Blooming Beauties at Puka Pukara

Flowers were popping up all over the ruins.  Take a look at a few of them…

Spot of Color

I think these flowers are in the daisy family.  I really liked the contrast between the roughness of the stones of the ruins and the gentleness of the flowers.

Delicate Violets

Here are some delicate looking violets growing wild along the base of the ruin walls.  Again, such delicate beauty among such rough ruins.

Perfect

Here’s another daisy image, from a ground level perspective!

Enjoy!

 

Landscape Around Puka Pukara Ruins

The landscape around the Puka Pukara ruins was quite lush, as I mentioned in a previous posting.  I thought I’d share a few images so you can see better for yourself!

Countryside

The countryside around the ruins is currently being farmed.  Altho you can’t see it in this image, often they use terracing.  There is natural terracing, altho the farmers have tended to enhance the natural terracing to make it better for their crops.

Andes Landscape

In this image, you can see a bit of the natural terracing in the lower right corner.  This image also gives you an idea of how pretty the landscape is here in the Andes Mountains.  I found it very interesting that the Andes are still growing at the rate of about 8/10 of an inch per year, except when there’s activity along the San Andreas Fault (in California).  When that activity occurs, then the Andes “growth spurt” can be several inches.

Alpaca Grazing

As we were leaving this ruin, I noticed this alpaca grazing in a meadow.  It looked so peaceful and calm – perfect ending for this post!  Stay tuned for some blooming beauties in the next post1

Enjoy!

 

 

The Ruins at Puka Pukara (near Cusco)

The day after we arrived at Cusco, Peru, we went on a tour of the area surrounding the city to check out some ruins that are relatively close to the city.  Interestingly, in the times of the Inca’s, they would built one of these areas every 20 miles or so to allow their armies or supply lines to have a safe place to rest at the end of each day.  Today, they are only about 20 minutes or so from the city!

Puka Pukara Ruins

This was our first view of the ruins and I was struck by how beautiful the rocks of the remaining ruins looked against the lush green of the surrounding landscape.

Puka Pukara Ruin Wall

One of the most amazing thing about the ruins was that when the Incas built them, they did not use any metal tools, so the rocks were formed by pounding on them with other rocks.  When you look at how close the rocks fit into each other, it’s almost unbelievable.

Thru the Window

I love the look of this image – the detail of the rocks, how the window frames a scene within the photo, hills (mountains?) in the background, just everything1

A Walk Thru the Ruins

In this image, I wanted to capture how well planned the “rooms” in this structure were.  Quite amazing, considering that this was built prior to 1536AD, when the Incas ceased to exist (they were conquered by the Spanish).

Outline of Foundations

Here’s another look at the foundations of the various rooms within the ruins.  You can still get an idea of how well-planned out things were.

Looking Down on the Ruins

I thought this was another good view of the overall layout of the ruins.  The organization of it is really cool, I think.  More to come!

Enjoy!