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Published: August 18th 2005
On Friday night I met up with Alex in Cuzco, to go and listen to a traditional Peruvian concert. Some of the singing was in Quechua (the Inca language), and there were some interesting instruments, including charangos and what I can only describe as 'coiled snake horns'.
On Saturday I bought a 'bolletto touristico', (a ticket that gets you into all the main tourist attractions in the Sacred Valley), and set out to explore the four main Inca sites near Cuzco. I caught a Pisaq-bound bus out to the furthest ruins ´Tambo machay' (ceremonial baths), and walked back to Cuzco, stopping at the other ruins on the way.
The second site 'Puca Pucara' is a small hilltop complex. On my way down to the third site 'Qenko' I met some fellow gringos, and we set out to find the 'temple of the moon' (slightly off the beaten track). This cave-temple was primarily used for the sacrifice of Llamas. Qenko was a really interesting place. It was basically a very large rock, with an underground chamber (complete with altar), and various carvings in its top (including a zig-zag like channel for pouring the blood of more sacrificed Llamas). The last
site was ´Sacsayhuaman´(pronounced 'saxywowman'). This is a massive hilltop fort overlooking Cuzco city. This was the stronghold that 'Manco Inca' used to launch his revolt against the Spanish conquest; he was defeated by the Spanish however and retreated to the fort at Ollantaytambo. The stones used in the construction of Sacsayhuaman are massive (the largest weighing in at over 300 tonnes!).
I was stunned by the perfectness of the Inca stonework... you can see from the photos, each individual stone fits perfectly, pretty incredible... especially when you consider the stones have to interface perfectly in 3D as well as on the exposed surface!
That evening myself and Alex went to a fiesta in Cuzco, up the hill from the Plaza. The fireworks display was pretty interesting. They´d constructed huge bamboo towers and covered them with Katherine-wheels and roman candles. Other entertainments consisted of kids running around with roman candle clad frames.
On Sunday I looked around a couple of Museums in Cuzco and then went to explore the Inca ruins at Pisaq. This site is absolutely huge, and has various clusters of Inca ruins surrounded by huge areas of wave-like terracing. The stone-work in the temples of
Pisaq is by far the most immaculate I´ve seen yet. It was quite trek to get up to the site, but definitely well worth it, I could have spent a whole day there easily.
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Dad
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Wow
Wow Tom, That seems to have been quite a place you went to. Do you see any common strands across the continents at these ancient places ..any echoes of fogues? burial mounds etc? keep up the blog ..better than the telly! Dad