After an overpriced 6 sole each breakfast of bread, eggs, and yogurt at our hostel, we headed down to the Plaza de Armas to catch a taxi to the Urcos bus stop on Ave de la Cultura. This 5 soles taxi ride turned out to be well worth it, as Ave de la Cultura turned significantly more sketchy over the extra quarter mile between the Pisac bus stop on Calle Puputi where we had been the day before, and the Urcos bus stop. As we stepped out of the taxi we were a little apprehensive, especially since there were no buses in site. We were relieved, however, when a quick look around revealed a fleet of run down buses waiting behind a large gate. We hopped on the Urcos bus and paid the 2 sole each fare, making sure to inform the money collection man that we wanted to get off of the bus at Pikillacta.
The money collection man is a rather ingenious addition to the bus employee arsenal. He is in charge of calling out bus stops, collecting money, and opening the door and pushing passengers out as the bus slows down, leaving the bus driver to do what he is hired to do: drive. We were able to find seats on the bus, and before we knew it about an hour had passed and money collection man let us know we were almost at Pikillacta. As Ryan and I prepared to jump out of the bus as it slowed down, the bus did something remarkable and came to a complete stop. I guess they decided to be nice to us tourists. We hopped out of the bus, and walked down the road toward Pikillacta.
Pikillacta, or City of Fleas, is a Huari city built in approximately 800 AD. The Huari are one of the cultures that predated the Incas. While we did not see any fleas, we did see long straight roadways bordered by walls that we could peer over to see the remnants of houses. But the most amazing part were the wild flowers. All of the rains that the region had been experiencing caused flowers to burst forward in numbers usually unseen in this area. In addition to the ruins and breathtaking flowers, there was a small museum on the site with artifacts and a fossil of my favorite animal, the (giant) armadillo.
From Pikillacta it was a short 100 yard walk to Rumicolca, which is across the main road and around a bend. No ancient culture, including the Romans, is without a pyramid, and the Incas are no exception. Rumicolca was the original defensive gate protecting entrance into the Cusco Valley from the time of the Huari onward. On either side of the step pyramid lie towering walls, made with a combination of Incan and Huari stonework, and you can almost imagine guards lining the tops and protecting the "navel" of Incan society.
From Rumicolca we crossed back over the main road and prepared to hunker down for a while and wait for a bus or collectivo to come by and take us to Tipon back in the direction of Cusco. Before we even found a good place to sit a collectivo came by with horns blazing, and pulled over to pick us up. From there it was a short 20 to 30 minute ride to the town below the Tipon ruins, where we hopped on a taxi to take us up the mountain side for 8 soles, once agian skirting mud slides as we had on our way to Pikillacta. At the top our driver asked if we wanted a ride back down, but we had to decline as all we had was a 100 sole bill, and he did not have enough change to break it (finding vendors who could break the large bills that the ATMs gave us was a constant source of anxiety for us, but we managed to turn it into a fun game by always guessing as we approached someone just how large of a bill we could give them).
We had originally been planning to get a tour here at Tipon, but when a guide approached us he did not have the change necessary to break our 100 sole bill either. However, as luck would have it, he and the taxi driver were friends and neither one of them wanted to lose a customer. So they pooled together their money to give us change, and we were happily on our way with a ride back to the bottom secured.
This turned out to be a great place for a tour since our guide was able to tell us all about the different agricultural experiments that the Incans carried out at Tipon, and details of the design of the fountains. The only catch was that the guide spoke Spanish, and Ryan only started learning Spanish 2 months before our trip. Ryan, however, is awesome (not that I'm biased or anything) and was able to follow almost all of what the guide had to tell us (the wonderful podcasts from coffee break spanish that he used to study before we got to Peru probably helped out as well).
Tipon was one of 2 agricultural experimentation sites near Cusco, the other being the circular terraces that go down into the earth at Moray. At Tipon they constructed 3 different levels of terraces, each divided into subterraces with different forms of irrigation. The steepness of the mountainside upon which the terraces were constructed results in temperature variation between each of these terraces, allowing corn to be grown on the lowest level, potatoes on the second, and quinoa and other grains on the third. Each terrace then had areas with low, medium, or high levels of irrigation, with canals flowing down each which could be blocked off to flood the fields. Up on the hill above Tipon they built storehouses so that the dry wind at the higher elevations could blow thorugh the openings in the walls and keep the grains from rotting.
In addition to the remarkable irrigation canals that were fed by glaciers miles away from Tipon that still exist today, there were also several fountains for ritual bathing, waterfalls between the terraces, and one particularly amazing fountain. This fountain started out with pure spring water, which was then split into 2 channels, one to represent the feminine/darkness/the moon (why are females always dark?!?!), and one to represent male/light/the sun. The incline of the channels varied such that more water is expelled from the male side than the female side. After cascading down the water from either side mixes via 2 canals that form an X, before splitting off to form 4 canals representing the 4 regions of the Incan empire, which are called suyus.
In addition to the water features, there were also several houses for the nobility, and apparently a whole settlement over the hill from the terraces which is currently being excavated and is not open to the public. There was also a huge rock into which the Incans had carved several symbols. They used this rock to measure the days of the year via the position of the mountaintop's shadow on the rock. When the Spanish arrived they sought to destroy all aspects of Incan culture and religion, this rock included, and there are now crosses carved across the rock in several places.
After a day full of visiting ruins we were ready to eat some good food, so we headed down the moutainside to La Escondida, a restaurant recommended to us by a police man in Cusco that we had a lovely chat with, our taxi driver, and our tour guide at Tipon because they have the best Cuy, or guinea pig, in the Cusco region.
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