monday through wednesday I did the full hike every day without feeling too terrible. We have started excavating a new unit and we haven´t gotten very far down but we are learning a lot and we´ve already found some ceramics, lithics, and charcoal. This week hopefully we will get down farther and continue to find cool stuff and the continuation of the wall.
Thursday was fantastic. Most of the group went to Puno to go see lake Titicaca, and it sounds like they had a great time. Me and a few of the other girls stayed behind to check out the sacred valley and do some horseback riding. Things didn´t go exactly as planned but that worked out just fine.
So Thursday Me and friends Kelly and Georgina were invited to go with our professor to meet one of his friends - the director of the South American portion of the Smithsonian Museum of Native American history. His name is Ramiro and he was so nice and wonderful! He took us to a village outside of Pisac where we got to see a sacred site - 5,000 year old rock art, an old Inka road, and a possible Inka stopping point (Small fort like structure) along the road. We met the family in charge of maintaining the site and asked him questions about the history of the site and what the village needs in order to preserve it.
Then we went to another city in the Sacred Valley and had a very nice lunch - it was a buffet so we tried several different dishes (the trout here is phenomenal!), and the three of us got brave and tried cow tongue... surprisingly not bad.
In the same place there are a series of huge terraces and the coolest irrigation system ever. We got to walk around and learned about how the water system worked. The terraces and water system were built in that location because it was originally the agricultural grounds of the Inka elite - and the palace of one of the Inka kings still (mostly) stands in this location. Awesome day to say the least.
Friday morning was mostly spent arranging horse riding adventures - which I´ll get to later. In the afternoon we went to a food festival in Cuzco. We tried tons of different peruvian dishes, all of them were fantastic. We tried Ceviche, which is raw local trout, soaked in lime juice to kill the bacteria, a local dish called (forgive the spelling) anticuche which is a skewer of various cuts of grilled cow heart and a potato (soooo good), several other seafood and potato dishes, adobo (like a pork stew), and... yes I did it... cuy, AKA guinea pig. cuy isn´t bad... but there´s not much to it and i think trying it once will definitely be enough for me. We also had some of the best deserts ever. I don´t know how they do it, but they´ve got milkshakes down like nobody´s business, and the deserts here are fantastic. sweet and light.
Saturday we woke up at 8 AM and left around 9 AM to go horseback riding for about 8 hours. The saddles were extremely uncomfortable, but the ride was awesome and the views through the mountains were indescribably beautiful. The first 4 hours of the ride took us up the mountains past Sacsayhuaman, and past our archaeological site. We went into a village high up in the mountains, and then continued on to a Waka about an hour past it. We stopped there for about 20 minutes and then continued on for another hour or so, where we experienced the weirdest lunch ever. Basically it involved a windy field, about 6 bananas and a 2.5 liter bottle of Inka cola, and a lot of confusion.
After lunch we continued on and got to visit the temple of the moon. More really cool sacred Inka rocks... and a fantastic view. We ended the ride cantering up a hill and then getting back to the ranch. But our trip wouldn´t have been complete without the truck ride back down to Cuzco with a ton of very nice Peruvians, and a pit stop for corn and cheese.
Today was again, awesome. This morning we went to see a professional Soccer game here in Cuzco. The Cuzco team won, but I´m not quite sure how... they´re not very good. But it was a fun experience just the same. Then this afternoon we went to a town in the sacred valley called Chinchero where we got a presentation on how to naturally wash, spin and dye alpaca wool, and then how to weave it and what many of the designs mean. After browsing the collection of hand-crafted goods (all very beautiful). we were taught how to weave a simple band, which we got to keep at the end. The women teaching us were all extremely nice, and Katie and I got to practice our spanish since Kelly speaks english and italian and georgina speaks english and french. The women teaching us spoke quechua, but several knew spanish. So it was an interesting experience going from english to spanish to quechua and back (especially since my spanish is terrible), but we were able to communicate fairly well all things considered.
alright well, anyway had a very fun, very full weekend, and a full week of hiking and excavating lies ahead. Hope everyone is well, miss you all very very much.
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