{"id":4705,"date":"2016-12-22T13:45:14","date_gmt":"2016-12-22T20:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/?p=4705"},"modified":"2022-01-16T09:12:27","modified_gmt":"2022-01-16T16:12:27","slug":"peru-cusco-our-fav-inca-ruins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/?p=4705","title":{"rendered":"Peru – Cusco & our fav. Inca Ruins"},"content":{"rendered":"

The historic area of Cusco has many narrow cobblestone streets, plazas and ruins and is easy to wander about. Cusco was invaded by the Spaniards in 1535 where many of the original Inca structures were destroyed and rebuilt in their own style.
\nPlaza de Armas is huge with lots of restaurants and shops around it.
\n\"img_0798\"<\/a>The Basilica Catedral is on one side of the plaza and is big with 3 churches within the one building, each church all very different.
\n\"p1120069\"<\/a>The Church of Santo Domingo and its gardens are impressive compared to many of the buildings in the area.
\n\"p1120038\"<\/a>\"p1120041\"<\/a>Ceramic bulls can be seen on the roofs of many buildings around Cusco and the surrounding areas to signify the Spanish era.<\/p>\n

\"original<\/a>

original roof design, we like this guy!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"p1120094\"<\/a>We went to many Inca Ruins in the area the best in our opinion being:
\n1. Machu Picchu<\/strong>, why of course, where we spent a whole day hiking the site. You can either hike the Inca trail in here in 4 days\/\u00a03 nights or go by train at a small price(not!) to Aguas Caliente, which is worth staying over at to relax and have a hot shower after enjoying the site. Machu Picchu was never found by the Spaniards and therefore in good condition after being identified in 1911 by a man from Yale, Hiram Bingham. It is thought that the rich Incas from Cusco used this site as their country holiday destination in the Urubamba Valley.<\/p>\n

\"Machu<\/a>

Machu Picchu ruins with Huayna Picchu in the background<\/p><\/div>\n

The whole site was amazing, including the hike up Monta\u00f1a Huayna Picchu to look down over Machu Picchu and along the valley. Yes it was as steep as it looks. Below is the view from Huayna Picchu back to Machu Picchu.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\"p1120147\"<\/a>No wonder the Spaniards didn’t find it.
\n\"img_0863\"<\/a>
\nWe hiked 11km in total that day and oh yes we deserved the beers and hot shower after.<\/p>\n

2. Ollantaytambo<\/strong> is a town and site along the Sacred Valley and is surrounded by 3 mountains where you could see Inca ruins all around you. There were 247 steps to climb to the top of the main site, good exercise in this altitude.<\/p>\n

\"Inca<\/a>

Inca ruins or searching the net?<\/p><\/div>\n

\"img_0820\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"can<\/a>

can you see the Face and ruins on this mountain<\/p><\/div>\n

3. Also In the Sacred Valley Pisac<\/strong> was really impressive sitting on a huge mountain side, where various Inca communities had lived. It was a big structure and we could have wandered around here for hours to the various ruins to admire the views. The Inca terraces were about 6ft tall and originally built for protection (erosion control and from enemies) and of course for agriculture purposes.
\n\"img_0806\"<\/a>\"p1120088\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"loved<\/a>

loved the Inca floating stairs<\/p><\/div>\n

4. Saqsayhuaman<\/strong> close to Cusco, where you got to appreciate huge boulders and wondered how the Incas built these walls shaping and polishing the boulders together with no mortar.
\n\"p1120043\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"these<\/a>

these boulders are huge<\/p><\/div>\n

We did go and see a lot more ruins than these and its definitely amazing how they built these walls and Terraces.\u00a0We’re Inca’d out so we’ll leave you with the best in our opinion.
\n\"p1120135\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The historic area of Cusco has many narrow cobblestone streets, plazas and ruins and is easy to wander about. Cusco was invaded by the Spaniards in 1535 where many of the original Inca structures were destroyed and rebuilt in their … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[245,247,248,246,249,250],"class_list":["post-4705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peru","tag-inca-ruins","tag-macchu-picchu","tag-ollantaytambo","tag-peru","tag-pisac","tag-saqsauhuaman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4705"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6227,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4705\/revisions\/6227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}