Hola todos! Well we never gotten to Macchu Picchu after, however I did get to ‘Poor Man’s Macchu Picchu’! This place is an old Inca settlement known as Saqsaywaman, or more easily pronounced as ‘Sexy Woman’!
After the spirituality session the other day I went out and found a music bar, while I was there I got chatting to an expat geezer who I told about my frustrations with Macchu Picchu and he said if I don’t want to do it, just go take a hike up the mountain past that mirador I went the other day and after a half hour walk you’ll find this site. It costs only 20 bucks to get in but there is everything there that Macchu Picchu would have save the Instagram shot from the viewpoint. Lovely stuff this seems right up my sraße!
So the next morning I so just that. Get my ass up and start walking up the hill towards ‘Sexy Woman’! It is quite a short but intense trek up here with the altitude kicking in and making you short of breath.
Eventually I get there and after a bit of faf queuing up I get my ticket and I’m through and onto the site. It is pretty impressive for what it is with many old stone structures still standing to some degree.
Walking along the outside of it you get a great view of the city before going back and climbing a flight of stairs where you are at the highest point and can get a good view of the entire site. In parts of it they have put straw roofs on to give an impression of what it was like back in the day. All good stuff.
What was it back in the day though? There was very little info at the site but going back and doing some reading it was both a fortress and a religious site. It took 90 years to complete it’s construction which finished around 1438 when the great Inca leader Pachacuti began his conquests of the different tribes around Cusco to form the Incan Empire.
It’s quite the feat of engineering as they wouldn’t have had wheels or oxen to drag these giant stones up the hills, they would have had to have done it by tying the rocks to logs and large groups of people would then drag the logs where they needed them. They would also use logs to lift the stones in place. Another interesting fact is they didn’t have mortar so they would carve the stones using various bronze tools to make them perfectly interlock in place using bronze tools. The process is called Ashlar Masonry if you want to read more into it. It’s quite interesting how they did it and I recall our guide on the walking tour talking about it though my mind was on other things so can’t remember the finer detail.
The place was also one of the last holdouts when Cusco fell to the Spanish in 1536. I’m skipping over a lot of details but the place is still used as a religious site today by the indigenous.
The site has old remains of structures as well as some cool natural rock formations, one of which is popular as a slide. There are also Alpacas wandering about up here.
I think I spent about 5 hours here in total. It was very well worth the $20 and was nice and easy to get to and back from as well. Would highly recommend.
As for now it is the push to Puno. I won’t be staying there too long. A brief stop then on to Bolivia!
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