~~~ Cuzco and
The Sacred Valley ~~~
On our way to Cuzco, we met beautiful Sharon and her mother. This sweet eight-year-old goes to school in Lima and was traveling with her mother back to her home in Cuzco. We were captivated by her. In fact we were more captivated by the children in Peru than we had been since visiting Vietnam.
Arriving in Cuzco after a mesmerizing 1 hour flight over the Andes we were at the highest altitude we would experience during our trip. (We were surprised to learn that Machu Picchu is about 3,000 feet lower than Cuzco.) We had been told what to look for and how to prepare for the altitude. One thing we had read was to take a whole day to just rest and adjust to the altitude before doing too much. Another was that we should only eat lightly the first day. The first we had no control over. The plane had been delayed due to a mechanical problem and the tour was going to start earlier than we had anticipated. So the time that had been scheduled for rest did not materialize, due to no one's fault.
The second bit of advice we forgot until it was too late.
Thirdly, we were told that we should drink mate de coca (coca tea) at least three times a day. It was explained to us that the tea is made from coca leaves but we wouldn't get "high" from it. It is perfectly legal in Peru. It was presented as an important help in preventing high altitude sickness.
It was a beautiful day with blue skies, dotted with white clouds. We hadn't seen blue skies in many months. The temperature was in the 70s. Our spirits were good.
We arrived at our hotel, the Picoaga Hotel and were pleasantly surprised. It was originally the mansion of a Spanish nobleman and contained a beautiful courtyard, part of its 17th Century architecture. It was very conveniently located just a couple of blocks from the main square, shops, and businesses. We were greeted warmly by the staff and presented with our first cup of mate de coca. It tasted somewhat like green tea to us. In retrospect, we have no idea if it helped or not.
We were very pleased with our spacious room. Since we had just a short time before our tour of the area around Cuzco would begin, we decided to eat lunch in the hotel. We were quite hungry so we headed to the restaurant for a delicious meal and we ate heartily. Big mistake...
From the restaurant in the hotel we had wondrous views of the town and many churches. We were entranced. It would be a while before we could identify any of what we were seeing.
Later we would learn that this church that we saw from the window is the great Cathedral in Plaza de Armas square, the main square of Cuzco.
Herman, our warm, capable, guide, with a great dry sense of humor, met us on our bus for our tour of the area around Cuzco, part of what is known as the Sacred Valley of the Incas. This time there were about 12 in our tour, still a good size for a guided tour. Fellow tourists were from all over the globe. The tour was only in English.
Cuzco is considered to be the original home of the Incas. It is the point that was the "belly button" of the world. As legend has it, Manco Capac the son of the sun was sent to plunge his golden rod into the earth until it disappeared, finding the navel of the earth. Thus, Cuzco was founded and to some is considered the center of the world. According to guide books, it is the primary city of the Inca Empire and the archaeological center of the Americas. Now it seems to be the tourist capital of Peru, if not all of the Americas.
When the conquistadors arrived in Cuzco they were awe-struck by its splendor. It was a bustling city with 300,000 people. It was full of magnificent buildings, including palaces, temples and ceremonial structures. Unfortunately, after the Spanish conquest, the buildings were destroyed and replaced with new structures. However, it is still possible to get a perspective of the genius of the Inca builders because some monasteries and churches were built on the ancient foundations and are still visible when visiting some of the old areas of the city.
Our first stop on our tour was Santo Domingo. This church was built on the site of Coricancha, an Incan courtyard that was originally covered with gold. The precious metals and gems that originally had been here were stolen by the conquistadors, but the stone walls remain. Here we could examine the amazing Incan building style and learn about how it was done. The stones are huge, no mortar or any other material was placed between the stones to hold them together and yet not even the thinnest knife blade could pass between the stones. As there has never been a full explanation how the construction was done, one can only view the work with pure amazement.
Apparently the stone was cut at the quarry, inserting wooden wedges in natural fault lines and wetting the wedges, until they expanded enough to cause the stones to split. How the final shaping and finishing was done appears to remain a mystery.
How the stones were moved from their location to the building site was also an impressive and unimaginable process. The stones pictured below, each about 6-8 inches in diameter, were placed under the large rocks for rolling the rocks into place. The large square and rectangular rocks were then hefted up, with the help of inclines, to stack them .
While the church itself has been badly damaged in earthquakes and rebuilt several times, the Inca walls survived intact each time.
Inside the church we were treated to a recitation in Quechuan, a language of descendants of Incans. If we wished, we could give a small donation for taking their picture and, in turn, were offered coca leaves to chew to help acclimate to the altitude. We took a couple of leaves to look at but had no intention of chewing them. Instead we stuck them in our backpack.
This led to a conundrum later in the trip. Upon our return trip we knew we would be going through customs in Miami. We also had seen scenes of drug-sniffing dogs in Miami, since contraband drugs are a big problem there. Before leaving we searched our backpack in vain to find the two small coca leaves to get rid of them. We had images in our heads of being put in jail for carrying drugs. A little dramatic we know... Anyway, we did not find the leaves, we were not greeted by drug-sniffing dogs and we didn't find the offensive leaves until days after returning home -- in our camera bag.
The second stop was the Plaza de Armas, the main square of Cuzco -- with its dueling churches. The "Company" church or Jesuit church is pictured below. The Jesuits planned to make it the largest and grandest church in Cuzco. The bishop of Cuzco declared that it could not rival the cathedral. Finally, after much squabbling between the two churches, Pope Paul III, himself was called upon to render the final decision. He declared that no church could be larger than the La Catedral. These two churches, which sit at a right angles to each other, are both magnificent, baroque structures that are equally ornate and impressive, while La Compania is considerably smaller.
Inside the cathedral are some very interesting finds and some impressive artwork. We saw the oldest surviving painting of Cuzco. It is a massive work that shows the entire city of Cuzco as it prepares for the earthquake of 1650. Also, an unusual depiction of the Last Supper by Marcos Zapata is on display. In the center of the picture on a platter on the table is a guinea pig with its feet up in the air. In Peru guinea pigs are still raised by families for food. They cook quickly and are easily raised. In fact we saw guinea pig on the menu at restaurants but we didn't try it.
Next, we journeyed to Sacsayhuanan and the Inca fort: This is an immense fort that has both religious and military significance. The name means "satisfied falcon" in the Quechuan language. A large celebration is held here every June 24th, the festival of Inti Raymi, and even the pope has attended to conduct a service.
Here Tom is with Herman. It gives you some sense of size.
This picture with us gives one an even better idea of the size of some of the Inca stones. One of them weighs more than 360 tons. How could they have moved such an object using small, round stones or tree trucks? Unbelievable!
Next we went to Quenko and a cave supposedly used for mummification. We decided to stay on the bus rather than take the steps down to the site. We knew we had a more strenuous day ahead of us in Machu Picchu and wanted to conserve Tom's legs.
While others were viewing the cave, we were entertained by locals who boarded the bus to hawk their wares. We bought a couple of CDs with Peruvian music and enjoyed the spectacle of others earnestly trying to entice us to buy something.
Everywhere we traveled we were greeted by Peruvians selling us their wares. When we would get off the bus, they absolutely swarmed around us. It reminded Tom a bit of India. However, no one was begging. They were all selling. Finger puppets, rugs, tablecloths, dolls, coca leaves, chiclets, alpaca sweaters, T-shirts, panpipes, ocarinas, and more items were offered for sale. The prices were very reasonable by US standards and we did buy a beautifully hand-crafted doll in this area for about $5.00. But most of the time we could brush off all but the most persistent with a "No," and a hand wave. We planned to shop at our leisure later.
At one point a young woman boarded our bus, at the invitation of Herman, for part of our trip and sold us a local cornbread that was baked in corn husks. We were assured that it was safe for us to eat, was freshly baked, and the price was right at just 2 soles. Most people on the bus tried it as did we. It was interesting.
All through the countryside we saw llamas and alpacas, often in the company of their owners, but also grazing throughout the Andes region. We asked about the difference between the two animals and also how to identify the vicuna. All three are camelids, descendents of camels. All seem to come in different colors and shades of colors, blacks, greys, browns, and whites. We were told that the alpacas have longer fur than the llamas and that their tails always point up while the llamas tail point down. Both of those animals are domestic while the vicuna is wild. Even with those distinctions pointed out to us, we were still not easily able to differentiate among the three. As we further researched the subject we learned that llamas are much larger than alpacas and have been traditionally bred to be beasts of burden while alpacas have been raised for years for their fine fiber. However since they interbreed, it is no wonder that we were confused. And we have no idea if we ever saw any vicuna.
At the end of a long and satisfying tour we returned to the narrow streets and hectic traffic of Cuzco for a little rest before the journey to Machu Picchu the next day. We had an early wakeup call for we had to meet the 6:00 AM train to Machu Picchu.
It was only after arriving back at the hotel that Tom's stomach completely betrayed him and we remembered that we were supposed to have eaten only light meals that day. Also it was only late at night that we realized there were three discotheques right outside our room that boomed into the early morning. When we talked to the desk clerk about the noise he told us it was tourists partying in the city and it would go on all night. He offered to change our room but we decided it would be better to tough it out rather than move all of our stuff at that hour. He told us that when we returned to the hotel from Machu Picchu that we would have a room in the ancient quarter of the hotel where it wouldn't be so noisy. We put our earplugs in, put pillows over our heads and managed to get a couple of hours sleep before being wakened at 4:00 AM to prepare for the train ride to Machu Picchu.
On to Machu Picchu
