Boleto Turistico y las ruinas
I spent the majority of the last week in Cusco hanging with friends, y un buen amigo en particular, but I also managed to be a bit of a tourist. Cusco has something called a “boleto turistico,” or a tourist ticket, that gives you access to at least 12 points of interest, including ruins, museums, and cultural centers. It costs 70 soles or ~$24, and I hear, like the price of Machu Picchu, it gets more expensive every year. It´s a pretty good deal for the city, as I found the museums to be pretty blah but the ruins on the outskirts of town are totally worth it, and you can´t get into them without the boleto turistico (and, therefore, the blah museums get some attention). Then the transportation and tourist industires make money, because you pay for the buses and/or taxis, the tour guides at each site (if you want them), and the souvenirs and snacks from independent local vendors. All that cheap-Jessica talk aside, again, it was worth it.
I saw the ruins of Pisac, Tambomachay, Puca Pucara, Q´uenco, and Saqsaywaman. There were about four other sites I didn´t get to due to poor planning and too much partying, but I´m not sad at all, because I mean it when I say, “I´ll be back.” Pisac was a large Incan settlement, with two main large agricultural spanses of terraces, each with houses and important cultural structures at the top. There are three plateaus that jut out a bit among the levels of land and domiciles that acted as a gate/entrance or lookout posts. From the lookout posts (my technical term;) the Incas would communicate across the valley from mountain-top to mountain-top dwellings using gold to reflect light or, when there was no sun, using flutes/instruments or fire/smoke. I had a guide on this trek who led me along an ancient trail through a natural tunnel, which is part of a cliff, that is pre-Incan and probably 1,000 years old. Holey stone! That path led to the holy area of Pisac, where we saw their Intihuantana, which was my favorite thing at Machu Picchu, and, as a reminder, is a little rock pillar carved from the larger rock underneath and is used to predict solstices, which helped Incan agricultural methods. These rocks are believed to have spiritual energy–one can often see tour guides enticing people to hold their hands near the rock to feel the energy. The day I visited Pisac, I did feel a sense of peace standing there near that Intihuantana, moreso than at Machu Picchu, where there were too many people. The gray skies, strong winds, and occasional drizzle kept the crowds away from Pisac when I visited.
I followed up this trip with another gray and partially rainy day trip, taking the bus (for less than $1) out to Tambomachay, walking to nearby Puca Pucara, then hitching a combi (a smaller and cheaper mini-bus) to Q´uenco, walking from there to Saqsaywaman, and ending my guideless tour with a short hike up to nearby Cristo Blanco before walking down a small mountain back to Cusco´s Plaza de Armas, only a ten minute walk from the last two stops. In a nutshell, Tambomachay held sacred baths that made use of gravity and the still-exising natural springs; Puca Pucara was a lookout fortress of sorts, which has a long clear view of what could be coming through its part of the valley; Q´uenco is a series of weathered holy and holey rocks, with two cool carved out and natural caves, that had astronomical purposes; and Saqsaywaman is a massive fortress with its back facing Cusco (the seat of the Incan empire) and its powerful frontside, made up of stacked giant stones, facing towards the sacred valley. At some point (I think in the 1900s), a giant statue of Christ, like the more famous one in Rio de Janeiro, was erected not far from Saqsaywaman. You can see it from the Plaza de Armas illuminated at night looking over Cusco and condeming you in the morning as you roll out of a club at daybreak. This excursion took about five hours or so and was the perfect compliment to Machu Picchu.
