7/8 - Salty Selfies and Jumping Jack Flash

Still staying in Yucay.  Places visited:  Salt Mines, Matas, Moray and Ollantaytambo (again)

We were in Yucay for a few days so decided to take a couple of excursions to ruins and interesting places in the area.  The morning started with an early 7:30am breakfast with quinoa soup (it tasted like soupy rice!).  The breakfast was pretty and we ate heartily prepping for the day ahead.  We decided to hit the salt mines today and a few surrounding cities.

The driver picked us up at 9:30am.  We hired a car for the day to trek us around.  We thought it would be much easier than trying to hail taxis wherever we went.  The views were beautiful.

He took us to the salt mines first.  He was a local, grew up in Urumba not far from Yucay and knew that the tour buses start their tours in Moray and work their way down so we pretty much had the salt mines to ourselves.  Suweet!  It was gorgeous and thus began our salty selfy day.  I have to admit by the end of the day we were queens at single double and even triple people selfies.  I forgot my selfie stick!!!  Cat didn't let me forget for the rest of the trip.  Go Aldona and her long arms!

Aldona was teaching us how to rock a selfie.  It's all about twisting the body sideways to look as skinny as possible and pushing the boobs out.

Oh and duck faces, gotta make the duck face.

We had so many questions.  Where did all this salt come from?  How do they gather it off the top?  More importantly...how is it decontaminated before they sell it?!!!  We'd hate to end up poisoning our people back home.  That would suck.  We purchased about 10 kilos of salt between the three of us and a few other knickknacks.  Cat went into bargaining mode (yay Cat!) and we got the 10 kilos of premium salt for 50 soles which was about $16.

Walked along the edges of the salt pools.  Just as we started back, we saw that your buses were starting to file in and the narrow walkways were going to get interesting to navigate.  We saw this old couple that were coming down the stairs with two walking sticks each and pondered at their ability to navigate the very narrow and precarious salt pool edges.  Go old people!  We hiked back up to the entrance.  This was the first of many hikes to come.

Next stop Maras.  It was a tiny city next to the salt mines.  We took some quick photos, used the bano and found some cute friendship bracelets.

In Moray, the Incas made circles into the valleys between the mountains which basically served as it's own micro climate for farming.  The same potato, depending on which level it was planted, will vary in color and taste,  In effect, it's a completely different potato.

We happened to come across a tour group where the guide was giving everyone coco leaves to honor the gods so we joined in making a wish and asking for blessings with the Oregon group.  We blew on the leaves in each direction NSEW and then blew all the leaves in one chosen direction.

We tried climbing the steps that led up to each level.  Even a few feet off the ground I struggle.  I can't imagine how much effort it would have taken for them to carry all the crops back after the harvest.  Bikram yoga's got nuthin' on them.

It was also here that we decided we will take jumping photos everywhere we went.  Burst option on the iPhone FTW!

Selfies gone wrong

It's around 2pm and we decided we still had some time to have lunch then attempt Ollantaytambo again.  We asked the driver for restaurant suggestions.  He took us to his home town of Urumba.  We offered to buy our driver lunch for being so accommodating.  The menu was completely in Spanish and as we tried to decipher the dishes, a lady in the next table helped us translate some things into English.  It turned out she was Peruvian and moved to Los Angeles when she was 16 and now lives in Inglewood Cliffs, New Jersey!  What a small world.  She had a dish of fried pork with potatoes that looked amazing, she even insisted on giving us a taste.  Oh my god, I don't even like pork but this was incredible and it wasn't on the menu.

We invited her over to our table and had a fantastic leisurely meal of great food and conversation.  Food always tastes better with friends, new and old.  Her name was Hilda and offered to take us to the market to find some good deals on alpaca blankets and silver when we get back to Cusco.

We headed back to Ollantaytambo and got to actually climb the ruins.  But it was 3:30pm and unfortunately, it was the time that all the tour buses also congregated here.  We decided to be rebels and headed up the exit side to avoid the traffic.  Vertigo was really getting to me and I hugged the wall along each ledge.

I'm glad we came back and climbed the ruin but I can't wait for Machu Picchu.  We head there tomorrow.  We say goodbye to the baby alpaca hanging out here.

We came back from our very full day very tired.  The hotel lobby was having happy hour with half price pisco sours.  These are quite delicious especially after a hot day of hiking.

It's been a real fart a thon the last few days, I think we left a little bit of gas everywhere we went.  Cuy, the gift that keeps on giving.  Peru will never forget us.