Off to the salt mines...

We decided we needed a weekend away from our year away. Cusco is just a wee bit too frantic sometimes...

So we hopped on a local bus to Urubamba, and wandered around until we found a hotel. It was a "one night only" location, but for $10 no problem. Urubamba is a non-tourist town, which was a refreshing change after Cusco. We finally felt like we were really travelling in Peru. Our first local bus and our first (and second) Pisco Sours.

Saturday we awoke early to find: nothing. The locals don´t go out for breakfast, so neither did we. Thankfully we managed to find the bakery and provisioned ourselves with buns and cookies for the day´s hike. There was some intense negotiation in Spanglish before we managed to get a cab ride to the start of our hike, but we ended up exactly where we wanted to be, despite not knowing exactly where that was.

45 minutes of hiking brought us to the salt mines at Salineras. Inanticipation of a long day´s hike thru the high desert, we´d started with 5 liters of water. This was a bit of over-preparing, as thereis an ice cream stand at the salt mines. You can also buy water, snacks,and a full alpaca-wool suit in stylish bright red and orange.




Salineras


Happy Megan: first shade since we started and ice cream!

The tourist-attraction shops are a sharp contrast to the workers in the salt mines, who manually fill and extract huge bags of salt using nothing but human and donkey muscle-power.




We shared a taxi with a visiting american doctor to the start of our next hike, 5 kilometers along a gentle trail surrounded by farms in the foothills of the andes. Despite a near-miss with a bull and some large pigs (Megan no le gusta pigs) we made it to Moray, an ancient Inca site thought to be an experimental agricultural nursery.

After Moray it was taxis and Buses to our next village, the slightly more touristy town of Pisac. Above the current town are some magnificent Incan ruins, also called Pisac. We spent the night in another "economical"location, with a fantastic view across the Sacred Valley. The next morning we got a leisurely start, had breakfast, and started up the hill. Imagine two Grouse Grinds at 11,000 feet. We was winded! Exploring the ruins was well worth the climb though.


Dave´s shirt, after hiking to the salt mines and Pisac.
Guess who was carrying the backpack!

After the climb down we still had to contend with the bus back to Cusco. Standing the whole way, and barely room to inhale. But only 80 cents!

Back to school this morning - next weekend Machu Pichu!

-- David y Megan, Cusco