Cliff Hanger

Two days touring the Sacred Valley of the Incas earlier this week was an incredible experience.

It´s a cultivated patchwork valley through which the Urubamba river snakes; kilometre-high mountains stretch up on either side.

It´s not hard to see why the Incas considered this valley sacred. Everything grows, everything is beautiful.

There are Inca ruins throughout this whole region and many are in what seems impossibly remote - and high - locations. Our exploration of one such ruin near Pisac became quite an ordeal when hail, spectacular exposure to potential cliff falls and Phoebe completing the walk in her pyjamas, turned a two hour walk into an adventure. In the end it was all fantastic.

The more I learn about the Incas the more they fascinate me. The amazing success and sheer difference of their culture points to what might have been a very different path for the world. As it was they were defeated by Mammon in the form of the Spanish, and in time Mammon became the culture of the world. What might have been ...