A holiday today in the US. It’s Martin Luther King day. Here’s a continuing look at the market place in Pisaq below Cuzco. Pisaq is a wonderful spot to stop and recharge before heading deeper into the Sacred Valley and to Machu Picchu. It sits in a valley, and is surrounded by the Pisaq Archeological Park. It’s a stiff upwards hike…
Hope everyone is enjoying the summer. The temperatures have been as high as 115 degrees in Northwest Arizona where we live. Humidity is low, as low as 4% sometimes, so it just feels like a blast furnace rather than the drippy rainforest kinda feeling.
Thanks to the wonders of straw bale & its’ insulating qualities, we’ve managed to be completely comfortable in “the jail” as Yrma calls it.
In Peru, it’s winter and the days are shorter; sometimes nights are cooler and more comfortable as the Winds of St. John blow up from the south.
Here’s a vendor of fresh empanadas in the market town of Pisaq, below Cuzco in the Sacred Valley.
Published on Tuesday, December 30, 2014 Inter Press Service
PISAC, Peru (IPS)—In this town in Peru’s highlands over 3,000 metres above sea level, in the mountains surrounding the Sacred Valley of the Incas, the Quechua Indians who have lived here since time immemorial are worried about threats to their potato crops from alterations in rainfall patterns and temperatures.
“The families’ food security is definitely at risk,” agricultural technician Lino Loayza told IPS. “The rainy season started in September, and the fields should be green, but it has only rained two or three days, and we’re really worried about the effects of the heat.”
If the drought stretches on, as expected, “we won’t have a good harvest next year,” said Loayza, who is head of the Parque de la Papa or Potato Park, a biocultural conservation unit created to safeguard native crops in the rural municipality of Pisac in the southeastern department or region of Cuzco.
Continue reading Climate Change Threatens Quechua and Their Crops in Peru’s Andes
