April Adventures: Qenqo, Pukapukara and Tambomachay

After Saqsaywaman, we left the site and continued walking up the hill for a few kilometers until we reached Qenqo.  There isn't as much definite information about Qenqo, but our Lonely Planet says that it was a religious site for offerings, possibly for fertility.  The site includes a huge rock out front, and then a few passageways carved into the larger rock behind it, along with some more Inca walls.

Here I am checking out one of the passageways:

From there, we continued walking along the road, which continued to wind its way uphill, but took a short cut or two through the trees:

After a longer walk, we arrived at Pukapukara, which means red fortress.  This was apparently fortress that served as a guard post as this area was a crossroads of trade among the Inca states.  Here I am checking out the view from the fort:

Here are the walls of Pukapukara, more Inca construction.  Apparently in some lights the walls look red, but since it was starting to get cloudy when we arrived, we didn't see the red tint.

From Pukapukara, it was a short walk to Tambomachay, and we arrived just as the storm clouds rolled in.  Tambomachay means resting place, so this was a retreat for the Inca royalty.  To get to the main area, you walk up another hill that is inhabited by llamas:

Here is the main portion of the site:

Apparently the fountains were built by the Incas and were used as baths for the royalty.  Pretty fancy!  We also climbed up a hill where you could see Pukapukara, but it was starting to sprinkle and thunder and we didn't want to get hit by lightning, so we came down pretty quickly.

From there, we retraced our steps, this time downhill, and found some shortcuts. One of our shortcuts took us right through a large group of sheep, who luckily were afraid of us and mostly ran away.  Here is JP hanging out with our new friends:

We found another shortcut that took us back to Cuzco more quickly, and we got back in time for a late lunch, which we had earned from all the walking.  We decided this would be a good warm up for our hike, even though our hike would consist of longer days and bumpier paths.

We have one more site in Cuzco to cover, quickly, and then we will start with the hike. Coming up next: Qorikancha