Notice that the streets at the market, below, are made by placing actual stones into
the ground in vertical and horizontal rows. The surface makes a practical walkway
but is slightly uncomfortable to walk on.
The marketplace bustles with activity as people arrive by truck, bus, bicycle, mule, ox-cart, or on foot.
Llamas carry loads up to a hundred pounds. Mules carry more.
The Incas' staple crops were potatoes, maize, and quinoa.
More than 200 varieties of potato were cultivated and grown at altitudes up to 3 miles above sea level.
Inca farmers devised a way of freeze-drying potatoes, called Chuno, (above). This method of preserving is
still used to this day in Peru. Freeze-dried, potatoes, could be stored for up to five years without spoiling.
The farmers would set the potatoes out in the freezing night air, defrosting and drying them the
next day in the hot noonday sun. The farmer's wife pressed out the moisture with her feet. This
process was repeated until the potatoes dried into a thick white chunk that looked like plastic foam.
Later when needed the potatoes were soaked in water and cooked.
Dried maize could be stored even longer, but the plants had to be grown at lower elevations
where frost would not kill them. Meat was rarely eaten. If a llama or guinea pig was cooked
for a special occasion, the leftover meat was dried in the sun to preserve it for another time.
It was interesting to learn that the English word "jerky" actually comes from the
Quechua word "charqui". Dried meat is still made and eaten today in Peru.
More Inca ruins can be found past the mountainside terraces above the town. Archaeologists think
there was a fortress here to defend the empire from the fierce Antis (jungle people).
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