© Richard HuangThe valley between Pisac and Ollantaytambo is known as the Sacred Valley of the Incas. The rushing Urubamba River brought fertile soil and abundant water to the valley, turning it into a rich breadbasket where the ancient Incas could flourish and build their remarkable civilization. Today we planned to visit the archaeological sites of Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and Moray, as well as the Maras salt pans.
© Richard HuangSince the sights were spread far apart, we hired a driver-guide. He was a committed environmentalist by profession and took on occasional private tours to supplement his income. He was very friendly, though somewhat disillusioned with the government and social injustice.
© Richard HuangWe spent the journey winding through the mountains. The beauty of having a private guide was that there were no compulsory shopping stops—and whenever the scenery caught our eye, we could simply pull over.
© Richard HuangAt one point, our guide suddenly pointed into a tree and said there was a red-crested finch. A true environmentalist, he knew the local ecology well and noticed everything. I later looked it up and learned that the species is found only in South America. And that is the story of how I photographed a bird for the first time.
© Richard HuangA little over an hour after leaving Cusco, we arrived at the Pisac archaeological site. Located 1.5 kilometres from the town of Pisac, the four-square-kilometre national archaeological site comprises several groups of ruins scattered across the mountaintops.
© Richard HuangIn Inca times, Pisac was not only militarily important but also a centre of political, administrative, and religious life.
© Richard HuangPerched high above the Urubamba Valley at the southeastern entrance to the Sacred Valley, Pisac commands sweeping views. Its strategic position made it a fortress guarding the ancient capital of Cusco.
© Richard HuangThe ruins overlook the peaceful village of Pisac and the magnificent Sacred Valley. Their elaborate complex of ancient baths, fountains, altars, ceremonial platforms, and ritual stones lends the site an air of mystery.
© Richard HuangRemains of Inca terraces in many different styles can be seen everywhere. Built to follow the contours of the slopes, they allowed the Incas to irrigate their fields, grow crops, and secure their harvests.
© Richard HuangSome of the terraces are said to remain in use even today.
© Richard HuangAfter leaving the ruins, we stopped at the nearby village of Pisac to see how the locals lived and to browse the market.
© Richard HuangAlthough many Peruvians appeared to live modestly, there was nothing makeshift about their traditional clothing: the colours were vivid and the workmanship meticulous.
© Richard HuangThis young girl’s outfit blended traditional dress with contemporary fashion.
© Richard HuangWe also wandered through the handicraft market, admiring the bright, colourful goods made by local artisans.
© Richard HuangOur guide also made a point of showing us a quinoa field. Quinoa is a staple grain of the Andes and is sometimes called the golden grain. The United Nations General Assembly designated 2013 the International Year of Quinoa. This nutritious ancient food, together with the potato, formed an important part of the diet of pre-Hispanic Peruvians. These days, with so much attention paid to healthy eating, we cook quinoa with our rice at home almost every day.
© Richard HuangLeaving Pisac, we continued farther northwest to Ollantaytambo, another Inca site comprising a fortress and the remains of an Inca town.
© Richard HuangAbout 85 kilometres northwest of Cusco and 2,750 metres above sea level, Ollantaytambo clings to a mountainside beside a gorge deep in the Sacred Valley. It guarded the route through the Urubamba Valley to Cusco and is one of the better-preserved Inca urban sites, offering a clear view of how an Inca town was planned.
© Richard HuangIts ceremonial precinct includes several altars and terraces, a temple with ten windows, and a water channel cut into the mountainside.
© Richard HuangThere is also a fortress, sometimes called the Temple of the Sun, consisting of twenty-seven red-granite terraces, each rising as high as four metres and joined by rubble fill.
© Richard HuangMany enormous abandoned stones can still be seen here. Known as “weary stones,” they remain because the temple was never completed. Cusco fell to the Spanish while it was under construction, and this was also where the Inca army suffered its final defeat.
© Richard HuangThe unfinished temple’s wall of six monoliths is Ollantaytambo’s crowning treasure. Each of the six upright granite slabs weighs as much as fifty tonnes. They are separated by thin slivers of stone, yet fitted together so precisely and seamlessly that the joints look like lines drawn across a single immense slab.
© Richard HuangSpring water channelled from the mountain flows downhill throughout the year. Along the way, the Incas created outlets where water could be collected for drinking. This one was for ordinary people; elsewhere, more ornate outlets can be seen, reserved for royalty. It was, in effect, a running-water system built by harnessing nature—an astonishing feat.
© Richard HuangFollowing the stream downhill brought us into the village. This narrow alley has become a popular photo spot on social media.
© Richard HuangEven the courtyard of an ordinary home was beautiful.
© Richard HuangWe spotted three alpacas.
© Richard HuangWe had climbed two mountains that morning. Exhilarating as it was, we were utterly exhausted. It was time for lunch and a chance to recharge, so our guide took us to a restaurant.
© Richard HuangThe chef was preparing a rather special dish for us.
© Richard HuangOne look at the boss’s exaggerated expression tells you just how unusual the dish was. Guinea pigs are kept as pets in many parts of the world, but in Peru they are a delicacy.
© Richard HuangThe roasted guinea pig looked rather alarming, but it was genuinely tasty—a little like roast suckling pig, only with finer, sweeter meat.
© Richard HuangAfter lunch, we came across a group of beautiful women riding around in the back of a pickup truck—a wonderfully surreal sight. Someone later asked why I had chosen Peru for my travels. I said there were many reasons, and this must have been one of them: every day brought a surprise, and something unexpected could happen at any moment.
© Richard HuangOur car crossed the high Andean plateau, with snowcapped peaks rising into the clouds in the distance and fields of crops close at hand, while cattle and sheep wandered across the hills. Sun and rain alternated without warning, transforming the landscape from moment to moment. Lost in the beauty, we reached Maras before we knew it.
© Richard HuangThe car stopped on a hillside overlooking the ancient salt pans built into the slope, a magnificent and beautiful sight. The vast expanse of pools resembled a white mosaic laid across an Andean valley, glinting in the light.
© Richard HuangCountless salt pools, large and small, were divided by narrow ridges and linked together down the mountainside. Highly saline spring water flows from above and is diverted into each pool in turn. Once a pool is full, its inlet is blocked with a stone, leaving the sun and wind to evaporate the brine naturally. After about a month, the water has dried and salt crystals remain, ready for the salt farmers to scrape up with wooden boards. The Maras salt pans date back to roughly AD 200–900. Today, more than 3,000 pools make this an important centre of salt production in Peru’s southern highlands.
© Richard HuangThe Maras salt pans are not only a major source of income for local mountain communities but also one of the Sacred Valley’s principal attractions—a place photographers dream of visiting.
© Richard HuangLeaving the Maras salt pans, we pressed on without a pause to our final stop: the terraces of Moray.
© Richard HuangMoray lies fifty kilometres northwest of Cusco and was discovered twenty-one years after Machu Picchu. Unknown to the outside world until 1932, it was found by chance in aerial photographs taken by an American photographer. It is an extraordinary landscape: across the rolling highlands lie several sunken terraces, arranged in even circles that descend ring by ring. It was hard to believe they were the work of ancient hands; they looked more like doodles left by aliens.
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangToday we travelled from place to place along the Sacred Valley, with a packed itinerary and no shortage of surprises. The valley’s natural beauty was breathtaking, but even more unforgettable was the beauty of Inca ingenuity. Their stone buildings, waterways, terraces, and salt pans all reveal an extraordinary ability to work with nature and turn its gifts to human use.