Semana Santa, Day 4: Sacred Valley, A guided adventure in 4 parts

Part I- Voting, The Sacred Valley, Urubamba River, and the Milky Way

Today we are taking our planned tour we purchased the first day with helpful Katherine, who got us to our hostel from the airport. The plan is an 8:30am-6:00pm tour of the Sacred Valley. But remember we are running on Peruvian time. The bus picks us up at our hotel at about 9:00am and we meet the others on the tour: An Aussie couple, an older English gentleman, 2 Peruvian women traveling with their English friend, a French woman about our age, and four others from the states, all about our age, who we talked with quite a bit. There was Tom from NYC via San Jose, Denise and Billy from San Diego, and Hoang from Washington D.C.

After we have been on the bus for about 20 minutes we reach the outskirts of town. Our bus pulls over at a service station. The driver gets out, gets into a cab and drives away! We find out from our guide Guillermo, who arrives about 5 minutes after the driver leaves, that because today is Election Day in Peru our driver has decided to quickly go and vote. One must always do their civic duty. About 45 minutes later he returns and at about a quarter after 10 our tour begins.

A little less than 30 minutes away from town we make our first stop: an overlook of the Sacred Valley and the Urubamba River. El Valle Sagrado, or the sacred valley, is fertile farm land that lies along the Urubamba, Willacamayu, or Vilconota River. It really is just one river but the confusion comes from the use of Spanish and Quechua (traditional Incan language still used by most locals in their homes and daily lives) as well as the tradition of naming rivers in sections. Most people now refer to it as the Urubamba River. The valley stretches through 300km of the Incan empire. However, the term Sacred Valley usually refers to the section between the towns of Pisac and Ollantaytambo that we will be visiting today.

From this overlook we are able to see a long, straight stretch of the river the Incas called the Willacamayu, or sacred river. Incas believed it was the earthly counterpart to the Milky Way, which they called Mayu, or River. During the summer months the path of the Milky Way would be shadowed on earth by the path of the Willacmayu, or Urubamba River.

This heavenly significance is one reason historians believe that all the major Inca sights on the river have large temples dedicated to celestial viewing. All of which, including Machu Picchu, far down river, have the Southern Cross and other constellations featured somewhere in their construction.