Cusco

On Monday after all festivities of Inti Raymi, I decided to see some of the sites in Cusco itself. I spent the morning walking around the historical centre of San Blas which had many nice little cafes. It was interesting to see many of the buildings had the first metre or two of the walls still the original Inca masonary work, with the top of the buildings being rebuilt.
The afternoon was spend catching up on some of the work that had been piling up for the last few weeks, had my Inca Trail trek briefing, and then I checked out the local nightlife that cranks 7 nights a week. We found a few good salsa clubs and enjoyed a few free drinks.
Tuesday I visited the premier museum in town, the Convent of St. Domingo, Qorikacha. This had some old Inca ruins that had been excavated, and plenty of religious art works. I then visisted the famous 12 sided stone that the Incas had carved out to use in their constructions. The precision of the Inca masonary work is quite remarkable, with no mortar being used the stones fitted exactly together. I also visited the local cathedral and some churches which were interesting enough, along with the Museum of Religious Art.
By Wednesday it was time to get out of town. The tours to the sacred valley were are rip off, so I jumped on a local bus to Pisaq. Looming over the town were several large sets of Inca ruins, so I caught a taxi up to the top one. The first site was quite interesting with several houses perched on the ridge of the hill. I walked around to some Inca fountains were there were several tour groups. The tour groups then headed right past the bottom of the next set of ruins. I decided to walk into the ruins which consisted of a whole town on the side of a very steep hill. It felt like you were right back in Inca times wondering up small alleys and visiting into different houses.
I continued on to the other 2 sets of ruins which were great, and then walked down through the terraces into the town of Pisaq. I grabbed an almuezo (local set lunch) then caught the bus along the sacred valley to Orubamba, then changed into a combi van with 20 other people for the final trip to Ollantaytambo. Here there was another huge Inca ruins, with a set of terraces going right up the mountain. All the school children were there practicing their Inca singing, dancing and fighting in preparation for performance for a local festival on Friday.
Further around from the ruins were the some aqueducts built by the Incas. These relied on extremely precise stone work with chanels carved into the stones to make fountains and water the fields. As it was getting dark I got the combi and bus back to Cusco.
Thursday I took another bus out to the ruins of Tambomachay on the road to Pisaq. These were pretty small so I walked 5 minutes to the next set of ruins Puca Pucara which were more impressive. Then I headed through a few farmer's fields to the ruins of Q'enqo. This is a huge rock with unusual carvings and tunnels built through it, and supposedly used for sacrificing llamas and some humans. From here I went back to Cusco, but visitied Saqsayhuaman on the way to see it without the thousands of people.
In the evening there was a big stage setup in the Plaza de Armas for a battle of the bands contest, but I didn't get to see much of the show as I was busy getting all my things together in preparation for the Inca Trail trek tomorrow.