Pisac

To practice some hiking in the area before our big trek to Macchu Picchu and to see some earlier ruins, we spent a day visiting Pisac. The town had a wonderful market, where we stocked up on warm alpaca wear since it is quite chilly at these altitudes. We then took the exhausting trek up the ruins to Pisac. It was well worth it though to see the plunging gorges on either side, the beautiful scenery and the very cool ruins. Our favorite of the ruins were the terraces built on the sides of the mountains. They were used for farming and some are even still used today. It's amazing how they use all of the land available for farming, even steep cliffs! We saw these terraces all over Peru from hundreds of years ago. You could see steps in these walls that were used back in the times of these terraces. They are diagonal flights of stairs made of flagstones and set into the terrace walls. We did not use these, but safer ones around the edges. The ruins themselves were amazing as well. There were different areas, some used as temples and others used as housing. There is a water system that even still works today to usher the water down through the ruins and safely off the side of the mountains.






Pisac is part of the Sacred Valley, which was inhabited by the Incas. There are still many sites of different ruins all over this valley. The Incas used this area becaue the land was very fertile and the climate was sheltered by the mountains around. Pisac was a good place because high up on the hill, they were protected in many respects. If anyone were to come here to fight them, after climbing up this steep hill, they would definitely be at a disadvantage. Also, the Incas believed that living at higher altitudes would bring them closer to the gods. This is another reason they built towns at such high points.