Pisac

Pisac.  The southern entrance to the area currently labeled the Sacred Valley.  Ollantaytambo marks the northern edge of the Sacred Valley and acts as the gate for Machu Picchu, but Pisac ( or Pisaq ) marks the start.  During Inca times it was a very thriving community larger than it is now.  There was both a settelment where the current town is, plus another one over 1,000 feet higher up the mountain.  The higher place has been abandoned since the Spanish conquered the area.

The higher area was extensively fortified, and I really only had the energy to go through the first and largest set of the mountain top ruins.  First shot, is looking down on the fertile area leading up to the area.  The valley you see has readily available water, much more so than most of the higher terracing.  I do not know if it is due to it being in a historical park or not, but most of the higher terracing looked to only have grass in it.  During Inca times excavation has shown that there were a variety of crops grown, along with the fact that a lot of the topsoil was hauled up from the valley floodplain far below.

I believe this is a small series of crypts, but have not confirmed.

In the above photo part of the terrace wall has fallen away, and it shows how the steps were lodged into the terracing.  Not all of the terraces have these steps, and in a few of the fields there are more than one set, sometimes even showing in a patterns when viewed from a little distance away.

I do not have a decent photo of all the terracing on this mountain.  Part of that is because there is a great amount of it, and part because not all of it has been restored.  This in turn leads me to a second thought or observation.

Peru is not a wealthy country, and it does have a large amount of agriculture.  The amount of abandoned terracing int the mountainous terrain though brings up a number of questions.  Did the Inca feel a lot more pressure than modern Peru to make use of every scrap of arable land?  Has there been enough climate change that the higher terraces are too dry and thus no longer viable?  Or is it the awkward locations that make hauling away of produce and grain problematic?

There are many places in Peru where plots of land of under one acre are worked with hand labour, and some which use animal labour, plus the larger fields that use tractors.  All that leads me to think that the higher places are used only for pasture as a more efficient use of labour.

I recommend going to Google Earth and zooming in on the archeological area north of the town and noting the expanse of the terracing on all sides of the mountain.

I did notice a herd of sheep flowing its way across the fields as I took the trail down from the mountain, but could not get my camera lens changed in time for a decent shot.

All for now.