peru-8-cuzco-sacred-valley

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Cuzco & the Sacred Valley 8 A R O U N D C u zC O
Wednesday and Saturday from November to
March, with an extra departure on Friday from
April to October. Lunch is included. For more
information, see p178.
8 Getting Around
To/From the Airport
The airport is about 6km south of the city center.
The combi lines Imperial and C4M (S0.60, 20
minutes) run from Av El Sol to just outside the
airport. A taxi to or from the city center to the
airport costs S10. An official radio taxi from
within the airport costs S12 to S25. With advance
reservations, many hotels offer free pickup.
Bus
Local rides on public transportation cost only
S0.60, though it’s easier to walk or just take a
taxi than to figure out where any given combi is
headed.
Taxi
There are no meters in taxis, but there are set
rates. At the time of research, trips within the city
center cost S4, and to destinations further afield,
such as El Molino, were S8. Check with your hotel
whether this is still correct, and rather than negotiate,
simply hand the correct amount to your driver
at the end of your ride; he is unlikely to argue if
you seem to know what you’re doing. Official taxis,
identified by a lit company telephone number on
the roof, are more expensive than taxis flagged
down on the street, but they are safer.
Unofficial ‘pirate’ taxis, which only have a taxi
sticker in the window, have been complicit in
muggings, violent assaults and kidnappings of
tourists. Before getting into any taxi, do as savvy
locals do and take conspicuous note of the registration
number.
AloCusco (%22-2222) is a reliable company
to call.
Tram
The Tranvia is a free-rolling tourist tram that conducts
a 1½ hour hop-on, hop-off city tour (S15). It
leaves at 8:30am, 10am, 11:30am, 2pm, 3:30pm,
5pm and 6:30pm from the Plaza de Armas.
AROUND CUZCO
The four ruins closest to Cuzco are Sacsaywamán,
Q’enqo, Pukapukara and Tambomachay.
They can all be visited in a day –
far less if you’re whisked through on a guided
tour. If you only have time to visit one site,
Sacsaywamán is the most important, and
less than a 2km trek uphill from the Plaza de
Armas in central Cuzco.
The cheapest way to visit the sites is to
take a bus bound for Pisac and ask the driver
to stop at Tambomachay, the furthest site
from Cuzco (at 3700m, it’s also the highest).
It’s an 8km walk back to Cuzco, visiting all
four ruins along the way. Alternatively, a taxi
will charge roughly S40 to visit all four sites.
Each site can only be entered with the boleto
turístico. They’re open daily from 7am
to 6pm. Local guides hang around offering
their services, sometimes quite persistently.
Agree on a price before beginning any tour.
Robberies at these sites are uncommon
but not unheard of. Cuzco’s tourist police
recommend visiting between 9am and 5pm.
Sacsaywamán
This immense ruin of both religious and
military significance is the most impressive
in the immediate area around Cuzco. The
long Quechua name means ‘Satisfied Falcon,’
though tourists will inevitably remember
it by the mnemonic ‘sexy woman.’ Sacsaywamán
feels huge, but what today’s visitor
sees is only about 20% of the original structure.
Soon after the conquest, the Spaniards
tore down many walls and used the blocks to
build their own houses in Cuzco, leaving the
largest and most impressive rocks, especially
those forming the main battlements.
In 1536 the fort was the site of one of the
most bitter battles of the Spanish conquest.
More than two years after Pizarro’s entry
into Cuzco, the rebellious Manco Inca recaptured
the lightly guarded Sacsaywamán and
used it as a base to lay siege to the conquistadors
in Cuzco. Manco was on the brink of
defeating the Spaniards when a desperate
last-ditch attack by 50 Spanish cavalry led by
Juan Pizarro, Francisco’s brother, succeeded
in retaking Sacsaywamán and putting an end
to the rebellion. Manco Inca survived and retreated
to the fortress of Ollantaytambo, but
most of his forces were killed. Thousands of
dead littered the site after the Incas’ defeat,
attracting swarms of carrion-eating Andean
condors. The tragedy was memorialized by
the inclusion of eight condors in Cuzco’s coat
of arms.
The site is composed of three different
areas, the most striking being the magnificent
three-tiered zigzag fortifications. One
stone, incredibly, weighs more than 300
tons. It was the ninth inca, Pachacutec, who
envisioned Cuzco in the shape of a puma,
with Sacsaywamán as the head, and these 22
zigzagged walls as the teeth of the puma. The
walls also formed an extremely effective de-