Cusco - Inca capital

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Cusco is the longest continuously inhabited city in South America. It was the capital of the Inca empire and the seat of the last free Inca before the Spanish disposed of him (speak murdered). One of the literal translations of the word Cusco is "Centre or navel of the world". The city was planned to be shaped like a puma and with a little imagination you can see that. It had four quarters each representing one of the Inca provinces. A road was build from each province to the capital and each province leader had to have a house in Cusco and live in it for a while each year. The city must have been quite impressive and must have had many well build buildings. None of them survived as the Spaniards tried to erase the memory of the Incas. They tore down all the houses and temples and build Spanish style houses instead. Some Inca walls survived as part of the newly constructed houses as they reused the foundations of the original Inca houses and temples.

One example is the Church of Santo Domingo which was build on top of the temple of the sun and moon. Some of the Inca walls are still visible from the outside and some of the original building survived as part of the church. Otherwise you encounter walls in little side streets and it is plainly obvious which ones were build by the Incas and which by the Spaniards. The Inca walls have bigger stones, are fitted neater and look just better. They even resist the earthquakes (which happen here a lot) better than the new walls. An earthquake in 1950 destroyed many building in Cusco but all the Inca walls did resist.

Cusco itself is one of the most pleasant and beautiful cities I have encountered in South America. It is very nice to walk around the narrow streets that go off the Plaza de Armas and explore the city. I’m saying this despite the fact that it is very touristy and walking through Cusco is like rising (I’m guessing here) a child. You have to say no every two minutes. There are quite a few street vendors and beggars but by far the worst are the guys standing in front of the restaurants. Even if you have something to eat in your hand they think it is necessary to ask you if you want to eat something in their restaurant.

One other thing Cusco should be famous for is the ability to extract money from tourists. Staying here and eating doesn’t have to be expensive. You can have everything from a USD 5-200+ room and a USD 2-30+ meal. That’s not the problem. It starts when you want to look at most of the museums and churches (they have a lot of them as usual). The entry fees can eat up quite a bit of money.

I didn’t do too much in Cusco apart from walking in the streets, having a look at some museums and doing a so called city tour. It’s only so called as most of the tour is actually outside of the city. The only part which is inside the city is the highly interesting Church of Santo Domingo which incorporates, as I mentioned before, the walls and some structures of the Inca temple of the sun and moon. The church was build smack bang on top of the temple. I guess they wanted to make a statement with this. Luckily they found some of the old structures useful and just build on top of them. The Incas got their revenge 1950 during an earthquake which heavily damaged the church and other building but left the original Inca houses and walls intact. The government back then was wise enough to not build over the runs again and left them visible as tourist attraction.

Also part of the tour was a visit to the temple or fortress (depends on who you ask) of Sacsayhuaman (tourists love it as it is pronounced sexy woman). This structure represents the head of the puma (remember the puma shape of Cusco). Some of the original walls are gone as it was used as quarry until the early 1900 but most of the outer walls survived. They are impressive enough. Some of the stones used in building the walls weigh up to 160 tons! Not bad for a civilization which never invented the wheel.

If you ever wondered where the gay community got their flag from (and who doesn’t) then I might have an answer. The flag of Cusco looks exactly like the gay flag just in reverse order. Guess someone gay who was interested in archaeology and with a need for a flag went to Cusco a couple of years ago. See the picture in the Machu Picchu blog.

Next stop Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu

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Photos

Cusco, Cuzco, Qosqo, or Qusqu
Whatever you like to call it it’s the famous city in Peru close to Machu Picchu

Placa de Armas with the cathedral and the Franciscan church
When the Franciscans started to build the church they wanted it to be the most beautiful in Cusco. The others who built the cathedral didn’t like that and called upon the pope. As it took nearly a year to send one message from SA to Europe it took a while for the decision to come back. The cathedral won but the Franciscans already finished building their church by then

Cusco from above
View of the Plaza de Armas

Some of the amazing Inca walls
Guess you heard it a thousand times that you couldn’t fit a blade in between the stones. Apart from the question why anyone would want to do that the fact is true. Most of the old Inca buildings were destroyed but some of the foundations were used by the Spaniards and are still visible today and often in a better shape than the more modern walls.

Peruvians love to write stuff on hillsides
And it’s not small too. I think this one was over 50m

Vendors trying to sell their stuff to innocent tourists outside of Sacsayhuaman
To be fair everything is really cheap here.

Church of Santo Domingo from outside
The lower part consist of Inca walls from the temple of the sun and moon