Sacred Valley and Cusco Corners.
As we had two more days in Cusco, we decided to do another tour on our second full day. We went to the famous Valle Sagrado or Sacred Valley which is actually already half way to Machu Picchu. We were leaving in the early morning, this time by a mini-bus because there was simply no rental station to be found in Cusco. Funny, but that’s the truth. NO other options than organized tours. I mean they know how to earn money in Cusco. There are travel offices on every tiny corner. We booked a daily tour and had another let’s say green day with impressive outlooks in beautiful Peruvian nature as the trip from Cusco to the Valle Sagrado is really showing the best of it. The Sacred Valley of the Incas is located between Pisac and Ollantaytambo, following the Vilcanota River and surrounded by towering mountains and snow peaks. Our bus slowly climbed the hills and afterwards lost altitude as the valley and also Machu Picchu by the way is under 3.000m a.s.l which felt good, especially for Jonathan. We saw the famous little villages Urubamba and Ollantaytambo, visited the very popular and huge Pisac market (I am not repeating everything made from Baby Alpaca and so on…) and had a nice and traditional lunch with my favorite Causa (kind of mashed potatato) and Quinoa soup sitting together with two Canadians who also joined the tour. In Ollantaytambo we visited an important Inca temple and this was also the first time we saw the beautiful flora of the valley. Wild orchids! And beautiful colored flowers I do not know the name of. There are over 500 varieties of wild orchids in that area this is also what you partly see while hiking the Inca trail as well, which by the way officially starts in Ollantaytambo. In the late afternoon, we headed back to the hotel and took a nice dinner in Uchu Steakhouse (the sign said just Uchu) but again the service and food, also for a half-veggie was great. We sat at a tiny little table and had another marvelous dinner for approximately 60 Euro for two, so very reasonable for the quality you get. Late at night situation with my sweetheart got really worse, first time I thought to call medical support which the hotel was also offering. This was when we decided to put Jonathan on Diamox as well. This is a medicine, originally developed for eye diseases but officially known as the one and only medicine for the HAS – high altitude sickness. As he could not breathe normally anymore we thought it was time and as I was taking these pills since Arequipa and felt poodle-well (pudel-wohl, einfach zu cool direkt übersetzt). The next morning, we met Bonifacia and Pancho again, showed her pictures of Heidi and this was when we arranged a Pancho collar for Heidi made by Bonifacia. She wanted to bring it to the hotel in the evening. So sweet. Image our Heidi with a colorful Panchito collar. Well, after Panchito-time we continued our walked tour through the city of Cusco. Had a great fresh juice at the famous Cusco market (we chose the booth with a cute old lady) and explored every single corner of this beautiful village. We also found the Bohemian quarter San Blas where a lot of artists are working and living. Had a nice lunch at Granja Heidi (do you notice, we really miss her), chatted with its strange owner-Kauz from Liechtenstein and after another massage with our lovely Yvoni in the late afternoon, we had dinner at Quespi, the nice hotels bar and restaurant as we knew that the next morning we would have to leave at 6am to finally head to Mr. Machu Picchu!!!! We transferred the big luggage to our next destination – also in Cusco – as we would return and to travel with light luggage only to MP. Totally excited about what would come up the next days, I could not sleep but was really happy that my beloved boy could sleep again as he – thank God, felt really better. But maybe he was just dreaming of Bonifacia – who by the way came and brought us the new collar for Heidi – and then as a present on top so to say – she took the collar of Pancho (who joined her this evening as well) and gave it to Jonathan with the words, “Mi amigo”. Hey, I swear, the both of us had tears in our eyes. Bonifacia standing there with Pancho in the entrance of the lobby giving THE collar of Pancho VI to Jonathan for our Heidi. We hugged and said good-bye and looked how the two of them walked away. We instantly decided that Bonifacia will receive a picture with Heidi and the collar – so we are going to send this to the hotel when we are back home. For sure!
