Our hike out of the city

Greetings all!

Today we took a long hike out of the city. We're feeling pretty aclimatized by now, and the views were spectacular. Here are some photos.



Here is Jen about to set out from the Christo Blanco (which it's already a bit of a hike to get to). (This was the sweet photo to counterbalance the "tough" photo we had just taken (not pictured here)).



This is a shot (from the side) of the Sacsayhuamán ruins above the city. We had already read about these ruins in the book "The Last Days of the Incas", because one of the Incan emperors fled here to hide out from the Spanish. They were able to throw rocks to keep the Spanish away, but eventually they ran out of rocks and water and were captured.



On the edge of a small town above Cusco we saw this billboard. In case you can't read it, it appears to be advertising a public restoration project for this apparently barren field from 2004 that was scheduled to be completed in 90 days. Regardless of whether this was what they were aiming for, we thought it was nice.



As we continued out into the countryside, we walked through a small town rimming several large fields. To the left of the photo, there were people actively scorching some wheat fields, and behind us there was a large number of workers harvesting what looked like potatoes. Many of the workers stopped to wave and ask how we were doing, and a few tried to interest us in a horseback ride through the country. We're considering it.


Several more switch-backs up the road was this beautiful home, with this beautiful pig tied up across the street.





In addition to the pig, we also witnessed a sheep crossing further up.



The countryside surrounding the city is a patchwork of farmland and occasional houses. If you look at the large version of this next photo, you can see some of the terraces on the hillside.



We left the paved road and started walking along dirt roads and trails somewhere around here...









Here I am hiking through an anonymous field to get back to the road we spotted from the crest of a hill.



And Jen on the trail.

It was a great hike! Afterwards we enjoyed our favorite hole-in-the-wall vegetarian lunch, and had a recuperative coffee at Cafe Punchay. On the advice of our friend Manuel we also went to see the pre-Columbian art museum, but more on that another time.