Paper Count

3-27-12
Paper count: 72 pieces of paper

Dye Day in Mahuaypampa

I'm just posting images from this dye day, as no new information was collected, other than that 1. Chicaron (fried pig pieces) is not my favorite food & 2. Sallac is still the most organized community I've worked with for these dye workshops...

A brief visit to Cinchero

Chinchero Market


Up the hella ton of steps towards the ruins!


View from the ruins.


And then.... we were kicked out for the first time since I've been here, because we forgot our boleta touristicas at home (because I never encounter people checking them, so we didn't worry about going back for them). Le sigh.

Natural History Museum of Cusco

so, lots of strange taxidermy. love love love it.

Siamese animals....




Goat with 6 legs.


Poorly stuffed cat....

Adorable Baby Aplaca

Alpaca hunting-- look at the cute alpacas we found! The white one was a baby alpaca, and the fluffy brown one is the cute alpaca that lives at the quiskancha.






Also, weaving.

Moray and The Salt Flats (Maras)

About Moray (info anyway). Moray was a bit of a pain in the ass to get to. We took a bus almost to Urubamba, got off at this little dirt road where a taxi (thankfully called by the bus company) was waiting. 4 of us got into the taxi and we sped off over maybe the worst dirt roads I've been on since I got to Peru. A half hour later, we arrived at Moray. Now, Moray is a really cool ruin site in photographs (and also in theory, the Incas knew their shit when it came to plant cultivation). However, in reality, it was a lot of stone stairs down into the basin (each about a foot drop from the one above it) and you get there and you're like "Cool, I'm here, lets take a few pictures and go." And then when you're ready to go you have to climb allllll those stairs (and then a hill) back out of the basin. So you've seriously earned your pictures once you've made it back to the top.













Crazy Beautiful Sacred Mountain


Las Salinas de Maras (the salt flats) are currently tied with the desert around Ica as my favorite places in Peru.





It was another 20min from Moray to get there, past some GORGEOUS snow capped mountains, over more awful roads. However, once we were there, it was totally worth it. Took us about 3.5 hours to hike through the flats (so amazing and awesome), down the mountain, across a river and a few fields, to get back to the paved road so we could catch a combvie back to Urubamba. Picked up some beautiful salt crystals on the way.





















Found some snail shells on our way down the mountain, after the flats... The first ones we saw were hanging off a bunch of spines on a cactus, and then we began seeing them all over the ground! So we picked up a bunch, because, well, how curious?



Almost got trampled by a cow on the way to the road and were chased by some chickens. Very good adventure.

Pisac

About Pisac! So Pisac is one of the Inca ruins sites. Was a crossroads location on the Inca trail, as well as a burial site. And Atticus & I hiked it in the rain!

Sacred Valley mountains.


Urubamba river & river valley.


Market in Pisac


500 year old Colonial oven! we bought a half a chicken & left it to roast here while we went hiking! Mmmmm delicious (the kitties there agreed)






Pisac Ruins!