Oh hey there folks! Wanna see me do cool yoga poses on a rock? No? No one cares. Oh...okay.
Then let me tell you about this really cool hike instead. There's two main ruins along this hike. First is the Temple of the Condor (See above) and then the Temple of the Moon. Both are super cool and require an unnecessary amount of stairs to get to. Plus side is it's absolutely gorgeous after you climb all the stairs to get out of town. You can overlook the city and you're high enough you get to a point you can only see the mountains level. You also start to see a more realistic Peru that's got more families with mud packed houses and farms. Normally in the city, you see people dressed up in 'traditional garb' with llamas that are also dressed up. They charge you a sole to take a picture and that's their livelihood. Up out of the valley, which is still 11,000 feet, there were woman grazing their llamas or goats or sheep with their herd dogs. They were in normal clothing. 
After climbing a plethora or stairs carved into the side of a mountain, the land eventually flattened out and we came to the Temple of the Condor. Now on our way up these stairs, both sides are surrounded by beautiful purple Irises and these cute little yellow flowers I didn't recognize. Me, Amanda, and her friend from yoga are trekking up, panting away, and this old couple that was minimum seventy years old is hauling ass up. When we got to the temple, the woman starts explaining one carving in the rock that was a monkey, but when the Spanish came they chopped off the heads of all the carvings. It's really too bad the Spanish conquerors were such assholes cause they really ruined some cool stuff. Anyways, we did a bunch of yoga poses on the rocks with cool back drops and then climbed through one of huge caves and found the condor carving. It's huge and really hard to see in a photograph, but basically there's a big chunk coming out of this cave that is the head and the body of the condor, which is one of huge three main animal symbols that's significant in Incan culture. Over the body you can see what was two huge spread out wings.
We then continued on to the Temple of the Moon, which I learned was actually formerly called the Temple of Pacha Mama (Mother Nature). It's essentially a large cave and it's got lots of cool carvings in it. Come to think of it, I'd never seen that before. So there's stairs carved in the stone to get down and at the entrance there are two carved snakes. A small one going in and a bigger one coming out above it. This is supposed to represent the energy you put into the world, whatever you put in you get back three fold. On the other side was a small carved puma that had also had it's head removed. Then there are two bench like seats carved into the side, where people came to resolve their conflicts with one another. After they talk it out they would go through a small entryway into the sacrifice room. Above the doorway, Prachu Mama was carved into the sealing. You can see the bottom view of her legs and her bottom and back. And the entryway is supposed to be what she is birthing out into the world. Once in this room, there was a type of bowl carved to hold water and another ledge for people to put their sacrifices on when praying to Prachu Mama. It had just a few Coca leaves scattered on it, but when looking up, there's a hole where light shines down exactly on the spot for sacrifices. Apparently when it's a full moon, the light shines directly through this hole and lights up the whole cave. On our way out of the sacrifice room, right under the Prachu Mama, there are two rocks laid in the entry way. Amanda's extremely informative yoga friend told us if you pick up the first rock there's a draft of air coming up from the ground which is said to be the same air Prachu Mama is breathing, or making or something. I'm not sure exactly, but we lifted up the rock and sure enough there's a draft of cooler air coming up from the ground.
At this point the older couple is in the cave with us and Amanda's friend explained the Pracha Mama air to them. The woman was extremely informative and offered to show us some carvings, we never would have noticed, on the top of the cave. We followed her out and up to the top, where you overlook some of the Inca trail as well as locals playing soccer, and some grazing horses. This woman ended up being from Oregon and lived in Peru 4-6 months a year just hiking and doing trails. I already mentioned how she whipped our ass hiking up to the caves, but when she started talking to us about 1-2 day hikes and parts of the Inca trail we could do she did some weird arm gesture and it became apparent exactly how jacked she was. The definition of wiry. I just pictured her fighting drunk other wiry Irish people. By the way, Happy St. Patrick's day everyone. Enough about her presumed fighting skills, she had a wealth of knowledge about trails and Inca history. She showed us carving after carving in the stone that we would have never found and then proceeded to give us walking directions to the next four towns just in case we were up to it. We never even got her name, but she was pretty rad I must say.
After that we headed back into town, ate a bunch of vegetarian food, then laid in bed for the next three hours. Amanda coached me through some yoga poses which was really fun. I did some strange thing into a headstand and back down, which sounds weird but it's actually super impressive. Trust me. We ended the night with below average Thai food, but a valuable lesson was learned. It's looking like a busy week ahead, but don't you worry, I'll be in touch!
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