We arrived in Cuzco in the early morning on Thursday. It was striking how much more touristy Cuzco was compared to Ayacucho or Lima. It is the base for majority of tourists who come to visit Machu Picchu or explore El Valle Segrado. El Valle Segrado is a valley of the Urubamba river, which was well used by both pre-Inca and Inca civilizations. Many ruins can be found there, along with villages of highland Indians an extensive agriculture terracing.
We have visited the city itself (mostly during our quest for a hotel we would like to stay in for a week) and neighboring ruins, including Sacsayhuaman. It contains beautiful Inca stone-work and provides views of the city. It is said that this place represented a head of a puma, whose body was formed by the city itself.
Next day we took a bus to cross a mountain range and get to the Sacred Valley. We decided to see Moray - an agricultural experimental site. Depression in a mountain caused by an earthquake was discovered to provide great variety of climatic conditions and was just well suited for deriving different strains of corn that could be grown in various areas of the Andes empires. The terraces survived to these days and the site is supposingly still used for experiments. From here it was not very far to the Urubamba river itself and we decided to cross the hills and get there on our own. It was an easy walk with incredible views - both of the mountains across the valley and the valley itself.