The BEST day trip to Peru's SACRED VALLEY!

we are currently in Cusco Peru a UNESCO world heritage site and former capital of the Inca Empire and after spending a full day exploring all around the city's cobblestone streets ancient ruins and trying Local eats today we're visiting the sacred Valley a mountainous River Valley in the Andes filled with beautiful scenery Spanish Colonial Villages and important cultural sites and to experience it we booked a one-day sacred Valley tour with AB Expeditions which will take us to some of the Region's best spots [Music] this is our guide rosbel he's going to be taking us all around today and we made it to our first stop of the day the District of chinero chinero was once home to the Palace of an Inca Emperor before being destroyed by the Spanish today you can see the influence of both the Spanish and the Inca with colonial buildings built on top of Inca ruins plus various Inca agricultural Terraces the area boasts some of the most fertile soil in the sacred Valley and potatoes quinoa and fava beans are just some of the many crops grown here but besides its Inca history and agriculture chinero is also believed to be the mythical birthplace of the rainbow not only can you often see rainbows arching over the nearby Fields during the rainy season but the town is also known for its colorful textiles and this morning we're going to look learn all about how they're made my name is chasa welcome to Chino the process starts with the wool sheep llama and alpaca wool are used in Peru with each having a different texture and purpose we even got to meet a few of them at the textile center after the wool is sheared from the animal it is cleaned using a detergent made from this roote this community that people we don't have gray hair because we use only this root we don't need that chemical shampoo oh I should switch to that then if you gray hair is too late yeah because the root will use very yum after the wool is cleaned the fibers are dried before being spun into yarn this is done manually using a spindle and is learned at a very young age we learning from seven years old and can be done while performing a variety of tasks dancing playing cooking walking singing kissing my husband kissing my boyfriend then it's time to dye the yarn in the traditional way to do this is by using natural products like plants bugs flowers and herbs plus acids like salt and lime juice to modify the color we use the Salas so change the color yeah look you can see change that color oh my gosh after the wool is the right color it is dried before the warping process begins which is usually done with two to three people this is when the yarn is stretched over a wooden frame to keep it in place during the final step of weaving weaving is when the different patterns and Designs come to life with the Final Touch being a special border around the piece which is unique to chinero textiles at the end of the tour you are expected to buy something so come prepared but we can't think of a better souvenir to buy while in Peru we just got a beautiful table runner for my mom for her birthday happy birthday hope you like it so we are doing this Tour on a Sunday which wasn't really intentional it just happened to be the day that worked best for us but I'm so glad we did because there's just more going on in the towns on Sunday including the local market trying an umita M it's corn it's corn wow it's like a bread it tastes like bread oh yeah little sweet from the corn very good oh yeah it it looks just like bread in a corn husk M tastes just like cornbread yeah that is so [Applause] good the scenery on this drive has been incredible the mountains out here are huge and they're so pointy it's getting me so excited to get all up in them really soon and after 40 minutes of driving past farmland lands mountains small villages and even getting stuck in a little traffic jam we made it to our next stop morai morai is an archaeological site known for its series of circular terrrace depressions that resemble an Amphitheater but there is so much more to this site then meets the eye modai was the greenhouse for the Incas and was believed to have been used as an agricultural research station the Terrace has span over a total height of 150 M and represent different microclimates which allowed the to experiment with different crops and farming techniques one of the crops they grew here were potatoes and because of their ability to experiment and create hybrids Peru is now home to thousands of varieties but besides agricultural experimentation morai is also known for having an intricate irrigation system even during hard rains in the wet season morai never floods there are canals carved into the stone walls that allow water to flow between The Terraces as well as evidence of an underground water draining system one thing that is just blowing my mind at all these sites today is just how smart and Innovative the Inca were and how they just utilized the land they were able to build these Terraces and figure out that if they put some crops higher up and some lower they could figure out which grew best in which scenarios and then they built these channels to get water from miles and miles away and then at the textile center just figuring out which plants would be best for dying it's just so impressive just how much they were able to figure out without all the modern day tools that we have now the scale of these sites like this place here is absolutely massive sex a woman massive and to even have this laboratory do what they want they had to bring the soil from up in the highlands to be able to test you know the potatoes in the right environment man can you imagine just having like huge things of you know soil on your back and I don't even know how they would do it those rocks yeah building the saxi woman and the fortresses and carrying all these rocks like I guess all they had was just time you know muscles and muscles we have made it to the stop that I've been most excited for Selena de maras or the mara salt mes this is absolutely massive holy cow [Music] pictures do not do Peru Justice everything is bigger in real [Music] life the mara salt mines date back to pre- Inca times and are made up of multi-level Terraces with thousands of Salt Ponds which are owned by local families and can produce 150 to 200 kilos of salt per month these ponds are fed by by an underground hyp saline spring that originated 110 million years ago during the formation of the Andes mountains and as the water evaporates Under the Sun salt crystals are left behind which are then harvested in three layers the first layer is pink salt the second is white table salt and the third is brown salt for industrial [Music] use I just love the contrast of all the different colors and textures and shapes it's just like a grid out here with all these different geometric shapes fill with water filled with salt and they're all different colors so all next to each other it just looks so cool and then throw in the Epic Mountain backdrop and this is just one of the neatest views I've ever seen I've never seen anything like this we're feeling so lucky right now because apparently you don't always get to see people out here working it just kind of depends on what time you show up and there are quite a few people working so we're going to to see the process in action one of my favorite things about this tour has been traveling between between the different sites and going through the villages and just seeing the daily life and this is another awesome example of [Music] that we got some some chocolates as well as some salt from just over there yeah we couldn't come here and not get some salt and then also some smoked salt which I've never had and and it we got to try some and it's super [Music] tasty get one of these this is amazing got over here we made it down to Udo bambba which is the capital of the Sacred Valley and it's lunchtime we got taken to this awesome buffet restaurant and the buffet is actually my favorite way to eat there are so many choices and it all looks so freaking good that's just one plate yeah that's just one plate we also have this plate and have a salad because vegetables whatever this beef stew is I think I'm in actual heaven right now the plates were getting so heavy cuz I was loading them up and we haven't even gotten dessert yet there's a whole like dessert table two tables coffee haven't even touched that yet M I'm so happy this is the best M you're going to like that one why is it cheesy garlicy cheesy and garlicky yeah [Music] [Music] for our final stop on the tour we're visiting a famous set of ruins in the sacred Valley oo oo comes to be one of the most important side of the Sacred Valley it is not because of its size it is not because of the architecture what we see nowadays there is another reason the conquistadors were stopped over here by the Incas so they couldn't go further on the way to the jungle on that way they couldn't find the sides which are after this in fact oan titano was one of the few times the Incas won a battle against the Spanish and as we explored the ruins we got to see some of the defense mechanism like guard houses and storehouses located high up in the mountains to protect items from enemies but beyond being an important military Center it was also an important Agricultural Center with many Terraces which seemed taller than any we had seen so far big step there are lots of stairs here but it is evident that oan Tio was still under construction before it was abandoned in multiple areas you can see that half of the wall is smooth and Polished while the other parts of the wall are still rough and you can still see knobs on the boulders which would have been used to help the Inca transport them there are so many details like this which we would have never noticed or understood without rosebell like a fun feature on the 10 niches apparently if I stand right here and talk it'll sound different than if I talk in here hello hello hello that's cool hello hello hello or the wall the six monoliths in the temple of the sun which has a faint andian cross on the rock as well as a [Music] puma I can't say it enough how impressive it is the smarts and the Ingenuity the Inca people had to have to build such large structures across such vast distances and they also pick such stunning locations to build all of this in the ruins themselves are so cool to explore on their own but then combine that with the scenery we' had around us a bug just flew in my mouth but [Music] amazing bye thank you thank you yeah thank you bye that was such a fun day trip and I think what I loved the most about it was just the variety of the things that we got to see and experience every spot seemed a little bit different than the previous ones we got to see the textiles the salt mines the ruins different towns and then just that's not gunshots I knew that was going to happen when we were doing that I guess people in Cusco just like love to randomly shoot off fireworks and it sounds like bombs or gunshots which is a little alarming and then you you find out that's not what it is I read that they do it for anything like uh celebrations like you know religious events just whatever we heard early this morning now we're hearing late all hours too yeah it's kind of fun anyways what I was saying is you get to you get to experience a lot of different things and it just made the day a lot of fun and kept it very interesting and I'd highly recommend this day trip if you want to be acclimatizing to the higher altitude and just to get to see more than just Machi picu because everyone that comes to Peru goes to Machu picu but this just gave us the chance to experience more of the area and while it was very busy lots of tourists especially because it was Sunday it still felt like an area that not everyone goes to and we have to give a huge shout out to our guide rosebell we learned so much from him he was so friendly and just so knowledgeable the best yeah he was awesome and then also our driver Fernando that guy is a champion and driving these roads in Peru is just wild I mean we thought Cusco was crazy and it is but then like going out on these mountainous roads there's potholes everywhere there's dogs probably darting in and out and there's all kinds of Stu windy and mountainous and narrow yeah yeah being in a car in Peru is part of the experience that's for sure yeah Fernando was the real MP today but if you want to book this tour we'll put a link to the tour that we booked in the description AB Expeditions offers three different itinerary options to choose from for a day trip to Sacred Valley and we chose option b and what we loved about them is that they keep their group small we did not intend to have a private tour today we did not book a private tour but it ended up being aiv private tour which was super awesome especially when we saw all the other tour groups that were huge it was just really nice to have kind of that one-on-one with the guide and get to ask all of our questions and yeah it worked out awesome but we've made it back to Cusco and tomorrow we're going to be resting up and preparing to hike the Salen tie Tre which is going to take us to Machu picu woo [Music]