Saqsaywaman y Q'enqo y Puka Pukara y Tambomachay

One Saturday afternoon after looking at museums in the morning, our trusty taxi driver Cesar, took us to the four sites closest to Cusco. Actually they're kind of in Cusco--at least the outskirts.
The first was Saqsaywaman.  This is the site famous for the stones fitted so closely together the you can't fit a sheet between them.  One of these days we need to suck it up and pay for a guide, but this trip where expenses had already gotten way out of control, we did not.  We just wandered around.   
It's incredible how massive these stones are!

Archaeologists are still actively working here, and the area is huge despite tons of the rocks being taken by the Spanish to build cathedrals, etc. in Cusco.



And I couldn't really capture it that well but this entire wall was a jagged zigzagging line.  Probably the most inefficient way to build ever, but I overheard another guide tell his group that it was a site dedicated to thunder and lightening.  Hence the shape.

This place Sayaqmarka was part of the bigger Saqsaywaman site but was another of the circular sacrificial sites.

See a guide would be handy occasionally because we asked a guide who was waiting around a question and then he pointed out the snake in the rocks and had us take a picture with Leo holding it's head.  The snake wraps around the other side of the wall too.  We would have never noticed.  
It's impressive to me how they carved convex and concave stones and fit them in corners.  That's pretty painstaking.


This is my "I love UT and WY" stones that I DID notice.


Plaza de las Armas from above.

And we stayed on a hostel on the street shown above.

Now this was at the second site we went to, Q'enqo.  It's a huaca or holy site and they think mummification and sacrifices took place here.  It was completely different than any of the Incan sites we had been to before because they had used a naturally occurring cave and then carved inside of it an altar or table and other niches.  Simply fascinating especially since I've never been anywhere like it before.


And then this was at Puku Pukara, a fort that was on the outskirts of the Cusco region.

Yes I banged my head on rock coming out of the cave.  
And last but not least, Tambomachay.  Here's the description on Wikipedia "It consists of a series of aqueducts, canals and waterfalls that run through the terraced rocks. The function of the site is uncertain: it may have served as a military outpost guarding the approaches to Cusco, as a spa resort for the Incan political elite, or both." 


I felt like a rockstar here because a bunch of 11-12 year old Peruvian schoolgirls asked to take a picture with me.  I'm guessing it's my blonde hair. It was funny though.

Gurgling water, who doesn't love that?

Like I've said before the hydraulics involved always amazes me, especially since it's working 500 yrs later.



As you can see there's more caves and ruins just across the hillside.

And this was the Temple of San Blas square, near our hostel.  I figured I'd better snap at least one photo.