3rd Entry
6-4-12
I am officially
slightly over half way through my classes here in Cusco. I’ve been staying very busy with school and
travel. This past weekend I went to the
Sacred Valley, Pisac and Ollantaytambo, and Machu Picchu. We were scheduled to have some student
teaching on Friday and the rest of the class on the following Monday, but it
was exam week for the English students so we ended up having Friday off. On Friday I left for my trip. We left Cusco at around 9am and headed to
Pisac. The drive to Pisac was really incredible. We were going up, down, and around
mountains. We were able to stop and take
a few pictures which you can see online.
In Pisac we saw some great Incan ruins.
The complex was built on the side/top of a mountain and has some really
extensive terraces. The terraces were
used for farming, decoration, and stabilizing the land. From there we headed to Ollantaytambo. Ollantayambo again had some impressive ruins
that were built on the side/top of a mountain.
Again there were large terraces built.
Ollantaytambo is actually an unfinished site. Construction on the site was stopped because
of the Spaniards. The stone used to
build Ollantaytambo was quarried from a mountain top about 7 – 8 kilometers
away. At the top of Ollantaytambo, you
can see some huge stones that seem almost impossible to have been moved.
We then took a train, Peru
Rail, from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes (Hot Waters). Aguas Calientes is a small town located at
the bottom of the mountain where Machu Picchu is located on the banks of a
river that eventually empties into the Amazon River. The town is called Aguas Calientes because of
hot water springs located in the city.
We stayed in a hostel that night and the next morning it was to Machu
Picchu. Machu Picchu is an incredible
site that was discovered by the modern world until 1911 by an American
university professor. There are many
theories about why the site was built where it was, why it was abandoned, and what
it was used for. The Inca didn’t have a
written language so much of their history is based on theories. Machu Picchu is built on top of a large mountain
in the beginnings of the rainforest. The
actual structures of the site are very impressive, but the landscape of where
it was built is what makes it what it is.
Machu Picchu was built around 500 years ago and is said to be
unfinished. The Great Pyramids at Giza
were built closer to 5000 years ago, are immense, incredible structures also
built in a difficult environment. It is
amazing how the world progressed and how if information could have been shared
the same way it is today how differently civilizations would have
developed. There is a long Inca Tail
that leads to Machu Picchu that many tourists sign up to do. There is a waiting list on several of the best
treks of around 3 months. We didn’t have
time or the desire to camp and hike for days on end J There is also an Inca bridge on the back side
of Machu Picchu that I hiked to. The
bridge itself is not so impressive, but once again the landscape in which it was
built is incredible. I also opted to not
take the bus back down the mountain and decided to hike down instead back to
Aguas Calientes. It took 1 to 1.5 hours
to get back down. The scenery on the hike
was great. I saw many different plants
and heard all sorts of rain forest sounds.
After Machu Picchu, it
was back to Cusco. We finally got back
to Cusco around 10:30pm on Saturday. I
spent about 5 hours on Sunday doing homework.
Today, Monday, we are doing our student teaching and then back to normal
class tomorrow. June is month of
festivities for much of Cusco so I’m trying to stay up with all my school work
so I can try to enjoy some of it. I
currently have: a 5 page grammar paper
due on Friday along with 3 sixty minute lesson plans to go along with it, a
lesson plan and reflection of my student teaching due tomorrow, 3 classroom
observations and papers due this week, and preparations for a grammar lesson I
give on Friday.
Hasta Luego Amigos
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