Cusco - The Inca City

After the Machu Picchu sunrise group returned, we all packed up and had lunch at Inkaterra before taking the train back to Ollantaytambo. From there we boarded our bus for the 2 hour drive into Cusco.

The terrain in the Peruvian highlands is quite diverse, from the Urubamba Valley at 9,000 feet with a lot of farming, to the Cloud Forest of Machu Picchu at 8,000 feet. As you've seen, the cloud forest is very much a tropical forest. We were quite surprised to find a plateau of sorts at about 11,000 feet at the 'top' of the Urubamba Valley as our bus took us closer, and higher, to Cusco. Our scenic photo stop was at 13,500 feet.

The Quechua certainly weren't ones to take chances, so they even had storehouses for grains and corn at the top of the valley.

 

And, of course, there's no such thing as a perfect photo spot without a souvenir shop. This one, though, was a little different:

 

This was the first time we had seen a 'hat tree', and the background was so spectacular, Monica couldn't resist taking the picture.

You wouldn't think that train rides and bus rides would be tiring, but when you have a number of them in close succession, they do become a little monotonous. So we picked up our e-readers and took a bit of a break from the scenic view. We were all feeling the extreme altitude and were very happy to drive down into the city of Cusco (down being the operative word - Cusco is still at 11,150 feet above sea level).

We finally arrived at our hotel, the Monasterio. Monica's Mom and Dad had stayed here about 25 years ago when they went to Machu Picchu, and we had already heard some stories about the hotel as far as the accommodations go. The hotel itself has an interesting history. The original site was a palace for Inca Amaru Qhala, but was quickly turned into the Seminary of San Antonio Abad in 1598 after the Spanish conquered the Quechua and crushed the Inca religion. It had also been a pontifical university, but from 1816 to 1965 it was once again a monastery. In 1965 it was remodeled and became a hotel. Maybe the Pope needed to diversify his holdings or something, since, although the Belmond Hotel chain manages the hotel, it is still owned by the Vatican.

 

Our room. Each one is different. The only problem with
this one is that it only has 1 window, and that has a (fortunately
adjustable) shutter. Now we know why we don't book
inside cabins on cruise ships!

 

The lobby bar

The restaurant. The chef in the back is preparing
desserts.

 

Our full day in Cusco started with a tour that included Qoricancha, the Temple of the Sun and therefore the most important temple in the Inca Empire. There were apparently rooms full of gold and silver in this temple, and many sculptures were used by the priests in rituals to the Sun. One story is that they had a ceremony at the end of every day where the priests 'tied' a golden disc representing the Sun to the Intihuatana Stone, the hitching post of the Sun, to ensure that it returned the next day. There was also an Intihuatana Stone high up in Machu Picchu, where on June 21 the sun's rays hit a disc right below it on the hillside to herald the return of the growing season.

A copy of the 'altar' in the original
temple at Qoricancha. All of the symbols
have a particular meaning for the Quechua.

Of course, once the Spanish showed up, nothing could stay the same, so they built a church on top of it instead. But the Inca/Quechua had the last laugh - at least one of the earthquakes in Cusco over the last few hundred years had destroyed many of the walls the Spanish built, but the original Inca temple structures underneath, many of which were plastered over and painted with frescoes, were still perfectly in place. They have been restored and are now part of a museum attached to the church.

A meeting of 2 architectures - the
Inca at the bottom and the Spanish
in the arch. You can see which one would
hold up the longest.

The Inca temple walls can be seen behind the arches.

Good lord! She WAS here!

 

Our next stop was the temple of Saqsayhuaman, (or as Marcos calls it, Sexy Woman!!) built high above the city. It took 20,000 men over 70 years to build. The area is quite large and the Quechua used both stone walls and natural slopes to enclose it. One word about the building: much of the building style in Cusco, Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu point to one Inca in particular as the architect of these amazing structures. He was the ninth Inca, Pachacutec. He was responsible for creating much of the vastness of the Inca Empire by conquering other tribes and annexing their lands. Features like the trapezoidal windows, precise stonework and smooth finishes of temple walls were part of the building process he introduced. The precision of the stonework is also what makes the temples eternal, able to withstand the worst natural phenomena.

Looking down over Cusco from Saqsayhuaman.  Our hotel
is that white building beside the tip of the third bush from the left.

There are many statues that look similar to the
Christ the Redeemer in Rio. This is
Cusco's version. It is lit up at night
and overlooks the whole city.

You can see the same fitted stonework here as in the other
places. Some of these stones were huge - the good
thing is that they didn't have to come too far.

Natural rock hills with stone walls in front. The opposite sides
of the hills are used by the local kids for sledding, as the
slopes are quite smooth.

 

From Saqsayhuaman, we headed back into the city to visit the Cathedral of Cusco on the Plaza de Armas, or main square. Now, this is a very important time for Cusqueños, since June 21 is the Quechua celebration, and there still many Quechua living in Peru and especially around Cusco, and June 24 is the anniversary of the city itself. As a result, there's a lot going on, and much of it happens around the main square. On June 24 every year, the Inti Raiyma celebration is recreated, where a person depicting the Inca is carried from the centre of Cusco up to Saqsayhuaman, with all the accompanying dancing and rituals. Elizabeth told us that about 3,000 people participate in the celebration.

In this case, there were groups of university students performing dances to depict parts of the Winter Solstice rituals. Performing well is important to these groups, as the one judged to be the best would win 5,000 Peruvian Sol (about US$1,500.00).

We had the rest of the day free, so we had lunch with two other couples from our group at a restaurant in a little courtyard just across from the hotel. Another of the couples stumbled upon the nearest McDonald's and had Big Macs - first time in 20 years, and they tasted great!!

Us with Don, Alan, Margaret and Nancy, just about
to try our desserts

 

A statue of Pachacutec in the Plaza de Armas

 

Colonial style architecture found all around the central
part of Cusco

We didn't go too far afield after lunch. We needed the downtime, so we relaxed in one of the hotel courtyards with our readers. It was once again an early night - we don't think we lasted past 10:00 on any night of this trip, colds notwithstanding.