The Inca Capital, now under Spanish management

So, as the previous entry should state we arrived in Cusco really early and had an extra day here almost.
We checked out a load of hostals and settled on the Marani on Carmen Alto (San Blas area) because it had a bath and a massive room. We could only stay one night but we took advantage of the bath and booked in for another 2 nights when they had free rooms again. It also had cable tv which was nice.

Not much else to say for this day, just general admin stuff.

Checking out Cusco
So on Sarah´s birthday I gave her her card and she opened the one from her family which was nice, then we proceded to the new hostal and left for breakfast at a place which had been recommended to us in the main square - the Plaza de Armas. Mama America is nice and good breakfast if you´re ever here.
We then proceded to get very tired looking for a place for Sarah to have her birthday facial. Eventually we found a decent place, but we found out a lot about the Peruvian idea of haridressing and facials. I don´t think they really have them over here - they seemed to want to peel your skin of or something. Didn´t sound too good to me.
While Sarah was being pampered by a butch-looking peruvian woman with terrible skin I went for a walk about and found some Inca stonework down an alleyway. It´s very cool stuff - very painstaking. And once you see it in one place in Cusco you realise that it´s everywhere. Most of the buildings in the centre have inca foundations and the bottom metre or two of the walls are made of inca.

There´s two types - the standard, which is a bit like a more snazzy version of a drystone wall, and the ornamental version (for palaces, temples etc.) which is amazingly intricate, painstaking stuff. Most of the stones have at least 6 angles (the most being about 14!) and you can´t get a knife blade in between the stones. Seriously cool stuff. Pictures probably reside somewhere on this page courtesy of Sarah´s skills. It´s really nice stuff and you have to see it to understand the effort that must have gone into every stone.

A Million people with Junk
Ok, so the other thing about Cusco is that everyone is trying to sell you stuff. Constantly. Postcards, shoeshine, paintings, cigarettes, chocolate, "come in and have breakfast/lunch/dinner/anything at all".
It gets quite tiring pretty quickly.

The popular T-shirt is one bearing the Inka Cola logo (a brand of bubblegum flavoured yellow/red/blue stuff that rots the teeth faster than Coca Cola).
I think one saying "No Gracias" would sell better - just think, one purchase and it prevents so much hassle. Wear an Inca Cola T-shirt and it says "Hi, I´m ready to buy things". Even if you don´t wear one they don´t get discouraged.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway.....

We went for dinner in the Inka Grill restaurant on the main plaza that evening and had a very nice meal. Post that, we went to the Irish pub and had Irish coffees.

Sacsayhuaman and the search for Zipoffs
Thirsty for Inca ruins we went to a recommended one just outside Cusco. Climb the hill towards Jesus - (keep him on the right), and at the top you get to Sacsayhuaman (pron like sexy woman).
Amazing ruins that have zigzag walls in 3 tiers - some of the stones weigh in at over 150 tons. And these are the ceremonial ones like I mentioned above. Seriously impressive and so well preserved.

Some people say they are meant to be the teeth of the Puma (Cusco is the shape of a Puma) but they are obviously stupid people because if you look at it top-down the teeth are on the top of the Puma´s head. I know the Incas were a bit weird with their skull trepanation (look it up) and head deformation but they weren´t stupid.
The theory is that the zigzags represent lightning bolts (they worshipped all sorts of natural phenomena) becuase the whole site was a temple not a fortress as some will have you believe.
Anyway, look at the pictures - it´s really cool.

After that we walked up the road to the site of Q´enquo (pron Kenko) which was a small site mainly used for astronomical observations. Not much to say here really, apart from that the Incas had worked out the solstices and equinoxes as can be proved by a funny-shaped stone.
Oh, and I poured water down one of the carved wiggly things. That was cool.

There was a parade in the main square later on - see pictures, and we finished the search for zipoffs succesfully. We also visited the poo-smelling Corekancha museum which was rubbish.

Pisaq - cooler than Macchu Picchu
We went to Pisaq on Sunday and spent all day there. I found the King and Queen´s room and we had loads of fun checking out all the mountainside ruins and the crazy paths that link them all. See the pictures - but you have to go there and spend the day to get any idea of how amazing a site it is.

Monday
Shopping, internet, Cathedral (vile gold and silver things built of destroyed inca temples and stolen inca gold). Don´t bother unless you have no sense of taste.

Tuesday
Shopping for Inca Trail and weblogging.

Next.... the Inca Trail

---

---