Pedro climbs the hill with great enthusiasm as he tells us about his plans for retirement: to become a guinea pig breeder, or cui as they are known in Peru. In three months’ time, his driving licence will be revoked and he wants to devote himself to breeding these animals, which are a delicacy here. Pedro, who will soon be 85, has been a truck driver all his life and now works as a taxi driver taking tourists to the entrance of the Inca site of Pisac.
Our brief meeting with Pedro ends there. But he doesn’t let us leave without giving us a piece of advice: as we look sportive, we’d better walk back to the village through the ruins. It only takes 2 hours, 800 metres down the stairs.
Unlike Machu Picchu, Pisac is less frequented. It is supposed to be one of the most important ruins, but most people don’t have the time or desire to walk down to the bottom. Most tourists only see the upper part and leave right away. So we found ourselves walking around the entire site, built around 1440, all alone by ourselves.
Exactly why it was built is unknown. On the one hand, it is believed that it protected the southern entrance to the Sacred Valley and served as a resting place for the ruler Pachacuti between military campaigns. After all, the Incas were a rather warlike people. On the other hand, it is surprising but seems to be that the Spaniards did not mention a word about it during their first conquests. It was not until 1877 that the American Ephraim Squier described the place.
The cultivation terraces built right into the mountainside are impressive. And the numerous caves that served as tombs were also chosen on a hillside that was difficult to access. Michi simply said that he was not surprised that they buried the dead on the cliffs if they did not even cultivate in the valley, where everything would be flat. Pedro also told us something about it: the caves are empty, they only found some copper needles and many bones. He helped in the exploration that was done in the fifties. So it was not worth looking any further, unless we wanted to see bats.
So we walked slowly through the ruins, without adventurous detours, and marvelled at the architecture of the Incas.
In Pisac we got to know the Inca stones, so to be ready for Machu Picchu, we had to get used to the masses of tourists. That is what we did the next day. A few kilometres further from Pisac, we visited the Inca salt mines of Maras. We encountered huffing tourists, impatient and stressed guides, drivers with a good accelerator and someone playing ABBA on the pan flute. And yes, it is impressive to see that the salt pans are still in operation, but it was also good to be able to get away from there quickly.
The same thing happened to us at the Inca site of Moray: a kind of agricultural testing ground. The terraces are superimposed in concentric rings in which different microclimates can be recreated to study plant growth. The lower you go, the hotter it gets.
In the end, we only visited a few sites, as they are innumerable and all quite impressive. Unfortunately, we did not meet again such a good and entertaining guide as Pedro.
However, in the end, after much debate, we did decide to visit Machu Picchu. But more on that next week.