Cuzco Inka Tour

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September 4th 2005

Published: September 13th 2005

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jonovision

Big rocks

Retaining walls of Saqsaywaman, made of HUGE boulders.

Today was our pre-booked tour of a few notable archaeological sites in Cuzco and surrounding area. With our second full day in Cuzco, we had a choice of either touring sites in the sacred valley, or sites around the city. I had a slight preference for the sacred valley, mostly for the scenery, but we got a few glimpses on our way to MachuPicchu, so I relented to Mike's desire to see the sites around town, including Saqsaywaman, the old Inka fortress that he wanted to see. We booked the tour during our first day in town, with a small tourist office off the Plaza de Armas, where the staff approached us outside (a common occurrence in Peru). On the same day, we also purchased our “Bolleto touristico del Cusco” from the tourist information office (student rate), which is closed on Sundays.

Before the Tour

The city tour wasn't scheduled to start until about 2 PM, so we had lots of time to sleep in (yay!), visit the market for cheaper souvenirs than MachuPicchu, and a great lunch at the Witches' Garden (listed in Lonely Planet, and one of the best meals we had in Peru.

We were

Andean Dress

Some ladies in traditional Andean costume carrying baby llamas. People like this are all over the city and are constantly asking you to take their picture ... for a small price.

somewhat surprised when entering the Plaza de Armas for the first time today by what looked like a military parade. Apparently, there is a large ceremony every sunday, where the Peru and Cuzco flags are raised, with an accompanying procession of various military divisions, as well as lawyers, school bands, and other miscellaneous displays of nationalism. It was somewhat disconcerting walking past rows of guards with machine guns and machetes, but I'll pretend nothing was loaded ;-)

I will also take this opportunty to briefly describe the hostal we booked for Cuzco: it's called the Hostal Qorichaska. The Lonely Planet describes it like “entering a secret society”, which intrigued me. Basically, once you go through the main heavy doors on the street, there is a gate at the far end of a short hallway, which gets you into the central courtyard of the colonial-style building that is the hostal. The room was not heated, but the 5 blankets helped to compensate, and there were hot showers, even during our 5 AM wak-up the morning of Machupicchu. The staff is quite friendly, and the price very reasonable. The main courtyard is a great place to hang out in relative security.

Plaza de Armas, Cuzco

They have rooms with private showers, too :-D

Cuzco tour

The tour included a few inka ruins within and near Cuzco city:

Qorikancha
Main Catholic Cathedral
Saqsaywaman
Q'enqo
Pukapukara
Tambomachay

BTW, if you're wondering why the spelling of some of these places is inconsistent, that's because the spelling of Inka names is undergoing something of a cultural revival. The Inka culture (aka Quchua) didn't have a written language, and many names were first spelled by archaeologists and the like, but with the cultural revival, many of the names are changing. For example, Cs are being replaced by Ks ('Inka' is now politically correct, while 'Inca' is out of date), and Ss with Zs (Cuzco vs. Cusco).

Qorikancha

We actually visited this on our first day, since it's so close to downtown Cuzcu. But, it was interesting to get a different point of view from a new tour guide. Our guide for the day was an older woman named, ironically enough, “America”. I'm sure this appealed to the American tourists in the group. America was quite fond of telling us to “observe the perfection of the inkas”, when talking about the stonework in the buildings.

Mixed Walls

The extremely regular, trapezoidal bricks are original Inka walls, mixed with colonial brickwork (using mortar) and topped with colonial plaster-covered walls.

Inka stonework I pretty darn impressive, since they managed to constuct trapazoidal-shaped building using only large stones, and no mortar whatsoever: they cut the pieces to fit together somewhat like a giant puzzle (or a game of 3D-Tetris). This technique took years to construct buildings, which were also highly earthquake-resistant.

FYI, Qorikancha itself was originally a religious Inka site dedicated to the worsp of the sun, moon and other astrological phenomena. When the Spanish finally bothered to come to this inland city and suppress the dominant culture, they built a church over all the inka buildings, destroying the sun temple itself in the process, and covering all the inka stonework with colonial plaster. The church of Santo Domingo now covers many of the inka buildings, which have been “restored”; the plaster was removed from the inka stonework, damaging the surfaces in the process. Unfortunately, the process used by the Inkas to construct the buildings with interlocking stone pieces is also extremely difficult to repair, or restore, so a few areas in the surviving Inka buildings are obviously reconstructions, with cement used to hold the stones together.

All around Cuzco city, there is evidence of original Inka walls, with

Cathedral, Plaza de Armas

colonial construction above and around it. It's easy to spot, too: no mortar between the stones, and it has a characteristic rounded surface on all the stones, kind of like interlocking bubble-wrap. Just be careful when walking down the original narrow Inka streets in the dark: it can be very easy to get surrounded and trapped by thieves and other ne'er-do-wells, as we were warned by our tour guide.

The Spanish also could not believe the amount of gold used to decorate the site, including gold statues of people, flora, and fauna in the “Garden of the Sun” on the terraces outside the walls of Qorikancha. According to our sources, gold was not necessarily a precious metal to the Inkas, but it held deep religious significance, due to its resemblance to the sun. At any rate, it was all melted down by the Spanish and brought back to Spain. Not surprisingly, there's quite a but of resentment about the Spanish occupation of the original cities.

Cuzco city was hit by at least 2 earthquakes, including one in the 1650s (?), which destroyed 80% of the city's buildings, including the church of Santo Domingo, but most of the Inka

Military procession in front of Cathedral

Part of the weekly flag-raising ceremony in Cuzco.

stonework survived quite well, with only a few small cracks and displaced stones.

Cathedral

This HUGE catholic cathedral is right on Plaza de Armas. Apparently, the presiding Bishop is a bit more assertive about the church's independence from the city than his predecessors. The Cathedral is no longer a part of the regular tour, and we had to pay extra for admission. There are also rumours that the bishop wants to put a metal fence around the steps up to the church, which is currently a significant public gathering place. The mayor is not too happy about this development. As is reflected in the opulent decoration and displays within the church, it's all about POWER.

Yeah, so no pictures are allowed within the church, but there's a lot to see. If you're into any of the following, you'll enjoy wandering through the church: Catholicism, art, gold, silver, wood carving, etc. There are also several examples of the Cuzquenia school of art, which started about the time the church was built and the Spanish were trying to oppress the native culture: the art is recognizably colonial, but with andean symbology and styles woven into it. The choir chairs,

Peruvian Military

for example, featured symbols of the Andean fertility goddess on all the arms (a really pregnant woman with breasts exposed), although the swirling decoration where the feet should be might have meant that the artists passed them off as mermaids.

Mike kept being reminded of discussions of power while looking at all the ridiculously huge and ornate displays of wealth. Although the two chapels on either side of the main cathedral were destroyed during the earthquake mentioned above, the central portion was not, and the local belief is that the jesus figure blessed the cathedral and protected it. As the story goes, that particular figure was placed out in front of the church at the moment the tremors ceased. This figure is now known as “the lord of the earthquakes”.

Saqsaywaman

Pronounced like “Sexy Woman”, but different. This site was originally an Inka gathering place, featuring retaining walls made of massive boulders and a big central courtyard. When the Spanish began their conquest of the Inkas, this site became a fortress used by the Inkas to fight the Spanish. It's not in as good shape as sites like Machupicchu, but still worth the visit. It occupies a

Flag-raising ceremony

Every Sunday, the city shows up and shows off while the national and city flags are hoisted up the poles.

rather large area with a few hills and will take a while to explore fully. I got a little distracted by the great panoramic view of Cuzco city that I almost missed the bus leaving for the next site!

Q'enqo

a short drive away from Saqsaywaman, this is a small religious site that includes some neat caves to crawl through, and an altar where mummys were placed to dry out. I didn't take any photos here, but had fun climbing around, over, and through the passageways carved into the rock.

Pukapukara

The bus stopped for about 2 minutes beside this site of older Inka construction (11th century), characterized by much smaller stones than sites from later times (Qorikancha was about 13th century: the “golden age” of the Inkas; Machupicchu was 15th century). We all decided we didn't care too much about seeing it up close, and since light was fading, we sped off to the next site.

Tambomachay

This was a temple dedicated to water. The stone terraces had many trapezoidal niches for idols, etc. (same shape as the windows, but don't go all the way through the walls), and water channeled from a

Inka street

Cool during the day, but to be avoided in the dark.

spring through expertly-carved channels in the stonework, over a couple waterfalls, and along irrigation channels to agricultural fields in nearby terraces. The main complex was roped off to protect it from being trampled on by an endless parade of tourists, but several of the group ahead of us ignored this and climbed under the ropes and onto the main temple to pose for photos. America was understandably irate about this and yelled at the tourists, who either feigned ignorance, or really didn't understand what they were doing wrong. Oy.

Alpaca clothing

The surprise stop in the tour was a shop featuring 100%!a(MISSING)lpaca clothing and textiles. Undoubtedly, the shop owner has an agreement with the tour company that drops off all the tourists here on the tour and tells us all to buy alpaca items here, since the stuff you see in the markets might not be 100%!a(MISSING)lpaca wool: the stuff in the shop is labelled and guaranteed.

One of the staff showed us various grades of alpaca material and explained the difference. Baby alpaca is the finest material and feels almost oily, but also costs at least 3 times as much as adult alpaca wool.

12-angle stone

This is the really, super-famous stone that has 12 angles. It´s featured in all the local art and is a ubiquitous symbol of Cuzco. Very few stones in Inka walls have exactly 12 angles. Some special ones have 14, or usually just the typical 4. I guess why this one is so famous (?)

I bartered with a staff member for a baby alpaca blanket, thinking we agreed on a price in Soles (the local Peruvian currency), but when I went to pay, my ignorance was revealed as they asked for the agreed upon quantity in US Dollars! 1 US dollar = about 3 Soles. I sheepishly explained I couldn't afford that, and went off to look for something else.

Our last stop was at a point were you could get a good view of Cuzco city at night. The tour bus then dropped us all off in the Plaza de Armas. During the tour, Mike and I chatted with some other travellers our age (2 from Australia and one from Holland). We decided to all go for a Chinese food dinner together, and shared a few beers (Pilsener). Mike and I had an early flight the next morning back to Lima, so we could not continue with the rest of the gang for bar drinking, but had a good time trading stories nonetheless. I still can't remember any of the names after exchanging them with goodbyes after dinner, other than the talkative Jules - so, if any of you are reading this