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Published: August 14th 2008
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Cusco was really our biggest introduction to the impact the Spanish had on the Andean people. Cusco, was the thriving heart of the Andean people until the Spanish destroyed it searching for gold, building churches and corrupting the traditional ways and beliefs of the Andean people. Now, what remains requires you to use your imagination to see, for instance the layout of the stones in Sassaywama to look like a paw print or a llama. Or Cusco itself, layed out to form a Jaguar (a sacred animal to the Inca's). Juxtaposed with the stunning alterpieces and artwork inside the Cathedral gives Cusco of today it's unique feel, part Spanish Colonial and part Andean. Despite what appears to be a coordinated effort to wipe out all indiginous traditions, they lived on in the form of symbolism and oral histories because, the Inca's, unlike the Mayans, relyed on oral traditions and did not have a writting system. So many of the traditions were blended with Catholicism and new sytles formed. You can see this most clearly with the Last Supper Painting, where a supposed Cuy (guinea pig although really a chinchilla), sits in the middle of the traditional Last Supper painting with Jesus
and the Apostles. Putting all this aside and looking at Cusco as a modern city, it is breathtaking. It has museums, a unique culture, a culinary experience not to be missed, super day trips and even what I would call the national beer named after it, Cusquena (which had both a light and a dark) and the best Plaza de Armas, I have seen in my travels! Plus, it is the meeting place for those we will be hiking with on the Inca trail. (More on this later). It is a place where the The White Christ looks over the City from on top of a hill, bought by a donation from the Palistinaians after WWII. All in all it is a fascinating place.
Our time in Cusco was spent divided between seeing the various museums, where pictures are not allowed .(I still can't really figure this out, unless it really is to make you buy postcards!), hiking around and shopping, visiting ruins in the Sacred Valley and looking for medication at the farmacia. Did I mention we both got real sick and apparently, there isn't an equivelent of dayquil to fight la gripe (cold) and tos (cough). These
are new words for me in Spanish as I never have had to explain this before. I guess while I am on it, my Spanish improved greatly in the last six weeks, fancy that. And Eric, who will not even usuaully attempt to talk in a foreign language other than to say the top six works (hello, goodbye, please, thank you, yes and no) was actually trying to talk to people. I couldn't believe it! I guess it's lonley after talking to nobody but me for 6 weeks!
Anyway, since Cusco and the Sacred Valley is best seen in pictures, I'll post a bunch to give you an idea of what the feel of Cusco was like
In the Sacred Valley was where we first began to realise the magnitude of the ingenuity and ability of the ancient Inca's
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