Kittens and Quad Bikes

This morning we were shipped off to a little farm village where we began an ATV tour around the Cusco countryside. The little kitten was spotted pottering around in the muddy yard where our bikes were kept. We spent the morning exploring some inca ruins and the Maras Salt mines.

Since pre-Inca times, salt has been obtained in Maras by evaporating salty water from a local subterranean stream. The highly salty water emerges at a spring, a natural outlet of the underground stream. The flow is directed into an intricate system of tiny channels constructed so that the water runs gradually down onto the several hundred ancient terraced ponds. As water evaporates from the sun-warmed ponds, the water becomes supersaturated and salt precipitates as various size crystals onto the inner surfaces of the ponds.

The scenery was stunning, however quad biking is probably not my thing.

After lunch we went met our lovely and very knowledgable tour guide Lilly who led our exploration of some of Cusco's most fascinating spots. First we ventured into the surrounding hills to visit the impressive ceremonial ruins of Sacsayhuaman, where massive stone blocks that form the walls of this site give us an awesome picture of how highly developed Inca engineering was. Later we visited the cathedral and Koricancha Temple.

Legend tells that in the 12th century, the first inca, Manco Capac, was charged by Inti, the ancestral sun god, to find the navel of the earth (qosq’o in the Quechua language) –the spot where he could plunge a golden rod into the ground until it disappeared. When at last Manco discovered such a spot, he founded the city that was to become the thriving capital of the Americas’ greatest empire.

The ninth inca, Pachacutec, gave the empire its first bloody taste of conquest. Until his time, the Incas had dominated only a modest area close to Cuzco, though they frequently skirmished with other highland tribes. One such tribe was the Chanka, whose growing thirst for expansion led them to Cuzco’s doorstep in 1438.

Viracocha Inca fled in the belief that his small empire was lost, but his third son refused to give up the fight. With the help of some of the older generals, he rallied the Inca army and, in a desperate final battle, in which legend claims that the very boulders transformed themselves into warriors to fight alongside the Incas, he famously managed to rout the Chanka.

The victorious younger son changed his name to Pachacutec, proclaimed himself inca and, buoyed by his victory over the Chanka, embarked upon the first wave of Inca expansion that was eventually to create the Inca empire. During the next 25 years, he bagged much of the central Andes, including the region between the two great lakes of Titicaca and Junín.

Thanks to Lonely Planet for the crash course in Inca History.