and go mouldy. Near one of the warehouses Tristan told me he could see a face in the rocks and pointed it out to me, about 5 minutes later Walter told me that there was a face carved in the rocks, isn't my son brilliant! I had thought it a natural formation but apparently it was carved and depicts the founder of the Incan Empire, Wiracocha or Viracocha, a sort of prophet who chose people from different areas and brought them to the valley around Cusco and settled them there giving them laws to follow and the first semblance of an organised culture. No one knows where this 'prophet' came from but it is thought he may have come from the Wari or Tiwanaku descendents and that he was an old and wise man (sounds a bit like a Moses type figure to me).
Some of the building techniques were just amazing, the new style (starting in the 15th century) with huge rocks involved bringing volcanic (igneous) rock from across the valley, cut on the far side into perfect shapes but with protruberences left on to allow better attatchment of the ropes used to haul it on rollers across the valley floor and up slopes specially constructed for the purpose of allowing the rocks to arrive. How did the Incans get 90 ton rocks across the river in the bottom of the valley? Apparently they diverted the river to one side, pulled the rocks across, then diverted the river back the other way to complete the crossing! Amazing. The Incan tax system was such that each man had to pay 3 months labour to the empire, this meant that he was sent whereever people were needed to complete these great works. Some estimates say that up to 20,000 labourers were at Ollantaytambo when work ceased. 3 months sounds a lot, but it is only 25%, we pay about 33% don't we! Also during that time all the expenses of the worker were paid, they were provided with food, shelter and new clothing if needed whilst they were working for the empire, the Incan's had no money so it was a pretty clever tax system I think.
Between the enormous rocks in the new building work the Incas put a column of smaller, thinner rocks. As the rocks expanded and contracted each day with the changes in temperature they could have rubbed against each other and eventually cracked; however, with the small rocks inbetween it was more likely that the small rocks would suffer damage and then these could be easily replaced.
The religious area of the site was more damaged; the conquistadors never allowed a religious building to stand; but this time they had not built on top of it because it was full of fresh water springs, instead they carted away the stones and used them to build the church in the town. We spent about 20 minutes wandering around the back streets of the town and then set on our way again back along the edge of the Sacred River, past more damaged buildings, destroyed crops and blue plastic emergency housing tents. We had to cross a rickety bridge and then drive about 20 mins down a mud track to get back to the main road to Cusco because the main road's bridge had collapsed on one side (pedestrians can cross but no cars), and then we drove up over the mountains during another fantastic sunset and then back down into Cusco.
We invited Walter and his partner to come and eat an Indian meal with us (a completely new experience for them, we shall see how they cope with the spiciness tomorrow) and then arrived, exhausted, back at our hostel at around 8pm. More adventures await tomorrow!