Peru 11

The final tourist spot that we visited late in the afternoon was at the northern end of the Sacred Valley, within walking distance from the market village town of Ollantaytambo, where we'd just bought my hat and Ken's notebook. We walked up above the outskirts of the town into an area known as Temple Hill to be amazed at our destination, the Ollantaytambo Fortress- A massive Inca archaeological site. What an unbelievable sight.

The fortress is a formidable stone structure with massive terraces climbing to the peak. The huge rose-coloured granite blocks used in its construction were hewn from another part of the valley. The complex included a temple to the sun, with its gigantic monoliths and where astronomical observations took place, the Royal Hall and the Ceremonial Princess Bath which was supplied with water which runs through channels built within fortress the structure. The fortress was the valley's main defence against the Antis tribes from the neighbouring rain forests. Construction began during the reign of Pachacutec but was never finally completed. We thought it looked marvellous and it covers a huge area of the mountain.

Ollantaytambo Fortress served as a stronghold for Manco Inca Yupanqui, leader of the Inca resistance in the early 1500's at the time of the Spanish conquest of Peru. The fortress was the site of the greatest Inca victory over the Spanish during the wars of conquest. The Manco Inca fled here in 1537 with a contingent of troops after the disastrous loss at Sacsayhuaman and routed Spanish forces under Hernando Pizarro. The victory was short-lived, however when Pizarro regrouped and took the fortress.

Looking across the valley from the fort terraces we could see the ruins of old store houses built by the Incas. These were known as 'gollqu". The Incas stored agricultural crops in these waterproof, cool stone buildings so that town could be fed in times of drought or when under attack.

From this same spot our guide pointed out a face carved into the rock face of the same mountain across the valley. It can be seen left of the store houses. We lookedf or a few minutes and then we saw the face of Wiracocha, the deity that the Incas believed was the creator of all. He is depicted with a pointed bonnet on his head and carrying heavy sacks on his back. See if you can spot these sites in a labelled photograph. The photograph was taken with a telescopic lens but it was visible with the naked eye even though it was many at least 6 km away.

We spent quite a while at the fortress ruins, amazed at the enormity of the task that the Incas took on, in building such a strong and expansive structure that is still standing today, some 450 years later.

You are probably exhausted at reading this blog and at this point we were “ready for bed”. Remember we were up at 3.30 am to catch a plane to Cusco and every event recorded in this blog, happened in one FULL day.

The day ended for us when we arrived at our hotel which was a beautiful Spanish-style building with a covered internal courtyard. We showered and headed for bed. No need for dinner which was offered to us because we were too tired to sit and eat. We had a cup of tea and then zzzzzzzzz!