ALPACAS!!!!!!!

The first day of going to ruins of Saksaywaman was so much fun. This may be because of the amazing views we got to look at, and the numerous amount of photo ops but it was still an awesome time. It was interesting to see how the rocks of the ruins differed as you went to different parts of the mountains. 

   

bottom of the mountain- terraces 

top of the mountain 

The rocks at the bottom of the mountain were much larger in size than at the top of the mountain. Also,  based on the color and shape of the rocks it is reasonable to believe that they may have come from different quarries. Just looking towards the bottom of the hill in the picture you can see that the rocks on the bottom level are much larger than those of the terrace above. There could be multiple reasons for this. The first seems the most logical, they may not have wanted to lug the bigger rocks up the mountain or were unable to so they made smaller ones that were more maneuverable. Another reason that I contemplated was about protection. If a civilization had a wall made of small stones as their outer most boarder they would be more susceptible to attack as their walls wouldn’t be as strong as the walls made of enormous stones. Also, with the terraces, the bottom most terrace would need to be the strongest because it has to hold strong because if the bottom terrace wall falls then the soil will erode away and there would be a domino effect up the mountain as their ground support would be diminished.  

Back to the idea that these rocks may be from different quarries, besides the fact that their color is different, there shape is a good indicator that the rock isn’t the same. This is because the Inca were very particular about the way their rocks formed together in their architecture. There is a good chance that the rocks towards the top of the hill were made of lesser rock as it probably broke apart more easily. This would keep them from being able to mold the rocks to fit into specific spaces as the stone would break apart to much as they tried. Therefore, the stones seems less smooth and there are more gaps in between the stones. 

This held my interest while we were at the site, that is until we found the pack of alpaca that were roaming across the field. 

boys playing with the alpacas

I’m not quite sure why, but majority of our group was obsessed with the alpacas and followed them around, including me of course. They were so cute!  One of the babies kept running to catch up with its mom and it was one of the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. It makes me almost feel bad about getting an alpaca sweater.