PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: The morning after our visit to Ollantaytambo we returned east up the Sacred Valley of the Incas, and I again marveled at the quiet Urubamba River that flowed so gently beside bountiful fields between such rough and stony peaks. With a moderate climate year round and natural defenses, it is easy to see why the Inca's and their descendants have considered it sacred.
All along the road through the valley I admired the neat terracing, "andeneria," that farmers have used here for 1000 years to channel the water, increase the harvest and conserve the soil. Here in Pisac, at the top of the valley, the terraces wrap with special grace up to ritual sites and a fortress that looks south over Pisac and across the Urubamba Valley but that also turns back, northeast through a dark gorge into the Andean jungle.
