Peru - Cusco and its surroundings, following the Inca's footsteps

And finally we reached the key sightseeing point for any traveller in Peru - Cusco and Macchu Picchu! Cusco turned out to be a very beautiful city, even though way too expensive and sometimes resembling more a European touristic city rather than a Peruvian one, with its stylish cafes and hotels. However, you could also feel

the constant presence of the indigenous roots wherever you looked.

The first days we spent travelling in and around Cusco. As the capital of the Inca empire, Cusco has to offer a wide range of inca ruins, terraces and cultural heritage objects. The first stop was a small village where we learned how the local people make their textiles from scratch, using the yucca root as a soap to wash the sheep fur and then natural colorants, such as insects, for coloring.

This village is one of the few where the indigenous people still perform the goods exchange as they used to do hundreds of years ago, and the local market is the evidence.

The second stop was the Inca terraces Maras Moray. The terraces were used for cultivating of all types of vegetables and plants and was basically an advanced agricultural lab with each terrace having its own microclimate. The surrounding landscape was also magic!

A curvy steep road brought us to the next stop - the pre-inca salt mines with a subterranean water stream going through thousands of slots and leaving salty water in each slot to evaporate. The mines are still in use. Unfortunately, this was the reainy season and the salt mines were not as spectacularly white as they are in the dry season.

After the salt mines we proceeded to the inca's archeological site Ollantaytambo. The site consists of a big number of terraces (and steps to climb... pfff...), and on the opposite side on the mountain you can see the face of Viracocha, the Incan god, overlooking the place.

The last stop for the day was the site of Pisac, as well with terraces and a beautiful landscape. The rain finally stopped and we could enjoy some sunshine and fifty shades of green. On the other side of the mountain, we found an inca cemetry which consists of multiple holes in the mountain rock. When someone died, the body was mummified in the fetal position and positioned in a hole, often with precious objects and metals. Most of the graves were emptied by the Spanish conquistadors who were looking for money and precious metals.