Village life is still very much at the mercy of the old Inca gods who control the elements and are worshipped parallel with the Catholic teachings brought by the Spaniards in the 16th century. Nowhere can we see this more clearly than at the Pisac market. At a time when the Peruvian economy is just coming out of many years of deep crisis and the political situation in Lima has, for some time, been close to explosive, one has to look at the Sunday market at Pisac to appreciate that it is here that the true strength of Peru is to be found. One finds it in the Inca-Indian villager who manages to live through all this turmoil with little of its effect rubbing off on him and his subsistence lifestyle. One finds it also in the canny Cusco trader who pretends to turn villager for the day to extract what foreign exchange he can from the unsuspecting tourist, thus keeping his own little business afloat.
Markets are possibly the clearest way to gain a true perspective of the lifestyle of any country.
The next day it was time to explore Machu Picchu. Since the discovery of this lost city of Machupicchu in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an American, visitors have flocked this alien city like bees coverging unto a hive in order to have their blithe view of this celestial-looked city. Built in Spain and assembled in Lima in 1985, this train is the most modern we have seen in Peru. It must surely provide one of the greatest rail journeys in the world. Unlike most other South American trains, departure is right on time and within minutes of leaving the station, the climb out of the valley begins.