Mountains and Plains

I didn't start seriously looking at the photos that I shot of Peru until the day after we returned home.

Of course, during the trip, I had shared lots of the photos that I had captured on my smartphone. It was easy to add them to a blog post or to share on my social media platform. But the images that I captured with my D-SLR would take more time than I had while we were travelling.

There were one or two shots that I downloaded from my Nikon D750 to my phone, but I found that at the end of each day, I was just too tired to look at the images on the small screens that the back of the camera and my smartphone offered. It was best, I told myself, to wait until I got home to see what I captured.

Of course, when I got home, I realized that I had shot more than 1,240 photos and it was going to take some time to get through all of them. I want to have them all by the end of today, so that I have the weekend to get some chores done and to hopefully get out in my new kayak.

Plus, on Monday, I'd like to get back to working on my novel.

On our first full day in Ollantaytambo, DW, the kids, and I took a collectivo (community bus) to the nearest town, Urubamba, where we hired a taxi driver for a few hours to explore the Sacred Valley, which includes the pre-Incan salt mines of Maras, and the Incan archeological site at Moray. Both are must-see sites if you ever find yourself in this part of Peru.

As we headed to these historic places, our driver pointed out a small building and explained, in Spanish, that this was a good spot for buying Peruvian chocolate and salt, and asked if we would like to stop. DW, who studied Spanish in university, was able to understand and said yes, but after we had visited the sites.

It was a very good place, as a representative inside spoke English and was able to explain the processes for making chocolate and showing the various types of salt that were obtained from Maras. She also had samples of the popular drinks derived from yellow and purple corn. We had had a few glasses of chicha morada, made from the purple corn, but had never tried the yellow-corn beverage, chicha de jora, which is fermented.

Both were tasty.

We bought several varieties of both salt and chocolate, taking care that we didn't buy more than would fit in our backpacks. The stop was a great recommendation from our driver.

Before we piled back into the taxi, I couldn't help but marvel at the beautiful scenery around us. Across the dirt road from this shop, a colourful, flat plain led to the rugged mountains of the Andes. Between two peaks, ominous clouds let rain obscure the further peaks, beyond.

Sun was shining on the plains, creating a stark contrast between the foreground and background, and I had to capture it before the light changed.

So far, this photo is among my favourite of the trip. If I lived there, I would never tire of that view.

Happy Friday!