It was an unusual start to the day as we had to leave here at 7.30 am to go on an organised tour.

No leisurely breakfast today,  just a quick coffee, granola and out the door. We got to the pick up plaza in plenty of time so we treated ourselves to a croissant. A guy who was selling tours other on the corner did his best to undermine our confidence in the validity of our booking, but we smiled politely and said we’d wait and see. Sure enough the minibus arrived with the allotted time frame. There were twelve on the bus and luckily for us the common language was English. Our guide, JC, was  an excellent English speaker. I’m always so impressed when people are fluent in more than one language. Despite hours with Duolingo, the Peruvians struggle to understand my Spanish! On the plus side it has helped me understand a lot more Spanish. 

Anyway the tour took us first to a fabric and wool weaving town, Chinchero,  where there were demonstrations of the process and we learnt about the various natural dyes that are still used today. After that we were invited to look around the massive shop and buy things if we wish. It was an awful experience.. “You want this lady? You buy this hat…try it on (I looked ridiculous) oh beautiful lady. You want scarf ..baby Alpaca wool? “ Paul escaped to the bathroom and then outside and I soon followed. 

The tour took us to the North West of Cusco… the scenery was stunning in the sunshine. We arrived at an Inca site, Moray, where they had created a unique environment to work out the best growing conditions for various crops… it was brilliant.

Next were the salt pans… another truly innovative process to extract salt from the hot spring water flowing from underground. Our guide was great … he has amazing knowledge and passion for the science and history of the Inca people and of our world today. 

Washing wool with a detergent made from a plant root 

Demonstrating the spinning of the wool

Weaving fabrics to traditional patterns handed down from one generation to another. The shop sold lots of products made from these fabrics but were very expensive 

At the weaving shop were Guinea pigs. Sadly not as pets but for meat on special occasions. I, Paul, wanted to take them home 

Raine reckoned she would make a mean tuktuk driver 

The landscape was different here with patchwork of fields 

Over 3000 varieties of potatoes as well as quinoa, beans, barley and maize. 

The amazing Inca site at Moray. These terraces were for growing food. Between the top and the bottom there is a large range of temperature. They were able to grow a wide variety of crops over a longer period with more resilience to the climate. 

The sky was amazing 

Who is this?

Beautiful scenery 

Plenty of grazing animals 

Sheep, pigs, cattle, donkeys and llamas. 

Up next the salt ‘mines’ of Maras. This is the pink rock that water flows through into the salt pans where the pans dry out in the Andean sun

The site was huge

The warm spring feeding the salt pans

The process is still very manual. No machines at all

Sheds full of sacks of salt ready to go

It was big!!

The official flag of Cusco is a rainbow flag with a gold symbol in the middle. The use of the rainbow flag here predates the LGBT community use of the rainbow.