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Woman weaving at the hunting lodge We arrived in Cuzco just before midday and looked for a hostel. We thought we had found a very pleasent place at the right price until the man explained the advertised price was in dollars not soles! We eventually found a hostel within our budget, a run-down converted colonial casa. We have stayed in quite a few colonial buildings some better maintained than others.
I can honestly say I am getting to like them. The facia of the building is generally just a large arched split door - no windows. This door leads to a lobby and central courtyard from which all the rooms are accessed. There is a balcony that runs all the way round the first floor. The balcony is generally a darkwood providing a theme for all the woodwork in the building. More often than not the proprietor fits a plastic roof over the courtyard to allow it to be used as a communal area in all weathers but this just makes the courtyard a greenhouse as well as keeping in the noise, not to mention ruining the aesthetics.
We put our gear in the room and went out to discover the city. Cuzco is high
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Tas with the stolen walls up in the Andes and is quite hilly so our discovery was slow and breathless at times. The city was the centre of the Inca Empire sitting bang square in the middle of the 4 quadrants. As you can imagine the place is steeped in history and the Incas built many fantastic buildings here. When the Spanish came however, they did not marvel at these buildings, instead they pulled them all down and not to be outdone used the stones as the foundations for their own beautiful buildings. Amongst these are churches, cathedrals and many houses as described earlier.
We had only been walking for a couple of hours when the thin air and previous nights bus journey took their toll on us, we were in bed and fast asleep by 7pm.
As mentioned previously we were hoping to get on the Inca trail but it never worked out. Machu Picchu can be accessed via Cuzco so we were up sharp to book our train tickets so this time we would not lose out. Tickets booked for the next day and quite pleased we were definately going to see Machi Picchu we continued with our tour of the
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Tas propping up Sacsayhuamán city. Our tour took us to many more churches and pretty buildings most with foundations clearly of Inca masonary. We also visited a few museums one of which was the house of la Vega who was the son of a Spanish conquestador and an Inca Princess and was responsible for documenting lots of Inca history. The house was a showpiece of colonial architecture and was quite beautiful, lots of dark wood that contrasted starkly with the bright flowers in the (uncovered) courtyard. To top the day off we found a Govindas - quality vegetarian fare at a price that´s right.
The next day we were up in the 5s in order to get to Machu Picchu but Tas will tell you all about that...
The day after returning from Machu Picchu we continued our tour of this historic city but this time it had a shopping theme. We vistited many craft markets and saw more alpaca than you can shake a llama at. I invested in a poncho, antique the lady said but she meant second hand, it still had a dinner badge from Jorge Rodriguez's last rice and beans on it.
The next day we
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Noel eating a massive stotty vistited some Inca ruins in the Cuzco area, a ceremonial bathing area, a hunting lodge/guard post, a sacricial alter - with carved channels for blood - and a huge fortress which overlooked Cuzco city. I may be wrong and I am quite happy to be corrected if any of you readers know better, but from what I have learned the Incas are not all they are cracked up to be. The Inca 'Empire'was a small area of the Andes in a vast continent. Little force was needed to create this empire because the people lived quite simply and were years behind Europe. When the Incas did come up against violence they ceased expanding to the south. The Incas were famed for promoting trade throughout the various tribes in their Empire, but trade was already taking place. Food native to the west of the Andes has been found in the East and vice versa, all the Incas did was control trade effectively the customs and excise of the Andes.
The Inca Architecture was nothing to write home about either. Machu Picchu was quite stunning but mainly because of the way it is purched on top of a steep terraced hill.
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Traditionally dressed Andeans The terraces which the Chinese had been using for 1000s of years previously were just as impressive if not more so than all the plain square buildings. The first ruin we visited, the ceremonial bathing area at Tambo Machay was essentially a series of stones that funneled cold mountain water. 1500 years earlier the Romans were building bath houses with heated water. The hunting lodge was a simple of series of buildings on a hill impressive because of the views from it rather than the buildings themselves. The sacrificial alter was very impressive with its ornate carved niches that funneled blood from the top to the bottom, but it was constructed in the 16th century - get with the times. The last ruin was a fort where a few thousand Inca warriors made their last stand against the Spanish. You would imagine a few thousand Inca warriors in a fort would take some beating, apparently not. It was a force of 50 Spanish that did the job. I appreciate that the Spanish would have had guns but with those sort of odds even the simpliest of half arsed plans would have resulted in success for the Incas.
All in all I have a lot more respect for the accomplishments of the individual tribes - the pyramid cities of the Lambayaque culture, the farming methods of the Aymara, the religious importance of Pachamama to the Tiahuanaco etc. I am not saying the Incas did nothing to prgoress society in South America but the Monty Python ´What have the Romans ever done for us' sketch wouldn´t have been as funny if transported to the Andean culture .
We spent a few more days in Cuzco some of which was spent looking for somewhere to live on our return. God bless the internet for allowing us to look for houses to rent in Hitchin while drinking Inca Cola in an internet cafe in Peru. We are returning in 4 weeks and thoughts of home are becoming more and more frequent.
Other highlights of Cuzco include:
- A vistit to a textile museum where we watched women weaving and learned the importance of Alpaca to the region
- A kebab shop selling Falafel and hummus
- A dairy shop selling warm peanut butter flavoured milk
- Wedding planning, we are getting more excited now that the event is getting closer
- Buying a massive stotty cake which we thought was only available in the North East of England.
I liked Cuzco it is a beautiful city along the lines of York but it was time to leave - heading south to Arequipa.
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