Did you ever wonder how the firsts refrigerators worked? Peruvian chronicles. Day 5.

Sticking to my routine, I had breakfast and went out to the street. Once again, the buses and tour guides funny organization. Once again to the road. We took the same road than the day before, and drove for a while until reaching our first stop.

First stop. Pisaq.

We got to Pisaq and down the mountain lays what has been the town since colonial times (Spaniards couldn’t put up with altitude very much), and in the top of the mountain the historical site remains. After having my entrance ticket cut, we entered. Note: to enter the archeological sites and other places of interest you have to buy a tourist ticket that can be purchased in an office in Cusco or at the entrance of every site that requires this ticket to enter and there are two options for it. End of the note.

The remains of Pisaq old town from the entrance to the archeological site.

Here, Jonathan, our guide for the day, who I had already befriended, gave us an explanatory talk about the place and it was the first time this thought came to my mind: while most of the Peruvian people I talk to are against what Spaniard conquest brought, they are Catholics, that together with our languaje is the main consequence of the conquest.  At the end of the talk, he says he gives us 20, yes TWENTY, minutes to walk around the place and that was it. WHAAAAT? I took off as if I was the roadrunner trying to reach the top of the mountain and guess what: altitude striked me. A little bit after halfway I ran out of air and had to stop for some minutes to recover my breath and keep going. While I was doing so I looked at the sort of room I was into and its classic Inca construction made with perfectly fitting rocks and some trapezoid shaped holes in the walls that some say were to place the mummies that were wrapped in a position that fitted into those holes, but from what I could hear, that’s not a 100% proven fact. So, go check that for yourselves.

This was the place I stopped to recover my breath. And take photos, obviously.

I got to the top of the mountain and looked down. I took photos, people took photos of me, because when you travel alone and you find yourself fighting with your phone or camera to take a decent selfie, someone always appear offering to help you (and I use the word “appear” because experience has taught me not to ask for someone to take my photo because 99% of the times I end up unhappy with the results). I stayed gazing at the whole place for a couple of minutes and telling myself “you did it” as if I was proving somenthing to myself and I started the way back down. Fun fact: don’t think the way down is easier than the way up. You have to be cautious in your steps because it’s pretty steep, there are not that many stairs, and railings are not as firm as one would want. One misstep and you can go down. But, don’t worry, in the mountain right in front of me, there’s the old cementery as if it was a strainer in the hill where the litle holes were used as tombs. So, you can stay there, really close.

I think I’m a little bit high. Down , on my left, you can spot the town.

The way down. And, in the mountain in front of me, the cementery.

Of course I went back to our tour guide and not all the people had come back and I had to wait. We went down to the town to visit a jewerly studio and I stopped again to buy a beautiful blanket to use when I take a nap in my couch ❤.

Stop 2. Lunch in Urubamba.

There’s a buffet. I only remember I had soup and had meet sautéed that is one of the typical dishes of Peru and my second favorite after quinoa soup. At some point of the road close to Urubamba, I saw these sort of glass boxes sticked to the side of the mountain and asked Jonathan what they were. He told me they are a hotel where you got to climb the mountain to get to your room and you go down doing rappel. A couple of days after I was given a flyer of that place and now I’ve seen it in travel blogs. It’s amazing. This area has such clear skies that makes me want to try mountain climbing and fight against my vertigo.

Stop 3. Ollantaytambo.

Here, ladies and gentlemen, get ready to drop your jaws. Apart from the town which is adorable and keeps using the same water recolection system from 500 years ago, we went to the archeological site where we had to climb a ridiculous amount of steps though each one of them is worthy.

Ollantaytambo from the ground.

Here we go through some important points. The first one, the rocks used to build this site, pink granite mostly, comes from a mountain located aproximately 3 miles away. So, how was it moved without using the wheel? Aparently, Incas used a system of logs and vegetable ropes that was recreated some years ago over there. Second, from the Sun Temple we looked to the mountains across us. On the left side, you can see the outline of an Inca face in the mountain. There were different hypothesis about if it was men-made or a gift from Pachamama until someone could actually reach that place and found tools and human fossils. End of discussion, hypothesis one wins. The thing is, that face is aligned with the Sun Temple and the sunrise in one of the solstices (couldn’t remember which one and couldn’t find it, my bad, sorry).

The Inca face sculpted on the mountain.

The Sun Temple.

And finally, third. Now was the time to use a hydraulic jack to lift my jaw, when we were told about the barns. These constructions are located in the mountain upfront. And what these people created was a refrigeration system, thanks to the combination of drains that carried the water from the mountains and the cold winds that blow in the area. And if all this wasn’t enough, Incas mastered the art of dehydrating food for storage. And when I say master, I mean it, because when this place was found not that many years ago, potatos and other dehydrated vegetables were found, and still in good condition.

The barns / refrigerators.

Stop 4. Chinchero. (Yes, once again).

On this day, besides visiting the place with the ladies and the wool from the day before, we also went to the town archeological site, though it was already dark and we couldn’t see very much. Well, too much of the construction, because the stars looked amazing. So, while Jonathan explained us abot some of the kinds of potatoes among the more of 3000 existent in Peru, I set myself to shoot photos from the sky that didn’t turn out very good, until we were leaving and I saw that the stairs on the way back were super dark, so I asked the guide to wait for me just for two minutes and then I could take a decent shot.

The amazing sky from Chinchero.

We went back to Cusco. We got there after 9 pm and I still had to get ready to leave early in the morning for Machu Picchu, so I stopped in a small pizza place that doesn’t attract many eyes, but they had amazing pizza.