Inti Raymi

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June 26th 2006

Published: June 27th 2006

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Helan

Astronaut

Nazca lines

Saludos a todos,

I've now been in Cusco for over a week. I finally met up with Henrique and Leo on Wednesday night after Henrique checked his emails. So that was really nice. He left this morning to fly to Lima and then flies home to Brasil tomorrow, so am on my own again.

This week in Cusco has been quite exciting. Lots of street parties and dancing and drunkenness, leading up to 24th, Inti Raymi, the winter solstice- when we watched a theatrical performance imitating the Inca celebrations. Lots of young virgens (supposedly) and priests and the Inca King who pray in Quechua to the Sun God and make sacrifices to him too. The main day was Saturday and the performance started about 9am in a square called oh I can't remember...Koricancha I think- where 4 Inca armies from different parts of Peru gather and there's lots of music and the young virgens all march out and throw flowers for the Inca King to walk over. The priests shout prayers and then the Inca King comes out and yells stuff too. After that we walked up to Sacsayhuaman which is a hill over Cusco where all the ceremonies

Nazcan Cemetary

All the mummies

took place back in the day of las Incas. This festival was banned by the Spanish conquistadores until 1944 when some guys thought it'd be a good tourist venture to reinact it. Since then it's been Cusco's biggest festival nearly every year.

It was quite funny; there we were up in Sacsayhuaman waiting for all the entourage to arrive (after the displays in Koricancha we walked directly up to Sacsayhuaman to get a good viewing spot and the theatre thingy moved into Plaza de Armas for more dancing and the like), and lots of kiddies running about and disorganisation- anyway eventually it all came into place and things were going smoothly until it started raining in the middle of the Inca king's speech looking for the sun. Ha ha. Clever Helan had thought to bring her waterproof trews though and a poncho so I was grand. We didn't stay too much longer as we were hungry and it all looked the same (does that sound v uncultured of me?) and also we wanted to watch the rest of Argentina-Mexico. Well done Arg and hard luck to my Mexicanos. Henrique bought a whole roasted guinea-pig from an old hag who

Water Pipe

Totally drug free!

picked it out of a potato sack and ate the whole thing and then was sick for the next day, ha ha. Disgusting.

Um, yeah so I've been here for a week now and not done all that much culturally-speaking. Just watching lots of dancing and bands, and the rest of the time I spent in my hotel room watching the world cup. Just leaving the room to go and eat... Yesterday I watched a sort of recap of the week's events here in Cusco where it portrayed all sorts of lovely dancing and fireworks and then scenes of debauchery afterwards. Seven men lining up in a row against one of the old Inca city walls and peeing, then drunken people falling all over the place and then the main square just covered in about 5 inches of litter! The tv presenter was really angry and telling the Cusceños that they've no shame and it's terrible and what photos do the tourists take home with them! Quite funny really, but I can see his point. Actually two nights ago we were walking down a street and between two cars there was this local woman squatting and peeing all over

Pelicans

And other birds in Paracas

the place. We went back later and there was a human turd aswell!! Amazing...

Cusco is a really pretty city- loads of architectural masterpieces and lots to see and do. It's extremely touristy though- everywhere sells ugh artesania, why do I hate that word so much? Oh now they're playing Bob Dylan, fantastic. "You've got a hum dee dum", can't remember the words

Tomorrow evening I'm getting a bus to a place called Ollantaytambo and from there I get a train to Aguas Calientes which is close to Machu Picchu. So I'm finally going to see the famous ruinas. Should be back on 29th about midday.

Have just put on the photos, but mixed them up a bit, sorry!

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