If the altitude doesn’t get you, food poisoning still can 🙁 For the first time in years I spent the day in bed while the rest of theBunch continued the mountain biking adventure. I’m going to rely on my guest bloggers as my source for today…
The day started early with a short tour of the Inca site in the centre of Ollantaytambo. The site was originally built pre-Inca, and in the 15th century the leader Pachacuti started building the Incan sections which included the Temple of the Sun. The site gave a more clear picture of how the Incas made the rocks fit together perfectly, using moulds. On the corners they used rocks shaped like puzzle pieces and filled them with molten soft metals.
At Moray we saw the Inca laboratory, where 4 circled terraces created 66 climatic conditions due to their exposure to sun, rain and wind. This allowed them to test what would grow in different climatic conditions.
The mountain biking began with the distribution of knee and elbow pads… An ominous start! The track was varied – up and down, steep and flat, windy and straight. Definitely tested the group, and resulted in a number of near misses and stacks.
Apparently one of the highlights was stop at Maras – a small town that is filled with cute dogs and chickens. I wasn’t aware we came all this way to do the doggo tour of Peru?!?!
Next stop was the salt mines at Las Salineras to see some of the 50,000 salt ponds, each about 3×4 metres, and producing 70kg of salt a month.. We learned that the salt is 6 times saltier than seawater. The salt here is 6 times saltiee that seawater, and rich in iodine which addressed the local iodine deficiency prior to the arrival of the Spanish.
We then rode to Urubamba for lunch where the girls enjoyed tasty kebabs… They guessed they were alpaca, but eventually found they were cow heart. Glad we don’t have picky eaters!
Late this afternoon we all went back to the site in the centre of Ollantaytambo to see the Temple of the Sun. By the end of many stairs I felt like my colour was returning and that there is hope for the trail!
Tomorrow is a free day in Ollantaytambo so we’re planning to get to some more archaeological sites around the town. Hard to believe how much there is to see in such a compact space!
Love M & theBunch x
Comments are closed