Hello World! Spike here. Strive Peru just finished up a busy and exciting weekend. After several weeks of teaching and tutoring in Pisac, we’ve gotten to know this town pretty well. We’re expert bargainers in the market, loyal customers of Sofi’s Bakery (I think our group has collectively sampled just about everything they make), and we’ve staked out the best Pollerias in town. As much as we love hanging out here in Pisac, though, many of us were ready to get out and explore the region a bit more.

And explore we did! On Saturday we finally got to see the famous Pisac ruins that have loomed above us this whole time. Keeping with a tradition started by the 2013 intern crew, we decided to hike it in the middle of the night and catch the sunrise. Waking at 4 am, we slipped quietly onto the trail, headlamps turned off, our path illuminated instead by the white glow of a full moon above us. We climbed higher and higher up the steep terraces, and the view of Pisac in the valley below grew smaller until all we could make out from the darkness were a few lines of dim yellow light from the streetlamps. After watching the moon set across the valley, we perched on top of an ancient mountaintop village and waited patiently for the sun to rise. At 6:42 am, it crested the mountains and we finally basked in its glorious golden warmth, feeling rejuvenated and refreshed, ready to start the day. It was a breathtaking sight.

We spent the rest of the morning exploring the ruins–though we decided that “ruins” may not be the best word to describe these sites. Despite being nearly 500 years old, many of the Incan villages are excellently preserved, a result of incredible feats of engineering and careful construction. The large rocks that make up the walls and doorways have been chiseled with such precision that they are simply stacked on top of each other, fitting together like pieces of a puzzle, not budging for hundreds of years. These ancient structures are not ruins; they are masterpieces. We believe “archeological wonders” is a more fitting description.

That afternoon, the group congregated in the hostel courtyard for an art class taught by Iologio, a worker at the hostel. We each got to hone in on our creative artistic abilities while painting wooden plates. Using paint made with crushed insects and other natural ingredients, we carefully drew intricate designs and patterns on the plates. It’s a painfully slow process that requires a good deal of concentration–something we struggled with after getting less than 5 hours of sleep the night before! Some of us opted to draw our school insignias and mascots while others went for the Strive logo. In any case, we were all left with a deep respect and admiration of Iologio’s skill, as his plates were stunningly beautiful pieces of art, each one incredibly detailed and intricate.

Sunday was another jam-packed busy day of travel and sight-seeing. We all got up early to squeeze in our long runs before driving to the small town of Moray, where we toured another archeological wonder: the agriculture circles. These consist of several enormous circular terraces that descend almost 100 feet into the ground. Archeologists speculate that these circular depressions may have been used for agricultural experimentation to study the effects of different climatic conditions, but we remain dubious. The fact that it must have taken an incredible amount of time and human labor to build only adds to its mysteriousness.

Later, we stopped at the nearby Maras salt-evaporation ponds and were blown away once again. At this site, salty water bubbles up from an underground spring and flows down an intricate system of channels into several hundred ancient terraced ponds. In these shallow rectangular ponds, the water evaporates leaving behind mounds of salt that are collected and processed by the community. Some of us bought salt at the gift shop to take home.

Meanwhile back at home-base in Pisac, the town is gearing up for its annual festival week! Fireworks are popping off at all times of day (3 am, 1pm, it doesn’t matter, why not light a firecracker?!), marching bands are practicing loudly at 6 am, and many of our students are learning dance routines for an upcoming performance.

More to come in the next post!