Sacred Valley

Cusco sits in the Sacred Valley which is filled with well preserved Incan ruins. After Machu Picchu, we spent a few days touring around the ruins with our friends Clory and Ryan. We took left Cusco and did a small circuit of the valley, stopping at several sites and spending the night in the village of Ollantaytambo.

On the way to Pisac

Ruins at Pisac

Pisac is the name of a small town which sits at the bottom of an Incan village of the same name. It's well known for it's weekly markets with excellent artesan crafts. I picked up several rugs and other handicrafts there.

Day 2: Ollantaytambo

Moray

Moray is thought to have been an Incan experimental farming site. It was very advanced for its time. The sunken terraces allowed them to farm crops at varying micro-climates that normally would not have survived at that altitude.

Quinoa

Chinchero

Another beautiful marketplace

Ciao Clory y Ryan

Off to the Jungle! After Cusco we decided to hop a 17 hour overnight to the jungle of Puerto Maldonado which sits on a branch of the Amazon near Brazil. Up until a few months prior to our arrival, the only way to reach it was by carrier plane or a 3 or 4 day long ride in the back of a truck. The highway was definitely not completed, which meant for an extremely rough ride over rocky dirt roads. The up side is that there were very few tourists willing to make the journey!

We were worried this VW was going to be our bus