Ferraro blog: Peru Part 3: The Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu

Every painting trip I lead, I have moments where I say to myself, it can't get any better than that. But it does. Spectacular is the first word that comes to mind to describe the grandeur of the Andes.
We start the next leg of our trip with a flight to Cusco, where bowlfuls of cocao leaves await for visitors to stuff in your mouth, and suck on, so as to alleviate any altitude sickness. It's a big part of the culture here. Cusco is at a very high elevation, 3400 metres, steeped in history, as the capital of the Inca civilization. But we'll come back to Cusco at the end.

On our descent we stopped here for a washroom break and photo op. Many Babies carried around on Moms' back. The colourful hats, floating on a backdrop of the biggest mountains I have ever seen.
We got out of the high elevation and down into the sacred valley (still pretty high! 2870 metres.) quickly.

Here, we are about to enter the sacred Valley, with the town of Urubamba below in the valley. I'd seen pictures. But to be in the presence of these giants! Diego, our guide from Peruvian Soul (www.peruviansoul.com) says this town has much sought after real estate. The first town we experienced as we entered the sacred valley.

Relief set in as we landed at Casa Calibri in Urubamba. 3 nights in one place! set amongst the towering Andes Mountains. We set to work to paint the gorgeous surroundings.

Our gardens at Casa Calibri, many flowers, gnarly trees, sweet little ponds, birds,...with the Andes closing in above us.

We all had very nice rooms, nice meals and time to paint.

1. stopping where the hats are there with mountains behind. Journey day

2. Urubamba

3. Casa Colibri

4. Living museum

5. Moras/Moray/Olleytaytambo

6. Machu

The living museum was on our way out of town one day. We were greeted by two women, one older, one younger, dressed in traditional costume, with a fully costumed Lama in tow.

Many photo opps were had. This was a fascinating place, where cultural living practices were explained and demonstrated, from painting, how to make bricks from clay and grass, to dying and weaving.

Dying

Weaving

a fellow artist, painting her culture.

On another exciting day (yes, they were all exciting) We took in Moras (naturally occurring salt fields) and Moray, circular terraced valleys. Heer's a few exciting moments there:

Some of our intrepid travellers/artists. Loretta is on the left, and she is the author of many of these photos to follow (thanks Loretta) :

When we see terracing like this in many countries around the world, we think it's for agriculture. In Peru, much of this terracing is actually to control the erosion of these extremely steep mountains. However, in this case at Moray, these were places where experiments were conducted on plan life at varying elevations.

Terracing profile with snowcapped Andes in the background.

A mixture of terracing and sunlit buildings

The immensity of the site.

And then, onto Ollay Tay Tambo. I hope this photo shows the immensity of the site. This town is the last town you can reach by car or bus. It's a sweet little town with many interesting things to see and do. A lovely town square, 3 archaeological sites, a chocolate museum, and many places selling the handmade wares of it's inhabitants. To my way of thinking, of all the sites we saw on this trip, Ollay Tay Tambo was a lovely mixture of an old and charming authentic town, with a spectacular world class archaeological site. We were all amazed at the sheer size, not to mention the setting. Very highly terraced, and extensively constructed terraces and buildings. It took us some time to climb to the top. We had really spectacular views of the town, the Andes, and surrounding territory, pretty well in every direction.

And then,....

We did it. We made it to Machu Picchu. Stunning. Touristy? You betcha. Tons of people. However, worth is in every way. First, it's the mountains surrounding the site, kind of protecting the main archaeological site. They are towering, huge, massive. And straight up, coming over us. The, there's just the sheer immensity of the place. We're used to the pics of the mountain behind us here, but there is so much there! Terracing in every direction, high up, low down. Buildings in different states of repair, at the main gate, on the main hill, everywhere. Fascinating facts and knowledge of the site abounds.

The beginning of my piece done on site at Machu Picchu. Yes, it's about as predictable as one can get from a view and composition point of view. But I am there for Machu, so it goes down,...I apologize ahead of time for the amount of photos, it's just too hard to leave ANY out!

The quintessential of course,..

Liz and I, rehearsing for our upcoming Humm photo shoot. The Humm is a tabloid style artsy newspaper from the Ottawa Valley. They post people reading the Humm from all over the world. Ferraro Art Workshops has been featured many times! Hopefully, there'll be a few Peru sightings there.