Cuzco, ancient capital of the Inca empire. Not just it's capital, but it's very heart. Cuzco was to the Inca what Rome was to the ancient Romans. Everything flowed from Cuzco. As in Rome, all roads led to Cuzco. It's difficult to imagine now what this great city looked like during the days of the Inca. We can only try to picture what the fantastic temples and palaces of Incan Cuzco looked like, before they were knocked down by the Spaniards and covered up by Spanish churches and cathedrals. While the Spanish churches are pretty, they are no different than the Spanish churches that cover the planet, and are an unfair exchange for the massive Incan structures that are now lost for all time.
But enough piling on the Spanish, for now. They said they were sorry.
Our pre-dawn flight featured some nice views of some of the highest parts of the Andes, but I didn't have a window seat, so I missed it. We arrived at our Cuzco hotel, which was very nice. An old Spanish style building with a courtyard that had since been covered by a glass roof. My room had an upstairs. Really. The downstairs was a small living area and the bathroom, and upstairs was the bedroom, with 2 twin beds.
Here's a view inside the hotel courtyard
After a group meeting, most of us opted to visit the nearby cathedral, since admission was free during the early morning. Our hotel was right near the main square of Cuzco, which is the place to be. From the square, it's easy to get yourself familiar with the central part of the city. If you get lost, any cab driver knows how to get you to the main square, for 2 Soles (roughly 65 cents).
Here's a view of the outside of the Cathedral, with the Monastery seen to the right.
More of the square:
It was my belief that after visiting the cathedral, we would return to the hotel to re-equip ourselves before advancing to the local ruins. This turned out not to be the case. So with no water, no sunscreen, and no hat, we hopped a cab to the famous local ruins of Saqsaywaman (affectionately nicknamed "sexy woman", because of the similarity in pronunciation) straight away. Being an anthropologist with a focus in Archeology, I couldn't wait to get to some ruins. It had been the megalithic cultures of central and south America (meso-America) that had gotten me interested in archeology to begin with. The ruins were magnificent. (And these were actually the least impressive ruins I would see during the trip). This site is one of the best examples of Inca megalithic construction, which is famous for having huge, very irregularly shaped stone blocks fitted together with unparalleled precision, with joints to tight to slide a piece of paper between. The masons would, when looking to fit a new block in place, take a plaster cast of the rocks that border the open space, then chisel a stone to fit the casting, transport it to the site, further smooth out the fit, and then place the stone. All without any mortar. One of the main reasons for the wildly irregularly shaped and arranged huge stones is that the unusual shapes increase the structures resistance to earthquakes, which frequent the region. The unusual shapes and arrangements mean that there are few natural lines for fractures to run along. It also allows the walls to flex without losing their shape, and with no stones being able to fall out of place.
Here is an example of High Inca masonry:
The Inca were skilled stone workers, they could easily make all their blocks perfectly square if they wanted to.
Stones curving around a corner:
The massive central green-way, and an example of the famous Inca terracing:
Lindsay in an Inca doorway:
These ruins have an awesome view overlooking Cuzco
Overlooking Cuzco valley:
I'm just gonna shut up and post some more photos with no explanations:
You can see why some fringe thinkers have theorized that these walls were built by aliens:
Jesus, in the name of whom countless millions of Incas were slaughtered, and their culture eradicated. They put up this statue and felt satisfied that their acts were justified:
Here is a mysterious underground chamber that seems to have a throne, and several alcoves of unknown use:
Here we are walking back to Cuzco from the ruins. Steve, Nick and Lindsay are pictured.
During our wanderings at Saqsaywaman, we encountered a lone American traveler named Karrie (sp?). We instantly attached her to our merry band and started treating her as a member of our group. She also saved my scalp. From sunburn, that is. She had an extra hat in her bag that she lent me, seeing as how I was burning to a crisp having not had the chance to apply sunscreen or get my sun hat. My scalp thanks you, Karrie. I noted in my journal that I'd probably never see her again, but I was wrong about that.
Our first night in Cuzco (elevation 3500 meters or so) I began to feel the effects of altitude sickness, combined with mild sun poisoning from my day without sunscreen, also combined with a pretty decent sunburn on my arms and some considerable dehydration. In Cuzco at night, it gets pretty cold. I'd say it gets down to the upper 30's to mid 40's. Also, no buildings in Peru are heated. Not that I saw, at least. That includes the hotels we stayed at. So I enthusiastically climbed under the 3 blankets on my bed in the hotel, and cozily dozed off. However, in the middle of the night, I awoke absolutely roasting. I was unable to sweat due to my dehydration, and was probably mildly feverish. Combine that with the sunburns, and I was completely on fire. My body heat alone had raised the temperature of the upstairs portion of my room by 10 degrees or so, as I noticed when I went downstairs for some water (bottled, of course). So I peeled back 2 of the blankets and went back to sleep.
Our second day in Cuzco was our first with the wonderful kids at the "Children of the Sun" after school center. We arrived and learned about the activities they engage in, including jewelry making, leather working, embroidery, tutoring and school activities. We were encouraged to join in activities where we thought we could contribute. I noticed some musical instruments and perused them for a while. They had a student-sized guitar, but it was essentially completely destroyed. After fiddling with it for a while, and failing to get it to hold a tune (not to mention that it was missing a couple of strings), I asked Anahi if she knew of a place where I might get another student guitar to replace it. She thought it was a great idea, so we set out to check a couple of shops she had heard of. At the first shop, there were nothing but nicer guitars, the cheapest of which was still a little too professional to hand over to kids. At the second shop we found a hand-made bargain, and I bought it for 150 Soles (around 50 bucks). We returned with it and the kids were delighted. We had an impromptu jam session with one of the special needs kids on a floor drum, which he handled quite well. I'm hoping one of the others who got a photo of it will send it to me or post it in a comment, because I didn't get any shots.
(EDIT: Lindsay came through for me with some shots, here's one with the kids and the new guitar:
Here I am with the live-in puppy from the facility, and you can see my sunburn pretty well:
I was still generally groggy from altitude sickness, with a pounding headache and difficulty breathing, so the whole Children of the Sun episode is foggy to me. We ate lunch at an awesome chicken place, and did some shopping, then returned. I was a bit annoyed that in the 3 hours we'd been gone, one of the strings of the new guitar had already been broken. But, such is to be expected with kids. One of the teachers explained later on to the kids that the old, broken guitar may be used as a toy, but the new one is to be treated carefully. Then we joined the kids for recess, and they proceeded to embarrass us all at soccer. I swear, everyone in Peru is better at soccer than anyone I know in America.
After finishing for the day with the kids, Kirk, Victoria, Nick and I stopped on the way back to the hotel to tour Qorikancha; an Inca religious center that had been topped off with a Spanish convent. We hired a tour guide and saw more impressive Inca masonry, and learned a bit more about their religion and their empire. About this time, I noticed later on, my camera started having difficulties focusing. The next day it would quit focusing altogether, which means I have no photos of the kids, and many of my shots of Qorikancha are blurred.
High Inca masonry, perfect alignment, no mortar, earthquake proof, blurrily photographed:
The Spanish buildings are pretty, but have to be rebuilt after every earthquake.
Here in the southern hemisphere, as we would witness during our camping expedition, they have a fantastic view of the Milky Way that includes the galactic center (central bulge) and dramatic dark dust lanes which the Inca saw as shapes of common and significant animals.
Dinner this night featured some wood-fired Peruvian pizza, which was fantastic, and the best guacamole I've had in my life. Mmmm. We were also treated to perhaps the best example of local traditional music I'd heard yet, a group called "Yawar Inti" which apparently means "blood of the sun". I will attach one of their songs to this post (I and several others bought a CD from them, even got them to autograph it. I can tell you from experience, nothing beats autographing something).
The second night I awoke once again over-heated. I still hadn't sweat a drop since coming to Cuzco, so I was having serious worries about my dehydration level. By the morning I felt about the same as I had the day before, but I still got up and went with the group to see the kids. Today my head really hurt, so I don't remember much. I did make a lovely leather bookmark:
It was at this time that my camera stopped functioning at all. So I have no pictures of the kids. I was lucky to coax that picture of my bookmark out of it. After fiddling endlessly, I tried just giving it a good whack, which seemed to do the trick. I still avoided taking excessive pictures for a few days, out of fear that my camera would stop working at a crucial time. Since I was still fighting the mysterious illness, I decided to skip the latter half of the day with the kids, and stayed in the hotel to sleep. It seemed to do the trick, because I awoke sweating, which meant my fever had broken, and my dehydration was giving way. Unfortunately I missed the Pinatas the others had bought for the kids. I hate I missed that. I heard stories. After my nap I headed out, as a precaution, to buy a new camera. After shopping around, I decided against merely getting a backup, and decided to just get one that was just as good or better. I found a nice Canon camera at one shop, and ponied up my credit card to buy it. The store had trouble with their receipt printer, and upon fixing it, had caused my credit card to block activity because they'd tried to run it so many times. So now my credit card can't be used for the rest of the trip. Eek. After this I headed out to a museum to meet up with the others to watch a traditional dance exhibition. I discovered upon arriving that I had forgotten my pass to get into the museum. So I missed it. I was having a very bad day. We all met up later on for dinner at Inka..Fe restaurant, and Karrie joined us! She saved my skin once again. Here's why: She has the exact camera I was trying to buy. As it turns out, the shop was trying to charge me almost double what it was worth. Their technical difficulties saved me from being ripped off! That doesn't change the fact that I still don't have a backup camera, but it made me feel a lot better. Also it turns out that Karrie will be at Machu Picchu the same day as us. That girl just can't get rid of us.
Today I also had company in that John and Amy had also taken ill. At least it wasn't just me...
So off to sleep I went, ready for the next day's adventure, which would bring us to our Home-stay portion of the trip...
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