I visited the small town of Tipón to see some Inca ruins my host family had told me about. Thankfully the ruins aren`t in most guide books, so the place isn`t crammed full of tourists!
Tipón is about 15 miles southeast of Cusco so I needed to find a bus going that way. This may sound like a simple task, but local busses don`t really work the same way they do back home. Usually mini busses, they stop anytime someone hails them and drop people off anywhere along the way. The problem is, the destination isn`t written on the bus. The way it works is that you stand on the side of the road and look like you want to get on a bus. The bus will then slow down while someone sticks their head out the window and shouts all the towns that the bus will pass through on its way! It only costs 25p though, that`s my kind of price!
The site was once the imperial gardens of the Inca Wiracocha. Throughout the huge gardens, which througha valley between two mountains, there are channels of flowing water. The channels are fed by the large natural stream running through the valley - words cannot describe how much work must have gone into diverting the stream in this way. It is a beautiful place.
There is also a temple dedicated to the water god reached by some floating steps.
I wanted to get a picture of the whole site so started to walk up the adjacent mountain. There was a large building near the bottom and, while strolling around it, I noticed a water channel that had run dry.
I was curious as to why there was no water flowing through it so started to follow it up the mountain. As I got round the corner I could see that this channel went all the way up the mountain - it must have been one of the main channels that brought water to the gardens.
By now I had walked a couple of hundred vertical meters and had long left the few tourists behind - every time I thought I was about to reach the top of this water channel, I got over the next hillock and saw it carrying on up the side of the mountain!
After walking for over an hour and 500 vertical meters up the side of the mountain I finally got to the top. I was expecting some kind of temple or a spring. I was slightly disappointed to find this:
On the way down I noticed a random trail going off in a different direction so thought I`d see where it led. I crossed through some farmland and came face to face with a massive bull blocking my way. It wasn`t going anywhere so I had to scramble over a wall, through some rams and into a bush to get round.
After a while I came to a fork in the track - one way led to a small farming village and the other over a ridge. While I was trying to decide which one to take I met two women who were looking after some sheep. They only spoke Quechua but seemed to be suggesting I took the path over the ridge. I wandered off that way and couldn`t believe my eyes when I looked down on the other side. There was another Incan complex that was a virtual mirror of the ruins at Tipón. These ruins were not being maintained so were not in the best of states. The best thing about it was that there was not one person there - I had a huge Ince site all to myself!!
I walked all the way back to Tipón and happened to pass by a Cuy restaurant. In case you don`t know, Cuy is a Peruvian speciality - Guinea Pig. I had been wanting to try since I`d arrived in Peru but in Cusco it is ridiculously expensive (because all tourists want to try it). I opted for Cuy al Horno, roasted Guinea Pig stuffed with herbs. It is a bit of a mission to eat, there are lots of bones and not a huge amount of meat, but it tasted great!
I completely forgot to mention in my last post that I went white water rafting last week! I`d met up with Hattie and Will, who`d just returned from the Inca Trail, and they had convinced me to join them the next day. It was great fun flying down the Rio Urubamba over rapids that were up to grade IV.
There was another surprise when we got back to the boating lodge - the guys had constructed a zip-line over the river. Zipping across the river was a great end to the day!
I`m finally going to leave Cusco and have decided to head towards the coast - first stop Arequipa. Looking forward to some warmer weather as I get closer to sea level! And after all this time at altitude I presume I have the fitness of an Olympic gold medalist....well, maybe not quite...
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