Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo

We left at the crack of dawn to drive to the Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo. The bus ride was awesome.

Local farmers doing their thing.

Our first stop was to a near-by village. We got a chance to chat it up with the locals and see how they made their traditional crafts.

Now, let me just say that I am extremely skeptical of "authentic" crafts, as I made all the "authentic" crafts on the Indian reservation near my house. I'm as much Native as I am Japanese. Although, to my credit, I can make a better dream catcher than a bowl of rice any day of the week.

But I digress....

The yarn that they made was brilliant. I love the colors.

They get the different colors by steaming the yarn for hours with local leaves, flowers and plants.

I dug the Llamas.

The Sacred Valley.

In the middle of our "one-hour" hike.

Our guide thought it would be a good idea to take us on an "easy one-hour hike" to get us accustomed to the altitude. Ha. It was well over three hours and not even close to easy. This is where I learned that hiking is relative -- what's fun for one person is pure hell for the other!

Our guide referred to this section of the trail as "hilly." Someone needs to get this dude a dictionary.

Here I am getting a much needed break.

We are pretty high up on the "hill."

Dear sweet Kim. Poor Kim had a terrible time with the altitude. She started getting blue lips and finger tips during this trek. She also experienced some slight vertigo. I helped her out by standing in front of her and forcing the on coming traffic to take the cliff-side path while she hugged the mountain. She was a real trooper.

Here's some more Inca ruins.

I really hate tour groups and details. I just can't stand in one place and listen to people go on and on about history stuff. So this is all I remember: Inca people made this, circle-looking things are usually temples, anything stuck together without clay is probably religious building, everything else if for the locals.

And it's really old.

I'm sure you could find anything else you wanted to know about it by Googling. I probably won't.

A dude with a crown.

An Inca Warrior

An untouched Inca road.

A city street in Ollantaytambo.