Ruins and Markets, oh my!

We have been spending time the past week hanging out and doing nothing of particular importance...just familiarizing ourselves with Cusco. Tomorrow we start a language course for a week to try and improve our language a bit. For the time being we are staying in a nice hotel with heat and hot water. SO CRUCIAL. The hostel we stayed in the past few days had no hot water, no heat, and was basically  an addition to a building made of plywood with a semi-deadly staircase up to our bedroom. Oh, and our neighbors set of fireworks every morning around 7:30pm...maybe because of the festival this whole week (Inti Raymi or festival of the sun), but it could also just be for funsies, who knows. It wasn't terrible, but it could have definitely been better. Luckily there were a million adorable cats hanging out around so we could watch them play on the roof next door and forget about the cold. The hostel was located in a cool area of town too, full of art museums and shops. Many of the artists depict the Virgin Mary in traditional Incan or Peruvian clothing...they are really neat! It is to represent the fusion of Catholic and Incan religion that is prevalent here. 

I have added a few more pictures for your viewing pleasure. I finally gave in and took an adorable picture with the little baby lambs that are everywhere. I wasn't going to do it, but they saw me freak out a little about the teeny baby lamb and then I was finished....I couldn't resist. The picture is pretty much a hot mess, as you can see below. The two surly-looking women were basically already asking me for money while the picture was being taken, the lamb was simultaneously trying to eat my necklace/eat my shirt/fall asleep, and I was just ecstatic to be holding a baby lamb while wondering if I would have to put it on my customs form and be held in some dungeon in the airport for touching livestock in Peru. Verdict? TOTALLY WORTH IT.

YAY!

Yesterday we went on an all day ruins tour in the area. It was intense and fast but cool. We got to see two of the local sites named Pisaq and Ollantaytambo. They were really beautiful and just as impressive as Machu Picchu in my book. I still can't get over the awesome stones in all the ruins. They fit together like puzzle pieces and what is even more impressive is that they were carved that way using other stone tools and fibers from a plant that are similar to hemp.

 

There are also really cool terraces in all of them used for agriculture. One site that we probably won't get to see has terraces constructed to have a 5 degree temperature change for each terrace as they go down in a spiral. HOW COOL IS THAT?

Pisac (love this photo!)

Ollantaytambo - storage building on mountain side used by Incas
to preserve grains and other crops

The ruin-visit day also included lots of markets, which was probably torture for Jack but awesome for me! We got to see women weaving and creating jewelry in the various towns and villages we visited in the Sacred Valley. We also got to see all the farming between towns/villages...it is so neat how they can grow so many different things in one area. We even visited a town that is known for farming 300 kinds of potatoes called . 300 DIFFERENT KINDS. That is insane. Same thing with corn in some areas. Which explains why everything I eat is made of....get ready for it....CORN AND POTATOES. so. much. starch. We also visited a really cool market the other day full of awesome local food like veggies, fruits, and cheese. I want to go back and take some pictures at some point, it was too overwhelming at the time to get any good shots!

Anywho, that is all for now. More to come in a bit!