There are 5 major archeology sites near cusco. That is why it is called the Sacred Valley (this was the center of Inca culture at it’s height), including The Throne of the Inca (or king). There are many, many tours you can hook up with or arrange your own private tour to these amazing pieces and places of history. Most (read normal) people do this by group bus, van or car. Well, I decided to get a ride to the furthest point and hike the 5 (it turned out to be 8.54 (GPS watch – very cool) oh well) miles visiting each of these sites and then back to Cusco. Now there is a trail -on which I did not see a soul on it for many miles. Arriving at each archeological site the parking lots are full of busses and vans and all the usually suspects.

Oh ya guns and fences: So on the way from one site to another I saw something off the trail that caught my eye so I went to investigate, turned out to be just a small ruin. To paraphrase the movie masterpiece that is Apocalypse Now, “Never get off the trail”. Well in trying to get back on the trail, I got lost (don’t tell my wife) and spent the next 30+ minutes bushwhacking very carefully down an incredibly steep terraced farm with some large bushes that I did not know and some coca plants mixed in for local tea use only (you can tell by the quality and not being hidden and oh ya no guns).

Before I left, my father told me not to do anything stupid – well that would be no fun at all.

The last and most significant site of the 5 is Sacsayhuaman, an amazing temple and burial place for priests of the sun god. I walked around for awhile being constantly amazed by how the Inca built with massive stones and no mortar but perfect joints. I could not stay long however. I wanted to walk the whole way back to Cusco and with a thunder and lighting storm rolling in I did not want is place, no matter how beautiful, to become the burial place of this priest of the Son God ( get it sun/Son).