Amy Blog...Tipon
This will be short - our last email before we go on the Inca Trail tomorrow - it s just to share about this incredible place we visited today, Tipon.
When you come to Cusco there are certain ruins everyone sees & talks up - Sacsayhuaman which is the big fortress above the city, Pisac and Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley. But there is a great book called Exploring Cusco by Peter Frost which mentions many different ruins and hikes. Today we went south of Cusco to see one, Tipon. It s also mentioned in some of the other great books before we went - one called Forgotten Vilcabamba by Vincent Lee and one called the White Rock by Hugo Thompson.
What a surprise and delight. To get there, we went downstream from Cusco, south, into a green wide valley with very steep sides. Along the way we passed towns individually famous for eating establishments - serving deep fried chancho and cuy -- and one that bakes all the region{s bread. We turned left into a large village, all adobe and tile roofs, a few taxis, dirt roads, then went up, up, up, the most amazingly steeply winding dirt road you could imagine. At the top was Tipon, an Inca marvel, mostly famous for its beautiful terraces and waterfalls. The water runs from one terrace to another down vertical channels, making lovely cascades and an incredible amount of water music. This is something considering that only about a third of the channels are now flowing with water. The terraces surround a small, high valley like ampitheaters and there are some amazingly intact Inca houses, with their trapezoidal windows and niches. Maybe they have been rebuilt. At the bottom of the ampitheater, the valley just drops off, about 1500 feet, down to the town below. The ampitheater is maybe a quarter mile deep and has the most beautiful softly curved grey inca stonework wall at its back. Then there is a formal path leading steeply -- all Inca trails are steep, all about thirty degrees it feels like -- with stone steps every ten inches or so and about 4 feet wide -- up to a promontory and on it, you discover an amazing complex of buildings in ruins. Water channels run along parts of this hike, dry of course but you can see how carefully they were sculpted and how they have been softened by water in ages past. The top of all the sites has flat places which were clearly cermonial. Above looms high slopes and a very high pass to mountaintops about 2000 feet higher up. Then, surprise, you realize there is a very, very formal inca road, actually an aqueduct, heading straight up to the hills. The path is 6 feet wide, beautifully paved as if it were yesterday, and in the middle runs a trough about 6 inches deep and wide. It goes up the mountainside in steep steps, and each time you reach a little saddle there is another one. In several spots, the middle of the trail has a triangular rock sticking up, as if to say, look up at the sacred mountains. Finally about a half mile up -- and by now you feel hundreds of feet higher than when you started, but you have not yet begun to go as high as this trail goes - the aqueduct-road takes a perfect ninety degree angle and the road goes STRAIGHT up hill. It is beautiful. I can t wait to show pictures.
We would have loved to stay for hours and keep hiking up. Also, we learned there is a continuation of the Inca trails back down to the town of Tipon, far below. However, our guide could not stay because today was a compulsory voting day! Today they vote on whether the southern states in Peru - Arequipa, Cusco, Puno, Abancay - should all unify in a regional government. This means some very, very poor places would combine with those that get all the tourists.
Nance, we tried to give you package to Alexx today! but wow, he really lives in the projects, and on our way there, as we kept asking for directions, all kinds of people told us there were certain streets to avoid because as gringos we could get jumped. Alexx must know how to navigate all this. So we got to part of his complex, but couldn t find his building, and they were all locked entries. So we gave up.
We then went to the market which is also famous for not being that safe but we had a great time. Those bread dolls, the gua-guas, were all over and families were out buying. Boys dont get the baby dolls, they get horses, made the same way of lovely yellow yeasty bread in coils and spirals with small candy ornaments. THe horses often have passengers, 3 or 4 or 5 depending on how many kids in the family I guess. We already had one for breakfast today so we bought another one for our breakfast tomorrow.
}
We had our orientation just now for the Inca Trail (we are going with SAS which is one of the top rated groups) and our group seems very nice, about 6 very mellow good looking young men and a cluster of about 6 youngish-seeming girls. Our main guide seems really knowledgeable and the secondary guide, a quechua guy named something like Fraulein, is very pleasant. He tells me his job is to make sure no one gets lost, he ll be the sag wagon so to speak. We are thrilled because we have really enjoyed our hikes at altitude and good weather is predicted.
thats it for now, a hui ho, love from Craig and Amy, no emails for 4 more days.
When you come to Cusco there are certain ruins everyone sees & talks up - Sacsayhuaman which is the big fortress above the city, Pisac and Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley. But there is a great book called Exploring Cusco by Peter Frost which mentions many different ruins and hikes. Today we went south of Cusco to see one, Tipon. It s also mentioned in some of the other great books before we went - one called Forgotten Vilcabamba by Vincent Lee and one called the White Rock by Hugo Thompson.
What a surprise and delight. To get there, we went downstream from Cusco, south, into a green wide valley with very steep sides. Along the way we passed towns individually famous for eating establishments - serving deep fried chancho and cuy -- and one that bakes all the region{s bread. We turned left into a large village, all adobe and tile roofs, a few taxis, dirt roads, then went up, up, up, the most amazingly steeply winding dirt road you could imagine. At the top was Tipon, an Inca marvel, mostly famous for its beautiful terraces and waterfalls. The water runs from one terrace to another down vertical channels, making lovely cascades and an incredible amount of water music. This is something considering that only about a third of the channels are now flowing with water. The terraces surround a small, high valley like ampitheaters and there are some amazingly intact Inca houses, with their trapezoidal windows and niches. Maybe they have been rebuilt. At the bottom of the ampitheater, the valley just drops off, about 1500 feet, down to the town below. The ampitheater is maybe a quarter mile deep and has the most beautiful softly curved grey inca stonework wall at its back. Then there is a formal path leading steeply -- all Inca trails are steep, all about thirty degrees it feels like -- with stone steps every ten inches or so and about 4 feet wide -- up to a promontory and on it, you discover an amazing complex of buildings in ruins. Water channels run along parts of this hike, dry of course but you can see how carefully they were sculpted and how they have been softened by water in ages past. The top of all the sites has flat places which were clearly cermonial. Above looms high slopes and a very high pass to mountaintops about 2000 feet higher up. Then, surprise, you realize there is a very, very formal inca road, actually an aqueduct, heading straight up to the hills. The path is 6 feet wide, beautifully paved as if it were yesterday, and in the middle runs a trough about 6 inches deep and wide. It goes up the mountainside in steep steps, and each time you reach a little saddle there is another one. In several spots, the middle of the trail has a triangular rock sticking up, as if to say, look up at the sacred mountains. Finally about a half mile up -- and by now you feel hundreds of feet higher than when you started, but you have not yet begun to go as high as this trail goes - the aqueduct-road takes a perfect ninety degree angle and the road goes STRAIGHT up hill. It is beautiful. I can t wait to show pictures.
We would have loved to stay for hours and keep hiking up. Also, we learned there is a continuation of the Inca trails back down to the town of Tipon, far below. However, our guide could not stay because today was a compulsory voting day! Today they vote on whether the southern states in Peru - Arequipa, Cusco, Puno, Abancay - should all unify in a regional government. This means some very, very poor places would combine with those that get all the tourists.
Nance, we tried to give you package to Alexx today! but wow, he really lives in the projects, and on our way there, as we kept asking for directions, all kinds of people told us there were certain streets to avoid because as gringos we could get jumped. Alexx must know how to navigate all this. So we got to part of his complex, but couldn t find his building, and they were all locked entries. So we gave up.
We then went to the market which is also famous for not being that safe but we had a great time. Those bread dolls, the gua-guas, were all over and families were out buying. Boys dont get the baby dolls, they get horses, made the same way of lovely yellow yeasty bread in coils and spirals with small candy ornaments. THe horses often have passengers, 3 or 4 or 5 depending on how many kids in the family I guess. We already had one for breakfast today so we bought another one for our breakfast tomorrow.
}
We had our orientation just now for the Inca Trail (we are going with SAS which is one of the top rated groups) and our group seems very nice, about 6 very mellow good looking young men and a cluster of about 6 youngish-seeming girls. Our main guide seems really knowledgeable and the secondary guide, a quechua guy named something like Fraulein, is very pleasant. He tells me his job is to make sure no one gets lost, he ll be the sag wagon so to speak. We are thrilled because we have really enjoyed our hikes at altitude and good weather is predicted.
thats it for now, a hui ho, love from Craig and Amy, no emails for 4 more days.
posted by Craig and Amy at 6:29 PM
1 Comments:
Craig and Amy, Your stories and descriptions are just amazing. It is like you are describing life on another planet. It must be so amazing to be there seeing the things you are seeing, per-Inca roads, aqueducts, ruins! It almost doesn't sound possible. I hope you are planning a slide show when you return. The thumbnails on the blog don't do it justice I am sure. It is the experience I envy you most though. How wonderful to be able to connect with the people the way you are. I guess your Spanish is getting better Craig?
Now back to the salt mines here in Sunny San Rafael. Candace
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