Tipon, Inca Trail Prep
Today we had a wonderful suprise. Amy read about an Inca ruin, south of Cusco about 20 kilometers, called Tipon. We read that there were supposed to be some terraces and a nice Inca road above the ruins. So we hired a cab for four hours for $20 and went there. The ruins are up on top of a hill, several hundred meters above the valley floor. You drive up this VERY curvey road above this little town, where there must be five or six cuyerias. A cuyeria is like a pizzaria, only the cook cuy. Cuy is guinea pig and is one of the national dishes of Peru. When you are served cuy, you get the whole thing, head, body, tail and claws. It lies there on your plate splayed out in all its glory. Anyway, back to Tipon. These ruins are magnificent. Several terraces make their way up the hillside, all in perfect condition. A spring feeds a channel that goes through all the terraces, in some places spreading out in four directions. Here are a couple of photographs...
There are also some reconstructed buildings that must have been the homes of the residents. They have the usual trapezoidal niches and trapesoidal doors.
On the hill by the terraces was a path that went up to another complex of homes. Next to this was a perfectly preserved Inca road, Capac Nan, that also served as an aqueduct. It was a path of flat stones, about five feet wide and down the middle was a two inch wide and five inch deep trench that brought water to the terraces from way up on the mountain. We followed this path for about 1 kilometer up the mountain and it went way up beyond this, probably to the top of the mountain, several hundred meters above us.
Tonight we had our Inca Trail prep talk by SAS, the company we chose for the trek. We got to meet the other hikers, all in their 20s and all single. There are about equal numbers of men and women and all are English speakers. They all seem to be very nice, but man are they all young. I guess codgers like us usually don{t do the Inca Trail. We meet tomorrow morning at 6am for the drive to Kilometer 82 on the Urubamba River. The first day is fairly easy, about 10 kms and only 1500 feet of climbing. The second day is supposed to be a killer, with 4000 feet of climbing and we will sleep at a campsite where it will get down to 30 degrees.
We will do another blog towards the end of the week when we get back. Please send us your good thoughts and wish us luck!
Craig
There are also some reconstructed buildings that must have been the homes of the residents. They have the usual trapezoidal niches and trapesoidal doors.
On the hill by the terraces was a path that went up to another complex of homes. Next to this was a perfectly preserved Inca road, Capac Nan, that also served as an aqueduct. It was a path of flat stones, about five feet wide and down the middle was a two inch wide and five inch deep trench that brought water to the terraces from way up on the mountain. We followed this path for about 1 kilometer up the mountain and it went way up beyond this, probably to the top of the mountain, several hundred meters above us.
Tonight we had our Inca Trail prep talk by SAS, the company we chose for the trek. We got to meet the other hikers, all in their 20s and all single. There are about equal numbers of men and women and all are English speakers. They all seem to be very nice, but man are they all young. I guess codgers like us usually don{t do the Inca Trail. We meet tomorrow morning at 6am for the drive to Kilometer 82 on the Urubamba River. The first day is fairly easy, about 10 kms and only 1500 feet of climbing. The second day is supposed to be a killer, with 4000 feet of climbing and we will sleep at a campsite where it will get down to 30 degrees.
We will do another blog towards the end of the week when we get back. Please send us your good thoughts and wish us luck!
Craig
posted by Craig and Amy at 6:01 PM
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