The Sacred Valley

In Cusco at The Point it was back to days and days of sitting around in the backyard eating, drinking and playing volleyball with people from all over the world. One day we got called into the lobby from the backyard to talk to a woman from a travel agency. She was looking for a few tourists to go on a trip to a town called Minismey in the sacred valley. We ended up going there for free with a cameraman and a journalist. They were making a promotional video for the travel agency and they needed tourists to be in the video.

The town we went to was a farming village about an hour outside of Cusco. Only a few of them (in a village of 300 people) could speak Spanish. The rest spoke Quechua, a language spoken by many in Peru until the Spanish came. When we arrived at the entrance to the town and got out of the van we were greeted by a group of villagers dressed in colorful clothing, playing music and dancing. They gave us each hand woven bracelets and strings of flowers. We stayed                in a house with a family that lived there and had 3 home cooked meals a day.

It was pure luck that we got to go on this trip. They sent us horseback riding and mountain biking, and the villagers showed us how they farm, and make their own mud bricks and clothing. Before they make anything there is a ritual where they bless the surrounding mountains with a home made brew. We had a bonfire one night and a bunch of people from the village came and told stories. It was not something I will soon forget.