We ate breakfast and set out in city, looking for a street called Pavitos. Once we found the street, we also found the cars and buses and vans that take people anywhere and everywhere in the surrounding area. We asked our driver to take us to Chincheros, and once he dropped us off on the side of the road in this foreign village, all we knew was that we needed to somehow find el camino a Urquillos (the trail to Urquillos) a town which, surprisingly, we also knew nothing about. We stopped every few minutes to ask various shopkeepers and pedestrians the way and eventually we found the grassy green trail, el camino a Urquillos.
The trail starts at the base of the plaza of Incan ruins in the city of Chincheros. From there, it winds through farms, forests, mountain passes, herding pastures and villages.
The trail was grassy at first. The entire hillside above was carved out by terraces of stone; once farming land for the Incans. We climbed up a big rock and admired all the perfectly cut squares missing from the Boulder. Sitting in what looked to be a chair, we pondered if this is a place where they used to make sacrifices to Pacha Mama, Mother Nature.
We continued down the trail and passed a few people working on their farm, and a few women carefully watching over their goats, pigs, and donkeys as they grazed on the vibrant vegetation.
For a while we saw no one and appreciated the beautiful silence and occasional bird song. It was a stark contrast to the constant city buzz and bumble.
We continued descending the mountain, sometimes walking down stone steps, until we eventually rounded a corner and our eyes immediately met the jagged, snowy-covered peaks across the valley. It was stunning.
At the base of the mountains we spotted a town, quite possibly the one we were going to.
As we finished our descent of the steep mountain, we arrived at the valley floor and met the river below. There, we made a picnic in the grass, where we ate our avocados, bananas and peanut butter. We walked through dozens of small little farms, constantly guessing which type of vegetable was growing. Once, we came to an intersection so we asked a family traveling with their child and donkey the correct way. They kindly pointed down the valley, "el Camino a Urquillos" they said "está por alla."
We continued to follow the river. We walked through a beautiful Eucalyptus forest. With each inhalation, our nostrils were filled with a wonderful aroma and our air-deprived lungs thanked us.
Eventually we started to enter a village of mud and straw brick houses perched on the side of a mountain. There was a stone canal in the middle of the trail that directed the water to the various
farms. We walked further until we were around people again and Lotte and I took turns saying "hola" and "buenas Dias" to everyone we passed. We walked through the town, on the dirt road and eventually across a bridge to another town named Huayllabamba. There, we miraculously found a bus back to Quito and gave each other a high-5 to celebrate our victory in navigation.
Watching out of the bus window, we passed dozens of small farms and villages in the Sacred Valley. There are reasons it is called the Sacred Valley and those reasons become immediately understood upon visiting.
It was a wonderful adventure in nature. It was as if today, we went back in time.
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