Nate and Kara Buchanan visit Pisac, Peru, where they watch empanadas bake in a 100-year-old community oven and learn that locals grow 325 varieties of tubers, some edible after being dried for over a century.
May 22, 2017.
Approximately 325 types.
Over 100 years (can be rehydrated after ~100 years).
Around 1438–1440.
Used communally to roast guinea pig, chicken, lamb, and bake—operating non-stop, 24 hours.
Perfecto. Gracias.
That man is proud of his oven.
We're about to get a demonstration of how they make mud bricks to build their houses.
This material is amazing material to build houses. Yeah, it can last forever, but it's just mud and grass piece and mud. That's all.
Money.
Wow.
There you have.
Normally the job he's doing is for girls. The girls do that and the boys are going to, you know, hit the, the clock.
Anybody would like to try?
Yeah, I want to try.
To use the traditional foot plow. I don't think I embarrassed myself.
Is it harder than it looks?
You know, it wasn't. Well, I did it twice. I can only imagine doing it a thousand times, how tired you would be trying to have your hand and your foot besides each other for like an hour. So they have to use the foot plows because they can't get tractors and they can't get oxen up here to plow their fields. So the foot plow is still today, the only way for them to plow.
So they grow 325 different types of tuberoos, which is kind of like a root or a potato just in this tiny little square. So they pulled out a bunch of different kinds. They were all totally different right next to each other.
It's crazy.
Now there is a lot of rain coming down the valley that we can see. So we're going to try to hurry this up and get back in the day.
The most interesting thing that we've learned about the tubers is that some of them can be dehydrated and they found them in graves. And 100 years later you can put them in water and soak them overnight and then you can cook them and eat them. So they last for over 100 years. So there was an option for a two hour hike down to the next place that we're going, but it's pouring rain so we've opted to run ride in the car because it's really cold and wet. You think we made a good decision? Great decision.
So we drove about 30 minutes down the mountain to the town of Pisac and now we are going to see some Incan ruins. Still raining a little bit though.
14. 1438, 1440. No, the. The time when they started to make this big complex. Inca complex. Okay.
What you're gonna see in Machu piston, it's a beautiful shaped, well shaped rock joined with another rock without any mortar. Yeah, that's called Imperial Inca style. Yeah, it's a fine stone working, very beautiful. So they use water canals to bring the water from the river. There is a river over there along aqueduct, bringing the water to the water fountains and then the water is going to run underneath to come supply water to the other neighborhoods.
After we explored Pisac, we drove down the mountain just a little bit to this local market and we get about a half hour to walk around here before we go to our.
The oldest, biggest oven in this community. Cool.
The local b. Gracias.
Wow.
Yeah. We're about to eat some bread.
Cheese, tomatoes. I've got it right here.
Is there a history behind this oven?
After the Spaniards came here, it's a communal oven because these ovens were used by the neighbors to bring all the things.
Guinea pig, chicken, lamb, whatever they want to roast. This is non stop, 24 hours.
So we're walking through the market and we smelt this delicious smell. And we looked like through this little alleyway and there was a huge communal oven with this man cooking delicious empanadas. So we bought one. Cheese, tomato, fantastic and onion.
So behind me is the Sunday market. All of this like touristy stuff is here every day of the week. But on Sunday, the locals come down from the hills and they sell their vegetables and I was going to say fruits, but I'm not sure if fruits grow here. So it's cool that we made it here on a Sunday.
We just got to our first lunch. Oh, our purchase we got matching R. It's a cool bag.
The show is huge.
Wow.
The bed is huge. Look at our oh my gosh, mountain lodges of Peru. You have really outdone yourself with this one.
So we debated like, how we wanted to get to Machu Picchu. We kind of wanted to walk and stay intense and like do it the hard way. I'm not regretting this decision at all. The room's amazing. This courtyard is amazing. And there's a hot tub right behind us that we're about to go get.
Very glad we're not in a wet, cold tent.
So it's about 6 o'. Clock. The sun is setting. It's getting pretty dark. Colors aren't that great. So we'll show you around this place in the morning.
He broke the footpath. He broke the.
It's a thousand years old.
Needs repair. I'm sure there's a shop that repairs this stuff.
