Senor Torachayllo's birthday

From what I understood, senor Torachayllo is priest of Urubamba, and that every town around, Pisaq, Ollantaytambo, Lamay, Calca, have their own priest.

But no.

Torachayllo is like Jesus here- a sacred man who died a long time ago. 

Every year, at around the same time, this time it was 12th of June, people dress up in the most incredible and boiling clothes you can imagine. Brought here from Puno, down in the south at Lake Titicaca, the costumes are amazing. 

And as the Peruvians like to party, they start three days before and end a week after the special day.

 Urubamba overlooked by the mountains of the Sacred Valley. People are getting ready to march for about 10 in the morning until 5 or 6 in the afternoon, in the blazing hot sun, around the city, into the main Plaza de Armas and again, two, three of four times.

 I was looking forward to see what these ladies were going to do during the parade. Sadly, I never saw them.

The Peruvian girls are TINY. They also look very young for their age. Women who have three children look like 18 or 20; but are actually in their 30s or 40s.

These girls here look big because there stood on about 20 or 30 cm of high heels.

A corner of a blue house. Decorating flags are visible.

In order to see what is happening, whole families brought food and drinks, a little picnic, on top of their roofs.

I went with one of the workers from Willka Tika who I became very close to, Empe. She lives in Urubamba with practically all her family. Her parents live next door, her sisters and brothers down the street, her uncle and aunts on the other side of town. Some of her family, such as her married daughter live in other places, such as Pisaq, but they all live in the Sacred Valley.
Her mother, seen in the picture, has placed herself at street corner, like many other women, to sell food- potatoes, potatoes, chicken and potatoes.
(She cannot open her right eye, that's why it is closed in the picture.)

A lady eating at Empe's mom's place. Behind her, young adults are getting ready.

The very beginning of the- not even starting yet. I was surprised to see dancers at all ages, some four and three years old. The older ones, can be 20 or 7, help them all happily along.

How many hours before the parade these girls started getting ready I don't know.

    Crazy masks...

                                       

                                            
                                         And the parade has started.

Up to about 30 people took place in one dance- there were about 30, 40, maybe even more different types of dancing, costumes, all from all over Peru.

At the beginning of each dance and plank was held by 10 men, each explaining what kind of dance is going to be next. Each plank was differently decorated- flowers, corn, coffee beans.

A guy looking underneath the plank he was holding.

 More dancers in different costumes.

A plank

                            Young dancers

There was always a leader of the dance. Sometimes they had different costumes than the rest of the dancers and sometimes they looked exactly the same. They would whistle for the dancers to know when to change the movements.

This leader here was different than the rest. 

No part of the body was forgotten to be carefully decorated. Here you can see colourful shoes.

There were weird bear- like costumes, which looked BOILING. Here you can see two 'bears' resting, while two other dancers continue.

                        
                                                     BAILA, BAILA

                                                                            

Due to the fact that I am practically in the middle of nowhere, I have been havinh VERY bad internet connection. Ho yes, electricity too. Only a few days ago, the electricity in the whole of Willka T'ika, ( and it is NOT a small place) was shut down, due to an unknown facture, for almost four hours. No one knew when it will come back. No one knew why the connection stopped so abruptly. Due to those problems, I have been having troubles writing and putting on pictures. Everything takes FOREVER. Sometimes it also doesn't load at all.

My point is, 

there were two more pictures which I wanted to include to Machu Picchu, and because of the bad connections it did not work out.

HERE THEY ARE

A window- this time unblocked- looking over at the terraces. 

You can see how quiet perfectly the stones are out next to each other, making the sides of the window almost totally straight.

The second picture is of the two of us sitting/ standing on a huge rock. 

The Incas managed to put HUGE rocks, weighing thousands of kilograms in the exact places they wanted. 

There are some huge rocks, carved into stairs, leading a long way up into houses. 

In all the famous pictures of Machu Picchu there is a central mountain called Wayna Picchu. I wanted to climb it, but sadly there are only two times which the entrance gate is open. Both of them in the morning, and we only got to 

Machu Picchu in the early afternoon. Also, only 400 people are allowed to climb it, making it important to be signed in before.

In the next few a group will come and I will join them going to Machu Picchu. 

This time, I will (hopefully) climb it.

Machu Picchu

Once you get off the plane in Lima, you do not see any welcome to Peru sign. You see advertisement for Machu Picchu. You walk don the street, buses have Machu Picchu signs on them. You go to a market, carpets and walls decorations have Machu Picchu drawn and written on it.
Machu Picchu is being advertised by people who haven't even been there.
But for me Machu Picchu was not the ruins. I find looking at old rocks piled on top of each other boring.


What was the thing that made my visit worth the day, schlep and money was the
JUNGLE ( and a few other things.)

I have never been to the jungle before. As Israel is very dry, it is in fact quiet the opposite of a jungle. And the forests in Germany are no comparison. 

The gushing sound of the water, the heavy, warm air, all the voices from the weirdest trees and bushes, smells. From time to time a house would pop out of the trees. I even came across a loaded avocado tree. It was STUFFED with fresh and 
 ready fruit.

Crossing the Sacred Valley there is the Urubamba river, stretching over many kilometers south, in the direction of Bolivia. This river, however, as I found out during the ride, is one tiny finger of the great Amazon river, located mainly in the northern part of Peru.
 

Here called Machu Picchu pueblo- village- a small is village is located at the feet of many mountains, one of which is Machu Picchu. Its 'real' name is 

Aguas Calientes, agua- water; caliente- hot.

 Many people like to go to Machu Picchu for two days, stay the night in
Aguas Calientes. For them Machu Picchu is magical. I couldn't really understand why...

The very beginning of Aguas Calientes.

After taking a 30-min bus drive and starting to walk up the mountain, the fist view we has was this

Machu Picchu

Something became extremely clear to me after both Pisac and Machu Picchu. The Incans were unbelievable in building ths most unbelievable things. Here you can see a water canal going underneath and through a wall.

                                 The mountains surrounding Machu Picchu.

ME

The ruins of MAchu Picchu are not just what is often seen on photos and advertisement. The Incas managed to build terraces and stairs going ALL the way down the mountain. This is a little hard to see but right in the middle of the picture, underneath the big block of stone in the middle, there are stairs, half covered by trees and bushes.

All kinds of weird and colourful vegetation.

From the main picture of Machu Picchu there are two pathways meant for walking- one going to the left and to the Inca Bridge and one going to the right; a walk a lot longer and harder, which at the end connects the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu.
We did not know anything bout Machu Picchu when we got there. We did not want any guide, and I was not really interested in reading heaps of information; this made me know very little about Machu Picchu.
 Only once I got back to Willka T'ika did I find out about these two walking paths, and how popular they are.
While we were there, my dad and I just turned into an unknown path, leading us to the Inca Gate. The Incas carved through the edge of the mountain and built a long, narrow, curvy pathway. Here you can see a little part of the pathway. On the left is solid rock. Going a little too far to the right and you fall down down down in the Amazon, FAR bellow.

A strong independent plant managed to find its living space at the very top of a cliff.  
 

                                      Just me and the path .

w id i
           n
                 g           

                 path.

 

                            I have spotted more than five different types of bamboo.

                                                 The mountain side

                                           Trees laden with 'pesticides'

                                                    The Inca bridge. 

 
                                                 Cracks and vegetation.

           Dark holes and spider webs.

 

In every crack there is something new.
Above, more cracks and vegetation.
To the right hole and water drops caught by spider web.

                                                               US
                                                   
   

                    Peeking from the entrance to the Inca Bridge Trail onto the ruins.

                   Smartly invented steps.

                                             Machu Picchu.

Not many words are needed here.

ME
and the Inca house.

                                                LLAMAS ( that was very exciting.)

       This is what llamas do: eat, eat, eat and poo.

                                    At the peak here, the Incas built a sun-clock.
                           

                                    The llamas manage to get every where.

Me, myself and I.

             closed windows?

           Not a lot of information is know about the
            Incas; they never wrote ANTHING.

                              Houses with modernly-placed thatched roof.

                                                And MORE houses...
                                     

                                          There were many many many stairs.
                        The one more at the bottom were EXTREMELY narrow.

                          Looking over at the entrance of Machu Picchu.

                                                      TERRACES

me sitting on a MASSIVE rock

Look at how they placed the stones.
Isn't it unbelievable?

                                   Never-ending walls.

 
                                     Traffic of people going up and down.
                                        

Can you spot the lizard?