Out the door at 7:30 am for the mini-bus through the Sacred Valley.

The first stop is Ccaccaccollo, a traditional Andean community where the tour operation (G Adventures) does support and outreach. Many of the men work as porters for G Adventures and porters on mountain treks. The women run a weaving co-op. We had brief demonstrations of spinning, weaving, and dying, including a talk on what materials are useful for dying. The items we can buy from the co-op are guaranteed to be the real thing because we can see them being made.


From there we went to the ruins at Pisac, where we got our introduction to Inca methods of terraces and water channels to control erosion of the mountainsides. As a primarily agricultural people, the Incas build structures on the hills and mountains to save the limited flat land in the valleys for cultivation. Terraces were often used just to stabilize steep hillsides and did not have quality soil for agriculture. We also stopped at the market in the modern town of Pisac.

Next was Ollantaytambo where we spent the night. It was at the crossing of several Inca roads (tambo means a resting place) and was one of the points where Manco Inca mounted a defense against the Spanish.