Pisac Ruins & Maras Salt Flats

Day 5

We got up early today to pack up and meet a driver (arranged by the Hostal Iskay staff) for our half-day trip to Pisac and the salt flats at Maras.

We got out to the street, and there was Marco backing up his car (we were pleasantly surprised that it was him again), meanwhile a local guy was herding three cows down the street.

As we made our way to Pisac (almost a 2 hour drive), I realized how quickly I've become accustomed to things here like the traffic, roads, animals everywhere, and such. I noticed lots of the usual things along the drive. One thing that stood out as unusual, was this very nice home, set back off the road further (most homes are just a few meters from the road), and surrounded by fields. There were workers in the fields, but I don't think they owned the house. They looked very poor. My assumption is that the owners of the house hired these workers, paying them very little for their labor, but making lots of profits themselves. I think maybe that's the way it is here; If you're fortunate enough to own something and employ people, you're rich. If not, you fall into the hard-working, poverty-level class.

Every house but that one was what you'd typically see: mud brick homes, with dirt floors, at least one broken window, and incomplete roofs. Here are some that I was able to photograph, though these were certainly not the worst.

I think this one actually used to be quite nice

A store along the highway

People are everywhere along the highway, clearly living their lives in these places, and I can not imagine how they can be healthy that way. Another thing that's very different here than the United States is that when you're not in a city or village, and you're just driving along the highway there are homes, little stores, and so on, all along the way. You don't go more than a quarter mile without seeing a person and/or a building of some sort.

We arrived in Pisac and made our way out to the ruins (some crazy curvy roads out there). We wanted to get through the ruins quickly because we had two other places we wanted to see. I pushed myself a bit too hard and as a result, had to stop a lot to catch my breath. I'm still not completely acclimated.

That's part of the road leading up to the Pisac Ruins, as seen from the ruins

Terraces along the path that connects the two sections of the Pisac Ruins

The Pisac Ruins are made up of two sections, connected to each other by a trail over a bunch of terraces. I think the second part was the coolest! You could see these caves carved right into the side of the mountain, where I think people lived a long time ago.

Our visit to the Pisac Ruins was also my first encounter with squat holes. I have a picture of one, but will spare you.

We were pretty much the only ones at Pisac as we walked through the whole place, but by the time we left it was starting to fill with tourist buses. On our way out, there was a man playing a Peruvian flute, and it was a nice compliment to the atmosphere.

After this, several Peruvians had set up blankets to sell their wares. We bought sun hats (that, ironically, said "Machu Picchu" on them) from a woman just outside the entrance/exit. There was a little girl, about 8 years old, selling bracelets also. She followed us all the way to the car trying to sell us these bracelets. She was very aggressive, and tried to hop INTO the car with us. She had me quite flustered, as I had never encountered this before. Because of this, I was not interested in buying. After we left though, I felt really bad. I actually could not get this little girl out of my mind. I could have just bought a couple of bracelets for my kids and that would have been neat because a girl younger than them had made them in Peru. I decided the next time I see a little girl selling bracelets, I'm just going to buy some.

Next we travelled to Salineras/Maras. This is where they have the salt flats, which are man-made. We didn't spend a lot of time there because it was like once you saw it, you saw it. Also, tourist buses were filling the place and it was getting too crowded to pass most of the trails. Oh, and talk about "exit through the gift shop..." This place had the most extensive, longest series of gift shops that you were routed through on the way in, and out, selling all KINDS of things. It was overwhelming.

"Guard rails?" Nope.

I happened to be wearing my Canada shirt, and this tourist saw me and was all excited to meet "someone else from Canada." I played along.

No soy Canadiense.

We got back to our hostal in the mid-afternoon, and decided to look for some Italian food again. This time it was a success! We found Mayupata, and I had spaghetti.

Later we went to the Hearts Cafe one last time, as this is our last night in Ollantaytambo. This time I got banana pancakes on recommendation from a foursquare tip. They tasted great!

There's my EXCITED FACE