I’d like to thank whoever is praying to the sun gods for us because we’ve been so lucky with our weather. Today in Cusco was another great day for visiting this beautiful and interesting city. The culture and the history are so evident in the old section of the city where we are fortunate enough to be staying.
We had a free day today and our guide, Caty, graciously offered to do an orientation walk around the city she calls home. She obviously has a passion for the city and for the culture and history of “her people”.
Cusco is a city of approximately 500,000 built among the valleys and slopes of the nearby hills. It was the centre of the Incan empire until the Spanish conquered it in the 15th century. When the Spanish took over the city, they built on top of the existing Incan buildings and there is evidence of that throughout the historical part of the city. The Spanish made a point of building their churches on the sites of places that were important to the Incans.
We walked past one of these sites, right around the corner from our hotel, the Temple of the Sun, which became the Santa Dominigo Church. We would come back later in the day to visit it. We walked along many streets and saw the foundation layers were the very obvious expert work of the Inca, with colonial buildings on top. Scotiabank is actually in a nearby colonial building that demonstrated it well and they have various cultural displays throughout the building as well. We zigzagged through narrow streets and Caty pointed out where we could find things we might be interest in buying or seeing.
The below picture is an example of the colonialists building on top of the strong foundations built by the Incas.
Eventually we came to the Plaza de Armas, the main square of the city, where Caty ended her orientation walk. It was particularly chaotic today as there were school children there marching around the square to bands or drums. No one was sure what it was about but it certainly added some colour and the ice cream vendors were doing a great business. In the middle of the square is the 9th King of the Kingdom of Cusco who is reputed to be the best of all of the Kings and is credited with expanding the Empire. There is speculation that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for this King named Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui.
Cara and I did a little shopping and then sat in the square a spell to just soak up the ambiance and then headed for one of the recommended visits, the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin, also known as the Cusco Cathedral right on the main square. It was completed in 1654 and is made up of 3 churches inside and in the main church has an unusual silver alter as well as a room with some stunning silver on display. Of course we found it quite hilarious that there is a picture of the Last Supper that actually looks to show a guinea pig as the supper. Apparently there is an inscription in the cathedral that claims it not to be guinea pig but we don’t believe it. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the cathedral but I bought a couple of postcards and took pictures of them to show you when I can upload pics more easily.
Next it was on to lunch. All around the main square there are shops on the main level and restaurants on the second level, most with small balconies and we chose one of these at the end of the square looking across the square. We had rather tame dishes today, both kind of like stir fries. That rainbow flag has nothing to do with gay pride, but is the flag of Cusco, and the red and white one with an emblem in the middle (which you can’t see) is the flag of Peru.
We then made our way up the hill (hills are still heart-pounding and gasp inducing) to the Inca Museum. There is apparently a better one in Lima, but I won’t have time to visit it since I’m heading straight back up north for my last adventure in the Galapagos Sunday morning. It was really interesting with artifacts laid out nicely and some with English translations. Not knowing exactly what things were didn’t detract from our enjoyment of the items though. Pretty amazing to see the size and decoration of some of the vessels in particular.
We headed back in the direction of our hotel to stop at the Sun Temple. Many sections of it did not allow for photography either so not a lot to show. They seemed to be setting up for some sort of production with lights and sound systems etc. They have unearthed the Incan architecture and show various building techniques such as how they used various notches in the rocks to direct the water through an aqueduct system and how they secured doorways.
We made our way back to the hotel and I even had time for a short nap before we headed out at 5:30 for our only planned activity of the day at the Cusco Planetarium. I’m not a big star gazer, but it was an interesting presentation using a dome to show the various constellations in the northern and Southern Hemispheres and what we know about the heavens today and what the Incas knew about it in their time which was pretty remarkable. Then we went outside where they had two telescopes and some telescoping binoculars aimed at some things in the skies that you can’t see with the naked eye. It was great to get to see some of the rest of the city on the way to and from the planetarium.
Tomorrow we’re back to Lima and the tour ends with our farewell dinner tomorrow night. Then on Saturday I’m back up to Quito to head over to the Galapagos on Sunday. So the adventure just keeps on coming.
Lois' Adventures 