Journey Through Time in the Sacred Valley of the Incas

One of my trips while I was in Cusco, Peru was a journey through time in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. This valley is nestled between the Andes Mountain range and the Urubamba River runs through it. The elevation of the valley is 6,730 ft (2,050 m) to 9,800 feet (3,000 m) and the soil is rich from the river runoff and is ideal for farming.

Chinchero

The area was settled in 800 BC and around 1000 AD was taken over by the Incas and incorporated into their lands. There are numerous Inca and Pre-Inca Archeology sites in the Sacred Valley, and our all-day bus tour went to six different ones.

Chinchero was our first stop on a 12-hour bus tour through the Sacred Valley outside of Cusco. Chinchero is a small town, and the Inca archeology site is over 1,000 years old. There were temples, buildings, and walls made out of large cut boulders, stacked perfectly.

When the Spanish took over, they tore down most of the structures to build their own churches and buildings, and only left the heaviest rocks standing. This same process was repeated all over Latin America.

Chinchero was originally a farming and weaving town, and both are still practiced today, with the descendants of the original peoples still living here.

Moray Agriculture Center

This was our second visit on the Sacred Valley tour – Moray Agriculture Center. Our guide told us the history of the site and of the crops that they grew here.

Moray was an Inca agricultural center. The Incas planted and experimented with different varieties of corn, potatoes, and other crops to get the best results. These Incas also practiced terrace building (to prevent erosion), crop rotation, and irrigation systems. The terraces pictured were built on the mountainside, with each succeeding level representing a temperature difference of 1 degree Celsius. This was done to experiment with diverse types of crops to raise the crop yields.

Salt Mines of Maras

The Salt Mines of Maras is a UNESCO site that predates the Incas by hundreds of years. These salt mines are constructed as a set of over 4,000 pools placed in the form of terraces. Salt in these pools come from underground springs of water heated by volcanic forces. As the weather turns warmer, and the sun comes out, the pools are dried and once almost dry the salt is scraped off the sides and bottom of the pools.

This salt was used locally for the storage of food before the days of refrigeration and to cure meat. In the early days, salt was also used as both a currency and for the barter of other goods.

When the Incas took over, they expanded and built more pools. Today, the salt is still collected by families harvesting the salt in their individual set of pools and sold both domestically and internationally.

Ollantaytambo

Ollantaytambo is an Inca archaeological site and at served as a fortress against the Spanish Conquistadors. Ollantaytambo dates from the late 15th century and has some of the oldest continuously occupied dwellings in South America.

The structures were built with large, cut rocks, from miles away. Large, cut stones were transported without the assistance of horses or oxen, and the wheel was not in use in Latin America. The site was also used for Inca religious ceremonies.

Across the valley and up the mountain on the other size, there are square patterns cut into the mountainside. These were constructed caves built to use as pantries for food. The pantries and the food inside were cooled by downdraft winds of the mountains. The food was also safe from invaders as it was so high up the mountain.

It was quite a steep climb to the top, but once there you have a magnificent view of the valley below and the surrounding mountains.

Pisac

Our last stop on the all-day tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas was Pisac.

This area was settled in the Pre-Inca days, and the peoples here raised their crops on the cut terraces as well as on the flood plain of the Vilcanota River. When the Incas took over this area, Pisac was used by the Incas as a multipurpose residence, citadel, observatory, and religious site. These hillsides were used as burial sites for the royalty of the Incas, with tombs built into the mountainsides.