The towns streets were originally laid out by the Inca in the 1400s, and, according to Wikipedia, these buildings are some of the oldest in continuous use in South America. This dog is certainly impressed.
I scrambled up the hillside toward a site called Pinkulluna, grain storehouses located up a mountainside opposite the main ruins, where the cooler temperatures would apparently preserve the crops.
Picture from Wikipedia:
It's visible in the background in this photo from my last post.
Looking across to some of the ruins.
The main group of ruins. The wall of the six monoliths is visible in the foreground on the left skyline, just right of the shadow.
Panoramic of the town, at the junction of Patacancha and Urubamba rivers.
Sadly, I had to run downhill back to the hostel just as the light was getting really primo because I had promised to be back in time for breakfast.
Town square.
These displays on the peak of a house's roof are almost universal. They represent, in part, honoring the cattle as our beasts of burden.
View from our hostel.
Courtyard.
Back at the hostel, we discovered that Rosie's camera was missing! We looked high and low, and eventually concluded that Rosie must have left it in the restaurant the night before. The restaurant was on the town square, and which wasn't open yet, but we/Rosie waited around for the owner to finally show up around 11:20. During that time, I wandered around the town some more taking photos (Rosie is fluent in Spanish so she was the one to hang out and talk to the restaurant people.
Narrow street leading into the town square.
Almost all the little homes had street names and numbers like this.
Regarding the camera, we were certainly fearing the worst, but when the owner, who had served us dinner the night before (we were almost the only people there) showed up, he gave us back the camera. It was a big relief. We gave him some more business that night after our hike to Pumamarca.
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