Machu Picchu Day 3

Third day of the trek and probably the easiest, helped mostly by the fact the we did a whole lot of extra walking yesterday and there was a lot of downhill. Today was also a bit more of a sightseeing day as well. We visited two more Inca sites and where lucky enough to learn about their significance from out guide for the trek, Raul.

The two sites we visited were actually two of three. There was one at the base of a mountain, one in the middle and, no surprise here, one at the top. They all had the traditional Inca terraces in the land which was used for growing various crops. These three sites however were special, they were used as a laboratory. Because of the altitude in the mountains, a lot of crops won't grow at the higher levels. So to battle this the Inca's did testing by breeding different crops and then testing their resilience by basically making them climb the mountain across these three sites. Very clever, and it worked! One of their main crops was the coca plant and they managed to grow them at very high altitudes. Higher in fact than we know how to grow them today due to the Spanish wiping out the Incas and our inability to figure out exactly how they did it.

As I've been talking about Inca ruins for the last couple of days so I figured it was only fair that I share one with you by using it as a blip. It wasn't an easy choice though, I had a number of shots to chose between today, some of mountains, some of insects, some of plants, but eventually chose this one because as nice as those photos were you can't find Inca ruins anywhere else.

Although I did have one missed opportunity for the perfect blip. The site you see above wan't far from our site so once we had set up I decided to go and read my kindle on one of the many steps. As I was reading three llamas came into the site and started eating the grass. The slowly made their way towards me and until at one stage the biggest one stood directly in front of me, ruins streaming away behind him, and looked at me, as if to say 'Well of you want to take your photo, now's the time to do it'. Alas I didn't have my camera or my phone with me as both were low on charge and I was trying to conserve them. After a few moments he climbed up higher into the ruins, the rest of the llamas following him, and the moment was gone. Clearly it wasn't meant to be.

- Damian