I wake up early to prepare myself for a day of adventure at the Sacred Valley. Breakfast is also early because my pick-up is at 6:20am. I am waiting at the hotel lobby for my bus, then my guide arrive. He give me all the documents for my Sacred Valley tour as well as my Machu Picchu adventures. Everything is also well organized. I have my round trip tickets to and from Aguas Calientes, my Machu Picchu tickets for two days and my entrance ticket to Huayna Picchu. A short briefing on the basic things to do, my hotels and transfer services as well. All bookings are also confirm. I really appreciate how organize Viajes Pacifico is.
After minutes of waiting, my bus arrive. My guide endorses me to the driver. As the first passenger, I also seat in front of the bus. We drive to another pick up location for other tourists. The last stop we have is for the official tour guide.
He board our bus and accounts his passengers. My name is not called yet I didn’t mind. I am thinking he is just ticking passengers at the back because when he counts, the number of tourists assigned for him is correct. So when he starts to introduce himself, he is speaking in Spanish. Then I call his attention and asks him if the ones he’s doing earlier is to check if his participants are complete. He says yes. Then I am telling him to check my name because I am not called. Then he asks me what language I choose, I say English. He rechecks his passenger and one guy is not around. He calls the English bus and confirms my slot with them, so we decide to stop at Awanacancha to wait for my bus.
We arrive at the place, the passengers come out of the bus while I am left with the driver to wait for my bus. The guide instructs the driver to check for the other bus and endorse me to the other guide.
When my correct bus arrives, my driver calls me up and endorses me to the other guide. The other guide also instructs her passengers to have a short visit at the Awanacancha. I put my bag on the vacant seat and go inside the Awanacancha too.
It is a village where locals share their dyeing and knitting techniques. It is impressive when the lady shows us how they extract different colors using the insect’s blood. What’s surprising is that the insect grows at the cactus leaves. They will pick up the insect from the cactus leaves and put it in the mortar to prick the blood and then mixes with different locally grown products such as lemon to produce one color.
They have variety of locally grown products to dye their threads from alpaca. They will cook the thread together with the dye to have the color stick to the thread before weaving it. I really appreciate their indigenous way of crafting such colorful native costumes they have.
At Awanacancha, they also have this llamas and alpacas. It is my first sight of this beautiful camelids. They are very adorable. I can’t help myself but to take some selfies.
In Peru, they have plenty of varieties of potatoes. They grow potatoes to different regions with different climates, that’s why they have different kinds of it. In Awanacancha, they have displays of several varieties they produce. It is amazing since I only know one kind of potato, the generic potato.
With our quick visit, I learn a lot with what I saw. As per our guide, the natives when taken some photos, they are not looking at the camera. The reason was, they think that their soul will be taken away if they look at the camera. She say it’s okay to photograph locals but respect if they will not look at the camera. Nice insight.
After the quick visit, we hop back to our bus. Now on my new bus with the English group and we’re off to Archaeological Site of Pisaq.
Been here: August 13, 2015
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