South America Day 10 & 11

Lydia served us a great local breakfast, fresh fruit followed by quinoa fritter/pancake, boiled egg, cheese and potatoes (we weren't sure about potatoes for breakfast!?) plus bread and jam.  After breakfast Smithy, our Peruvian Dragoman crew member, took us on a tour of Raqchi Archeological Park to see a site of some important Inca ruins.  The remains of an Inca priests/holy peoples temple, the Temple of Wiracocha, some other Inca living quarters for priests and administrators and large reconstructed grain stores, 10m in diameter, used to store dried potatoes, corn, barley, quinoa etc. there were originally 160 grain stores in total to cover a large Inca regional empire.  We walked up to a viewpoint where we had great views of the Raqchi valley and the Archeological Park.

Afterwards we had a pottery demonstration.  The village is well known for its traditional intricately decorated pottery making, Raqchi means pottery in the local Kichwa language, which it sells all over the region.  We were served lunch back at our homestay families then had a big group goodbye before we left for Cusco, a three hour drive away.

We arrived in Cusco late afternoon and checked into a colonial hotel not far from the main central square. Cuzco is the ancient capital of the Inca empire and is a stunning city.  Many of its buildings still retain some of the original Inca stone work as part of their structure. The Inca's were able to construct buildings to avoid damage by earthquake by fitting huge carved blocks of granite together in an incredibly precise jigsaw.  In the evening we went out for a lovely meal in a restaurant overlooking the main square then met up with the rest of our group for drinks.

The following day we had a free day to explore Cusco.  We visited a chocolate museum, only small but very informative and well laid out and of course we bought some chocolate!  We then visited a large local market, stopped for pizza for lunch, vusited the preColumbian museum and wandered around the old streets and shops.  In the evening we had a welcome meeting, seven new people have joined our group for the next leg to La Paz, Bolivia.  We also had a trek brief as tomorrow we start a four day community Inca Trail trek.