Incas, Rainbows, and Llamas in Perú

Perú is well-known for its famous Inca sites such as Machu Picchu. In addition, it has many places with beautiful natural scenery, and, most importantly, lots of llamas and alpacas.

One of the most unique things about Inca civilization was how much they accomplished in a very short period of time. The Incas only lasted about two hundred years, much shorter than other ancient civilizations such as the Mayans which lasted up to thousands of years, but they still had comparable achievements in engineering and science. They were able to build lots of advanced archeological sites in such a short time period. 

The Incas were very interested in astronomy. They observed the winter and summer solstices and had special rituals for these days. In fact, many parts of Machu Picchu were specifically designed to have special effects on the solstices. For example, one window is perfectly shaped so that on the summer solstice at the right time, the sunlight shines perfectly through the window. (describe examples better) There’s also a lot of symbolism at Inca sites. In one part of Machu Picchu, there is a rock formation that was meant to represent a condor. 

The Incas also had a special style of making walls. They did not use any sort of mortar or cement. Instead, they fit the rocks together perfectly so that the walls could hold up without any support. For most of the walls, they used rocks of different shapes and sizes. However, more important places like temples or places for royalty had perfectly shaped rectangular bricks.

It is still unknown what exactly the Incas used to carve the rocks so well, since they didn’t use iron metallurgy. It’s speculated that they used hematite, but even that theory isn’t confirmed since there isn’t a large enough supply of hematite near the Incas to fully explain how they could build so many stone structures. The Incas also didn’t have beasts of burden, so all of the big rocks that they used had to be dragged by human laborers. Some of them can be 100s of tons and had to be dragged from miles away! In the case of Machu Picchu, they had to build everything on top of a mountain. It’s still pretty mysterious how they could build so many complex structures despite so many limitations. No wonder people speculate that Machu Picchu was built by aliens.

Though there are Inca sites remaining today, most of them were destroyed when the Spanish began colonizing South America around the 16th century. In fact, many of the stones from Inca temples were used to build Spanish churches. We heard the same story in Mexico with Mayan temples. Additionally, while there are many people of Mayan descent in Mexico, the Incas were mostly killed by the Spanish long ago. It’s sad to imagine how many more sites we could be seeing today if they still remained.

Perú also has a lot of cool places other than Inca sites. One place we visited was Palcoyo, which is famous for having colorful mountains. The ground on the rainbow mountains is rich with minerals, which causes the different bands of color.

 
The rainbow mountains are super cool, but Palcoyo also has a lot of other cool views. There are a lot of reddish-brown mountains because of iron in the soil, and you can also see snow capped mountains from the Andes mountain range. Additionally, there are stone forests with some cool rock formations. It’s a super long drive to get there and you have to wake up very early, but it was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Even the drive there was very nice.

Another place with rainbow mountains is Vinicunca. We didn’t go there, but we’ve heard that while Palcoyo has 3 smaller mountains, Vinicunca has 1 very big rainbow mountain. Vinicunca is a more popular destination, but it also has more people. Additionally, the trail is harder to hike than the trail at Palcoyo, so those are some things to consider if you’re choosing between the two.

We also visited the salt flats at Maras, which had very unique views. There are thousands of pools where people have been mining salt since the Incas! mine salt. The water comes from a natural spring, and the water is collected in pans on terraces. If you touch the spring water, you can feel that it’s very warm. You can buy a nice bag of pink salt from the souvenir shops at Maras.

One thing to take into account when visiting sites in the Cusco area is the high altitude. Cusco itself is pretty high up, and Machu Picchu is even higher (2000+ meters). Palccyo is the highest at 4900 meters! It’s definitely a good idea to get acclimated for a few days at some lower altitudes before hitting the super high places and to take things slowly so you don’t get tired out.

Lastly, one of my favorite parts of Perú was the llamas and alpacas. You can see quite a few at Machu Picchu that get pretty close to tourists. There are also many at Palcoyo and on the drive there because the people living in the area raise llamas and alpacas. At some places there may also be opportunities to take pictures with llamas and alpacas or feed them 😀

A lot of places in Perú sell textiles made of alpaca or vicuña. Alpaca wool has a certain feel, which we learned about at a textile shop. The most unique thing is that it’s surprisingly cold when you touch it. Baby alpaca has the highest quality wool, so it will be more expensive than adult alpaca. Vicuña textiles are super expensive because vicuña are harder to find and raise for wool. Their wool is called the gold of the Andes because of how valuable it is! We were lucky to see some vicuña at the textile shop we visited, but we didn’t get to see them anywhere else.

Unfortunately, while we were originally going to visit the Amazon Rainforest, we ended up having to cut that part of the trip. We were going to stay at Tambopata in the Amazon Rainforest, which is only 1.5 hours plus a boat ride away from Cusco. The Peruvian part of the Amazon is famous for beautiful oxbow lakes and canopy tours where you can see the rainforest from above. There are also many cool animals, such as the Macaw click, river dolphins, and rainforest jaguar. We were also going to see the mysterious Nazca lines. I wish we could’ve visited these places, but we now have a reason to go back to Perú 😀