In the early 1970’s I visited Peru many times as Area Manager for my employer KLM Aerocarto and although I made some very exciting trips, one with a seaplane along the Rio Marion from Iquitos to the Andes and another trip over the Andes landing on several locations to check the condition of survey markers placed before the second World War, I never took the chance to visit The Sacred Valley of the Incas with Cusco and Machu Picchu. For people who have never heard about these places a little background.

The Inca Empire was the largest empire in pre-Colombian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was located in Cusco. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century, and the last Inca stronghold was conquered by the Spanish in 1572. The Inca Empire covered a large part of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges, including, besides Peru, large parts of modern Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and central Chile, and a small part of southern Colombia. Many local forms of worship persisted in the empire, most of them concerning local sacred Huacas, but the Inca leadership encouraged the worship of their sun god the Incas considered their king, the Sapa Inca, to be the "Son of the Sun." About 10 miles as the crow flies north of Cusco is the Sacred Valley of the Incas which is the heartland of the Inca Empire. To get there is a beautiful drive either over mountains and through valleys to arrive in the Sacred Valley in the Inca City of Pisac or over the high plains which during this time of the year are covered with beautiful yellow flowers and then a steep decline to the river and the city of Urubamba which we did both.

The Sacred Valley
The Sacred Valley of the Incas is formed by the Urubamba River and is a very steep and narrow valley with very steep mountains in many places. At these locations the river streams very fast with many rapids and waterfalls. On other places the valley is wide and has small Inca villages and agriculture fields. The Urubamba River is fed by numerous rivers that descend through adjoining valleys and gorges, which contain numerous archaeological remains and villages. The valley was appreciated by the Incas due to its special geographical and climatic qualities. It was one of the empire's main points for the extraction of natural wealth, and one of the most important areas for maize production in Peru.

The Incan civilization was predominantly an agricultural society. The Incas took advantage of the soil, overcoming the adversities of the Andean terrain and weather. In the Sacred Valley they used the flat areas in the wider part of the Urubamba River or built terraces with storage facilities and sometimes houses which look like they are glued to the mountains. These terraces provided flat ground surface for food production while protecting their city centers against erosion and landslides common in the Andes. At the same time they built a trail/road system to redistribute the products to other villages. This road system was used by the Spanish invaders in their wars against the Incas and was also the reason that the small pox disease spread so fast among the Inca population. The Incas built suspension rope bridges using grass. These bridges that were made from ropes ingeniously tied together formed a narrow but effective structure. This was the only way to cross rivers on foot. We have seen many of more modern hanging foot bridges, but as far as I know only one original rope bridge still exists and is maintained in the traditional way.

We took a bus tour from Cusco through the Sacred Valley and visited all the famous Inca Cities and agricultural terrace systems on our way. On the Inca market in Pisac we watched a demonstration of how silver and emerald traditional jewelry is made and I could not resist to buy Dorothy a beautiful “Mother Earth” pendant, which is a violation of our rule to only take memories and pictures on our trip. We had a great local buffet lunch in Urubamba, but Dorothy did not want to eat the traditional roasted “Guinea Pig”. Our next stop was the city of Ollantaytambo which is also a train station and stop for the train to Machu Picchu.

Ollantaytambo dates from the late 15th century and has some of the oldest continuously occupied dwellings in South America.
On the west is a steep hill on which the Incas built a ceremonial center. The part of the hill facing the town is occupied by the terraces of Pumatallis framed on both flanks by rock outcrops. The main access to the ceremonial center is a series of stairways that climb to the top of the terrace complex. After climbing mountains and steep roads at altitudes of over 15,500 ft. Dorothy and I met our match on this stairway. While Dorothy waited for me in the rain, I continued but almost immediately regretted it because of having a major problem with altitude sickness (for 6 days already) and pain in my chest caused by too fast and deep breathing. Here we saw the storage facilities and houses glued to the mountains (see our pictures). This was the last Inca Village the Spanish destroyed as they did not go further in the Sacred Valley and never reached the only untouched Inca Citadel.

On our way back to Cusco we had our last stop on this trip in a small village called Chinchero which has an Inca textile center where on a monthly basis an Inca family can demonstrate their skills in making beautiful clothing and other items from Lama and Alpaca wool. These demonstrations include the entire process to clean, spin, dye and weave the most complicated designs. One scarf took 7 months to complete (see our pictures).

Cusco
We arrived at Cusco airport at 5:00 AM and it was cold. Cusco is at an altitude of 11,500 ft. and the temperature is completely dependent on the sun. When the sun shines is it nice, when the sun is behind a cloud or at night the temperature drops like a rock. February is the month with most of the rain and subsequently the least amount of sunshine. That is the disadvantage, but as Cusco and Machu Picchu are major tourist destinations, it is the time of the year that is the least crowded. Cusco was the administrative, political, and military center of the Inca Empire.

The first Spaniards arrived in the city in May 1533 and they were astonished by the beauty of its buildings, the length and regularity of its streets and the great squares which were surrounded by several palaces, since each Inca sovereign built a new palace for himself. Through the heart of the capital ran a river faced with stone. The most sumptuous building in Cuzco was the great temple dedicated to the Sun studded with gold plates and surrounded by convents and dormitories for the priests. The Spaniards lost no time in plundering them of their contents. The Spanish destroyed many Inca buildings, temples and palaces. They used the remaining walls as bases for the construction of a new city. This can currently still be seen in buildings with the lower part in natural rocks (see our pictures). Father Vincente de Valverde became the Bishop of Cusco, and built his cathedral facing the plaza, placed a St. Dominic monastery on the ruins of the House of the Sun, and a nunnery where the House of the Virgins of the Sun once stood. Cusco stands on layers of cultures, with the old Inca Empire built on Killke structures built between 900 and 1200 AD and the Spanish having replaced indigenous temples with Catholic churches, and palaces with mansions for the invaders.

We walked and took a tour around the mountains of Cusco, visited museums and were constantly amazed about the beauty of this city with all the plazas with historic buildings and churches. Most of the time we ate local food and the hotel staff was surprised to hear that we ate in the largest covered market place on the square that was only steps away from our hotel. The soup, fruits and juices were delicious and it was so much fun to sit together with the local people mostly Indians or descendants of Indian people. The disadvantage of the city is that nothing is flat every step you take is on a steep surface and at an altitude of 15,500 ft. that is hard if you are not used to it. According to local people the cure is coca tea and I drank a lot of it. To have and use coca leaves and coca tea is not illegal in Peru, but it is advised not to take the leaves to other countries. So this was the first time in my life I used what is considered in many countries an illegal substance and I even enjoyed it. It is surprising how many Indian people live in Cusco and not only the people in traditional clothing to attract tourists to take pictures, but people being in town to do their normal daily business. The other surprising thing is the amount of people who speaks very good English. In Colombia it is often hard for me to get around without my translator, but in Peru it appears that everyone you need speaks good English. The education system must be very good.

Machu Picchu
Cusco and the Sacred Valley were great to visit, but our main goal was to see Machu Picchu. Although it is a major tourist attraction as a cultural heritage the government has restricted the access to Machu Picchu in a very silent way.

If you donot want to hike for several days in very difficult terrain you need to take the train and the train runs for each of the three classes of trains only one time a day. The classes are “Belmond Hiram Bingham”, “Vistadome” and “Expedition”. Belmond Hiram Bingham is very luxurious with music, dance, fine dinner with wine or breakfast, but very expensive. I know because I first booked seats on this train before I realized how expensive it was. Expedition is a raw bottom train with no special service and hard seats. We took the “Vistadome” which is very comfortable with cooling or heating, nice seats, a very nice simple food service and drinks, music and a performance of a local festival figure and a fashion show of clothing made from Alpaca and Lama Wool.

In January 2010, heavy rain caused flooding which buried or washed away roads and railways to Machu Picchu, trapping more than 2,000 locals and more than 2,000 tourists, who were later airlifted. Machu Picchu was temporarily closed, but it reopened on 1 April 2010. In July 2011, the Dirección Regional de Cultura Cusco (DRC) introduced new entrance rules to the citadel of Machu Picchu. The tougher entrance rules were a measure to reduce the impact of tourism on the site. Entrance was limited to 2,500 visitors per day, and entrance to the Wayna Picchu and the Huayna Picchu was further restricted to 400 visitors per day, in two allocated time slots at 7am and 10am. We purchased tickets for the first group. In the entrance log you have to fill out your name and age and it appeared that the average age was below 30 and Dorothy and I were the only ones in the above 60 group. To be honest I was at 69 by far the oldest who intended to climb the two mountains always shown on each picture you see of Machu Picchu. To reach the site in time we had to take the first bus leaving at 5:30 AM. It was hard to climb the mountains which were both in the clouds and the result besides pride of our accomplishment was not having any view. The second group had better luck since just after 10:00 AM the sun started shining until at around 12:00 noon when it started raining like it normally does in the afternoon. We walked the rest of the morning through the citadel and were amazed how people over 550 years ago could build these structures and terraces so high up in the mountains. The rocks used to build the walls fit so well together that even now it is impossible to put a sheet of paper in-between the rocks. The door and window constructions are so great with the one rock at the top. The way stones were used to connect the roof construction with part of the round rock that sticks out nicely shows so much detail and precision. Some people do not like that some of the buildings now have a roof, but it gives a nice impression what a completed building looks like. From pictures it looks like the citadel is flat, however, looks are deceiving nearly every part is connected with steep stairs with steps of at least one foot. When it started raining our knees also indicated that it was time to go down, take the bus back to the village and enjoy a nice lunch. Due to the rain we did not made our planned city walk but rested in the nice little hotel like we did the next morning until the train took us back to Ollantaytambo and from there to the hotel with a two hour taxi drive to Cusco.

It was one of the most amazing trips we have ever made, which means something for people like Dorothy and I who have traveled all over the world. I took over 800 pictures of which I made a selection and posted in three different albums in our blog: Cusco, The Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. Even if you do not have the time to read my story look at the pictures and be amazed what people could do over 500 years ago.