Blogs from Cusco, Cusco, Peru, South America - page 185

Cuzco has been our home for two weeks now, through thick and thin. It is a muy fantastico place. The colonial/Incan hybrid architecture is truly staggering, and the setting is epic. The Incans were marvellous stonemasons, especially considering that they worked with nothing more than what is essentially iron ore. Using such dubious tools, they produced stone walls with no gaps or mortar - each stone is fitted perfectly. Their walls posses a chaotic beauty because all the stones are of an irregular shape and size, with some having as many as 22 sides. And then the Spanish came and killed everyone and tore down the palaces to make their Cathedrals… which are pretty nice themselves if you like that sort of thing (they're really nice, actually, and inside there is lots of gold and gory ... read more

Today we visited Sacsayhuaman, the mightiest fortress of the Inca. Predictably, however, noone has the faintest idea who built it, when, why, or any of those trivialities. But they do know that it was the site of the climax of the great rebellion of the double hard Inca himself, Manco. HAving besieged Cusco and its force of some 190 spaniards with a mere 100-200,000 warriors Manco had setabout burning the place, forcing the Spanishout of outlying regions and generally causing havoc. The headquarters of the Inca forces were in Sacsayhuaman, so the Spanish attacked it with 50 horsemen and a load of native auxilliaries. THe fortress features three massive tiers of rock walls surmounted by two (now missing) huge towers. It was almost impenetrable, and an attempt to force the main gate was foiled largely because ... read more

Finally, after a couple weeks of hard work on the applications, I was able to make it out to sightsee a bit. Set high in the mountains, Cusco really is a beautiful place, and a bit cleaner than other areas of Peru. One site is Santo Domingo Monastery/Convent. It was built by the Dominicans on top of the Inca´s most important temple. Inside, there are walls clearly built by the Incas in a style evident throughout Cusco, with intricately carved stones snuggly fit together. But most of it is built in a Spanish style. San Pedro Market is populated mostly by men and women from Cusco doing their daily shopping. You can find almost anything there - fruits, vegetables, baskets, dressmakers, tourist items, shampoo, and raw meat. This is the market which almost made a vegetarian ... read more

After a 10 hour truck journey we arrived in Cusco at 1am. As Ella had been to Cusco only a week before she was appointed tour guide which meant we only did the Inca highlights and the best bars. After spending the day catching up on emails, laundry and seeing a few sights, including the weekly Sunday parade around the town square it was time to hit the town for our first night out in Cusco. Our group were all going out for roast dinner, but we were in need of something a little more stylish so Ella took me, Shona and Helen to the Witches Garden - one of the best restaurants in Cusco. After a couple of bottles of top chilean vino we went off to Mythology to meet up with the rest of ... read more

This was a while ago now - I started the Inca Trail a few days after my last blog entry, on September 19th, still suffering from the remenants of food poisoning but keen to get on with it. I turned up to the briefing the night before only to be told that we were leaving that night as there were bus strikes planned for the next day (typical South American answer to anything is to have a good old protest), so had to pack very quickly and spent the night sleeping on a football pitch near the trailhead. The first day of hiking was a gentle-ish introduction to what would follow. We followed of the Rio Urumbamba for a few miles and then turned down another valley taking the sacred Inca route rather than the direct ... read more