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Published: October 13th 2009
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Originally named Cosco, meaning the "navel or centre of the world", by the Incas when the city was their capital, the city of Cusco today contains a combination of Inca and Spanish architecture. The empire of the Incas extended north to Colombia and south to Chile and Argentina before the Spainards arrived in 1533. The Spanish built on the Inca walls and they followed the lines of the original Inca streets, when they continued to develop the city. The main square of Plaza de Armas was where Francisco Pizzaro claimed the conquest of Cusco and the Spanish added stone arches and other constructions during that period. It is now the tourist centre of town with many hotels, travel clothing stores and agencies nearby.
We visited the main markets, where food was the main focus with sections for fresh fruit and vegetables, good cuts of meat and there was also a section for the left overs of the meat, like the mouth, lips and teeth of cows and there were bulls' testicles hanging freely at each stall. The stench of the cheap cuts of meat was quite overpowering and I had to walk quickly through that section, but it was interesting
to see what they sold and we made purchases of dried fruit and nuts to snack on during our bus trips.
As a tour group, we visited a coca shop, where we sat down to a discussion provided by the owner of the shop about coca uses and its part in culture and drug history. The coca leaf is very important to the culture of the native people and it was originally used only by Inca nobility. Today, people stil use the leaves for example, porters chew it when carrying heavy loads up the Inca trail, and people drink the tea as a digestive aid and to help with altitude sickness. The shop gave us samples of coca chocolate, herby coca chews and freshly brewed coca tea, before the group decided on buying gifts and snacks for the Inca trail. Most people also greedily ate the coca brownies, as we were yet to have lunch, and which were delicious.
There are artesan markets and shops scattered around the city, but the main hub of wares is at the Artesanal Market, a large building housing 3 - 4 lanes of stalls. We only had an hour to spare the
first time that we visited and we barely made our way down one lane. I bought Alpaca (probably synthetic Alpaca) socks and gloves and Dan bought a beanie all in preparation for the cold we were to encounter on the Inca Trail. We will camp at high elevations making it extremely cold over night, so we wanted to be prepared. The markets also sell jewellery, embroidered items, colourful table cloths and place mats and woven textiles, amongst other touristy items.
On the hill nearby is Saqsayhuaman, an inca fort that was captured by the Spainish, which now only consists of ruins. Inca royality had a select style of architecture, where huge rocks where shaped and placed together in a way that walls could be built without any morter. The rocks fit so perfectly together and they are of such a large size, that it is an amazing feat that they could have achieved this. I visited the ruins with some Aussies that I met on our Inca tour and we were all a little disappointed at what we saw. There were no signs describing what we were looking at and as it started to rain we left not long
after we arrived. However, the view of the city below from the location of the ruins was great. We could see Plaza de Armas and other squares around the city.
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