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We had been in Cusco for two weeks but hadn't done any real sightseeing in town, so we were about to take a city tour.
After the ubiquitous 4,5,6 course Peruvian lunch at Govindas Sam,
Ges & I walked to school where we were going to be picked up. Emma turned up but she wasn't feeling great having been given some dodgy yoghurt in the morning, so she was going to take the tour tomorrow. We waited for a while joking that we would be taken around in one of the packed minibuses that roam the city. Luckily a new bus came turned up & the woman asked if we were the Mrs Haddock party!
Soon we were at the Iglesia de Santo Domingo,
Ges had already been in & as the entry price wasn't included in the tour price or the Boleta Turistica we waited outside in the sun while the others went round. The next stop was the Cathedral, contrary to the info in the guide books this wasn't included in the Boleta either so we had to pay an extra sixteen soles to get in. It was worth it, the Cathedral was filled with gold, silver, grand cedarwood
carvings & hundreds of oil paintings. Romelu, our guide pointed out a picture of Mary & Jesus which was the only painting not to have been done in Cusco. It was done by an anonymous artist & had originally been a painting of Mary holding two bouquets of flowers. However, on arriving in Cusco the flowers were erased & Jesus painted in. The eyes of Mary follow you as you walk past & the head also seems to tilt in the opposite direction. This feature leads Romelu to believe that it was painted in the Da Vinci school, maybe even by Da Vinci himself. It would appear that Romelu may have read one too many Dan Brown books as he speculated on many a artefact in the cathedral with reference to either Angels & Demons or The Da Vinci Code. The painting of the Last Supper with a roasted guinea pig in the middle of the table apparently has Da Vinci painted next to Jesus, according to Romelu. Even though it was painted in Cusco! Also in the cathedral is a black Christ, originally the skin colour would have been similar to that of the Andean people but during the 500 years of candle burning it had gone decidedly darker. Restoration in the cathedral had cleaned the ceiling & walls but rightly so they had left the crucifixion alone. A representation of San Antonio has unmarried women in their 30's & 40's praying every morning for a Prince Charming, notes had been left at the feet of the Saint including name, address, phone number & even email of the hopeful women.
We headed north of Cusco to the Incan archaeological site of Sacsayhuamán pronounced
sexy woman, here the remnants of an Incan temple hovered over Cusco. Huge stones from the mountains 4km away had been moved to Sacsayhuamán & carved to fit perfectly together. It was said that 50,000 men worked everyday to built the impressive temples but now only a small proportion of it remains since the Spanish took most of the smaller rocks to build their new houses in Cusco. Romelu's theory on how they moved the huge rocks was that in Incan times people had telekinetic powers which would make the transfer a doddle, levitating each stone across. Or possibly extra terrestrial help but he seemed to dismiss the idea of ramps & rollers. Romelu showed us various animals in the rock patterns, the first was a seated llama, when another tourist pointed out that there was a giraffe round the corner, Romelu said "Don't be silly, there were no giraffes in South America", he then showed us a platypus!
The next stop was Puca Pucara where Romelu explained the shaman pilgrimage to the nearby glaciers. The shaman set out at the beginning of June, after holding a workshop at the bottom of the mountain they climb up to top of the glaciers where they get hit three times by lightning. If this doesn't kill them they attain the necessary spiritual powers to continue on as shaman. Romelu has tried the ascent twice but his rotund figure has prevented him from completing it. Puca Pucara is the true start of the Inca trail (today tourists start the trail at kilometre 82, several days into the actual trail) & has the remains of some kind of fort.
Further uphill was Tambomachay a series of syphons & aquaducts taking water from an underground spring to flow over the Incan stones. It is still working today but the lifesize golden statues that would have guarded it are long gone. Romelu didn't have any far fetched ideas on its origin but did tell us about the closing of Cuba's port at nine every evening.
Back down the hill was Qenko a labyrinth of stone passages where dead bodies would be taken for mummification. Once the internal organs had been removed, burnt & replaced, the body would be put in a basket in the fetal position & taken to the glaciers for a few years where some sort of spiritual stuff happened. Some of the deeper passages had been closed off as kids used to get lost in them.
Our final stop was the Alpaca warehouse where we were taught how to recognise the difference between synthetic, adult & baby alpaca wares. The main difference is the cost, if you are going to hang a tapestry on the wall does it really matter what it is made of if it looks the same?
On the way back into town Romelu was plugging his Machu Picchu, after all he was born at Machu Picchu & knows more than any of the other archaeologists, so he'll have you believe. Some of the group made a purchase probably to find the secrets of levitation or how to survive lightning bolts.
We picked up our Machu Picchu tickets for the following day from school & headed to Granja Heidi where Emma had recovered from badyoghurtitis & we had great food partly in just candlelight when the power failed.
Drink of the Day: Cuzqueña Malta
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