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Today we went on a tour to the Sacred Valley. We arranged this through a small tour company for a pretty good price but most companies in Cusco book through the one company so we ended up on a full bus. There were the two of us, two dutch guys and about 20 americans. The bus tour followed the sacred river Urubamba which runs all the way through the valley and much of Peru. The guide explained for about 15 minutes why the Sacred Valley was called the Sacred Valley, shockingly after the river. This didn't stop one of the American girls getting really curious half way through the day as to why it was called the Sacred Valley. At one point the tour guide asked if anyone had any questions and she practically screamed 'ME, AND HER! US FOUR! WE'RE CHRISTIANS!!' pointing at her friends. It gave us a laugh.
The sacred valley tour went first to Pisac ruins which were up on a hill top and very pretty. We then went down to the market which was supposed to be very cheap but one woman was looking 10 dollars for a scarf and that was when we had haggled her down, in Ecuador Lisa bought two for 5 dollars and could have probably gone lower.
After Pisac we went to Ollantaytambo which was absolutely brilliant. It was a sun temple will walls upon walls and on the other side terraces in the shape of a pyramid. In a moutain in front of the temple there were several faces cut into the rock, a military leader and a mesenger god. There are also many places where the incas used sunlight to tell the solstices and other festival dates.
After we went to Urubamba and had a big buffet lunch, and Matthew tried Alpacha - was very unimpressed. Next was Chinchero where we saw a small church and some ruins. The bus ride home seemed to take forever as there were 3 wee girls who were obnoxiously loud. It was cute to begin with when they sang a song with the tour guides microphone but 2/3 hours later when their mum had even joined in, and most of the songs were from highschool musical 1 and 2, we were ready to kill them.
We ignored the Americans offer for everyone to go to dinner and went to a nice restaurant ourself.
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