Much colder here than I expected! So I’m doubling up on socks and pullovers and glad I brought a fleece. I had a minimal breakfast worrying about the alpaca’s revenge of yesterday, did at least get an orange juice. A woman traditionally dressed has parked herself on the hotel grounds poor thing I hope she sells something.

Elvira and Hernando (sp?) were waiting for me before 8am and took me first to see the Inca site of Ollantaytambo - unfinished when the Spanish arrived to ‘civilise’ Peru. Amazing stone work, the way the stones were shaped to interlock, the size of the granite stones transported from some distance away to this site. Great to see in person what I had only seen on TV. The Incas were very clever engineers, they way they channelled water and built. On the way through Ollantaytambo we saw many locals acting as porters for the foreigners doing the Inca trail. Exploitation? Symbiosis?

I was next taken to the amazing Maras salt pans. The roads on this day really tested the vehicle. Dirt roads snaking up and down mountains. Narrow roads busy with Servicio Turisto mini-buses. Many sleeping policemen. Very bumpy. We were early enough to beat the masses of midday. The Inca found a spring of 32 degrees water which had dissolved a dried up ancient sea. They cleverly developed a system of salt pans to evaporate the saline spring solution to yield salt (which has served as currency). Modern Peruvians may have added more salt pans but the technology is still Incan. We went to a shop where I declined to buy chocolate with salt in it but I did get some lavender bath salts - felt afterwards I was too mean here.

And another amazing site and sight was to be beheld at Moray). Here the Inca trained various crops to survive at higher altitudes by what was like an amphitheatre of micro-climates. We returned back the tortuous way (horns blaring as you can’t see if anything’s coming round cliff edge bends) and had lunch at Mawic in Ollaytantambo. I had chicha morada a famous Peruvian drink which - I don’t know how to describe it but it was a reasonable beverage. 

A great day’s tourism showcasing Incan abilities against the august Andean mountains, with their snow-capped seniority.