Pisaq

Thursday, we traveled outside of Cusco for 15km (for those of you not used to the metric system, this is about a half an hour) to reach Pisaq, a town in the Sacred Valley. Pisaq is known for it's high adrenaline activities such as trekking, rafting, and riding in a hot-air balloon. We were definately going to do these, but we ran out of time so we had to settle for hiking up to the Inca Fortress on the side of a mountain. Some of the cool things we learned: the Incas set up agricultural terraces on the side of the mountain to provide fertile land and prevent landslides, and the Inca ruins are divided into four sections: agricultural, religious, noble, and military zones. The agricultural zone is in the shape of a condor, which signifies the Gods. We also ventured to the religious zone, where we saw many structural similarities to Machu Picchu and the repitive use of the Inca trilogy: Condor, Serpent which symbolizes the underworld or death, and the Puma, which symbolized the human existence. The other two zones were a short climb away but because of time and our recent explorations of many other ruins, we decided to forego more ruins and go shopping instead! The hectic market in Pisaq, which is widely known, lays at the base of the river running through the valley. We shopped for a bit and then decided we were ruined-out and we headed to the big city of Cusco.