The Meandering Melanders

We will put the map up again for reference.

We have left Moray and are on our way to Chincheros. We had to walk some of the streets since the bus was too large. We visited a fabric manufacturing shop where they do it the “old way”, same at their ancestors, the Inca people did.

These are some of the ladies who work with the raw wool from the llamas and sheep and end up with finished products ready for sale.

First they wash the wool. They do not use soap, they use material scrapped from a tree branch. In almost no time the wool is a perfect white color.

Once the wool is washed, it is spun into thread using hand held spindles.

These baskets contain seeds, leaves, fruits, berries, etc. which are mashed up, mixed with water, and used to dye the thread.

Weaving is done using small looms.

Of course there were products to sell. We were assured both by the ladies and the guide that all that is sold here is produced here. True???? Whatever, they had beautiful fabrics, sweaters, shawls, tablecloths, bags and purses, etc. Some of the ladies of our group assured that these ladies and their families will eat well for the next month or so.

Time to go for a walk up the hill. A gentle nice stroll. Right!!! We asked Jaime, the guide, how high we would be when we arrived at our destinati
on. He refused to tell us so we kept on climbing.

And climbed some more.

He finally told us that we were at 12,300 feet. He hadn’t told us fearing that some might drop out of the taking the little stroll. It was awesome. These are Incan ruins and the church is built on foundations of an Incan temple. Pretty special!!

Then it was lunch time and we ate in this rather nice restaurant which had an excellent buffet. This is one of the eating pavilions. A comment here; the guides kept telling us while at the high altitudes to eat light, no heavy food and drink in moderation. Hard to do with excellent assortments, large servings of outstanding food. Just had to drink lots of coca tea to offset the effects.

Time to get back on the bus for our final destination of the day, Ollentaytambo, a village at the location of some mighty magnificent Incan ruins.

How badly do I really want to climb all the way up there? Decision was I didn’t so Carole took camera and went, I had a nice very cold beer.

It was explained that these huge rocks on this hillside were hauled up from somewhere down below. They used systems of levers and also rolled them on small round rocks. Pretty ingenious!!

That does it for this place. Guess the reason that Ollayntaytambo is so popular is that it is at the end of the road and can be reached by vehicle instead of by train. Now it’s time to return to the hotel for a “light meal” and getting ready for tomorrow’s train ride to Machu Picchu, The Lost City of the Incas. Hope you enjoyed this.