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Published: September 12th 2011
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Cuzco is the fabled Navel of the Inca World, or
Tawantinsuyo in Quechua. We were once again treading paths we'd trod before, but we hadn't seen that much of Cuzco itself last time around. This was an opportunity to rectify that. Having already visited Machu Picchu and walked the Inca Trail we could skip that this time, giving us ample time to explore the other sights and sounds of the city itself.
Narrow cobbled streets, touristy, but not in all the areas. We found a place to stay a bit away from the centre. Cheaper, and in more of a residential area, it was a bit of walk up from the centre. The walk, though, was a nice one.
While the older travellers went off to see Machu Picchu we found a cheapo tour of the Sacred Valley, so booked that. The day of the tour we arrived early at the tour office. Other people managed to get picked up at their hotels and whatnot – when we mentioned the name of ours and asked what time we would be picked up they replied by telling us what time to arrive at the office in the morning. No
worries.
It gave us time to have quite a good chat with the bloke at the tour office. Once he had determined Spanish was okay he launched straight into a political discussion, and I was more than happy to accommodate him. It was immediately clear that his politics were correct (obviously a smart man). He was interested in the Australian system, so I did my best at describing a bicameral parliament and a head of state that is technically the British monarch, all in Spanish. The bit about the Queen's representative being our head of state got him all confused, the Peruvians, after all, having fought a series of wars to get rid of their colonial masters. You mean, technically, the unelected monarch of a completely different country is your head of state?
Well, yes, technically, but no, there's a convention, but..... Yeah, I didn't get it either. We moved on.
He was then keen to explain why Perú hadn't woken up yet and elected a leftist (of course, as I post this that error has been corrected).
Perú lacks a central organisation for managing elections, so the equivalent to the electoral commission is not independent
of the government, and, at that moment, it was under heavy pressure from the US to keep things status quo – i.e. ripe for US investment and exploitation of local elites. He quickly showed me a cartoon – laminated, and blown up and stuck on the wall – of the then current president Alan Garcia with all of Perú's natural resources on a blanket, selling them off like so many tourist baubles. I could have chatted with him all day.
The tour itself wasn't half bad, but your typical tourist stuff – stops at great vistas to take photos followed by pre arranged visits to markets and shops to buy stuff.
The ruins we visited we very impressive, probably the setting being the major part of that. The Incans sure knew how to pick a spot for a temple or a cemetery. Spots for maize farms weren't half bad, either. A light rain falling while we stood at the top of an impossibly green valley, the sun just breaking through the clouds to illuminate a small cascade of whitewater just up the canyon. Yeah, I'd have built my house there too.
One of the best was Ollantaytambo.
The great thing about this town was that it had never been destroyed by the Spanish. As such it has some of the oldest continually inhabited dwellings in South America. The modern town was laid out more or less the same as it had been in pre-Colombian times. The thought did cross my mind – what if the Spaniards had never pillaged Latin America? (Well, it wouldn't be called Latin America, for starters, and imagine all the different languages I'd have to learn! It'd be like travelling to Europe). The ruins near the town are some of most impressive examples of Incan construction around.
And it really was an awesome spot for a town.
We went from there to another small village where we were treated to a demonstration of local textile dyeing and weaving methods, including the many weird things they used to create colour back in the day – roots, grass, fruit, bugs. Still, probably better than modern chemicals. Inevitably there was an opportunity to buy some of the goods following the demonstration, but the goods were of great quality, a d the money went straight to the community, so we bought a couple of things.
Gloves, baby, alpaca on the inside for softness and llama on the outside for durability. Soft, as good as...alpaca wool. Wow.
To get into most of the sites on the tour we had to buy a cultural ticket the day before. The ticket wasn't all that cheap, and the tour only used up a few of the sites, so, as tightarses, we figured it was our duty to extract every cent of value from the expense.
This included some unexpectedly charming excursions – a giant bronze statue of some Incan fella at the end of the road in and an evening of traditional dance and music at a weird cultural centre. This last was fantastic. It was sort of truly tacky, and there was us...and about 1000 old people there to watch various performances on an old stage. Brilliant, and they even sold beer to drink inside (we were the only ones drinking).
It also included some slightly crap ones, like the museum. The museum was as so many Latin American museums had proved to be – a collection of old stuff that could be from anywhere, housed in a beautiful old building. A few desiccated
corpses, some actually interesting art, and some underwhelming Catholic artefacts. Tops. Glad we stayed to the end of the credits for that one.
Cuzco was a city you could really explore. Sure, there were shedloads of tourists, but if you used your head for more than a place to rest your hat it was easy to duck down a side street and find a local restaurant to have a cheap as
menú del dia, or a bar to have a quiet beer.
There was a lot to see there. Also, the location of our hostel – right at the top of the hill – meant that we had to walk past a lot of interesting things we probably wouldn't normally have seen. Nothing in particular, mind – just walking down the old, narrow streets out of the centre, looking at the old buildings, held a lot of appeal.
Another site on the ticket was the nearby site of Sacsayhuaman. To get there required a bit of wandering about the high parts of the city – the ruins overlooked the town; as always the religious stuff got the best outlook. Certainly worth the hike, I couldn't help thinking
it would also be an awesome spot for some sort of concert or festival, and then I realised that's pretty much what it was for back in the day.
Accompanied by my new friend Pedro the Peruvian Mongrel we explored the ruins, looking out over the city, and pondering how vulgar the Rio-like statue of Christ in the foreground was. The Incans at least, as imperialistic as they were their ownselves, tried to build their constructions to fit with the landscape.
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Anu
Anu
enquiry
Hi ! Could you please email me the tour /route details? who arranged for your stay/local travel etc? thankx in advance...