Cuzco

Finally, a chance to sleep in! I made good use of that; traveling long distances practically every day and getting up early to go and do things definitely takes its toll.

Qorikancha ruins inside a Spanish church

We had scheduled a tour around Cuzco for later in the afternoon, but for the morning we went out for a late brunch at my favorite spot, a little coffee shop nearby our hotel. JS did mention how the clientele of the coffee shop was exactly as he would have expected a coffee shop to have anywhere. People with hipster glasses reading books, etc. They had really good smoothies and empanadas, too!

Our guide picked us up and we went right across the street from our hotel to the Temple of the Sun, or Qorikancha. The Incans worshiped the four elements of Wind, Water, Earth and Sun, with sun being one of the most important. This temple, in the center of the city of Cuzco, which was the Incan capital of South America and this temple perhaps the most important one there was.

You can tell the important Incan buildings by the care that is put into their brickwork. For their fortresses, the stone stays about its original size and they used rocks of all sizes to fill in where the rocks didn't quite match to fit them together properly. For worship, the temple bricks are all about the same height and color, though the width was often different. This actually allowed for better earthquake stability - yes, the Incans had seismic building strategies! They used a thinner stone placed in between bigger ones which would give way more easily to the stresses of an earthquake. They also used a rolling stone at the bottom of the walls to allow it to move.

Interlocking stones

Another amazing thing about these walls is that they actually link together because the Incans carved out holes to fit the pieces together smoothly. That's why the Spanish found it impossible to knock down the temple walls when they invaded (though perhaps invaded isn't quite the right term - the Incans allowed them to simply waltz into the city because they believed them to be Gods because of their beards. By the time they figured out the truth, it was too late) and built a church on the same spot as the temple. Because what is the best way to convert a populace? To use their same holidays and religious places in the new religion. So the Spanish built up a grander church around that temple, and when they were unable to knock down those Incan walls, they simply plastered them and painted frescos on them. The Peruvians themselves didn't know that the walls contained inside the church dated back to the Incan times until kind of recently, when the plaster started coming off.

Incan doorway

We visited three other sets of Incan ruins after this, starting with a water temple that had water bubbling up from a spring and filtering it to nearby fields. This one also had a number of niches in the walls that our guide said used to hold mummies. On special days, such as the winter solstice, the people would march with the mummies down the street in a parade as worship. We also visited a watch tower ruin high on the red hills and the largest ruin in Cuzco, Sacsayhuaman, which we were taught sounds like 'sexy woman'. The complex was huge. It was also a guard fortification, but was considered to be the teeth of the city when it came to people and weapons. The entire old city of Cuzco was actually made in the shape of a puma, with two streams of water running along the sides to form its front and back and tail. And Sacsayhuaman is where the eye and mouth of the puma is. And the cool thing is that the walls actually look like jagged teeth.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but the puma is one of the animals that represents one of the three worlds, the living world and the level of humans. The condor represents the Gods above, and the snake is the underworld. A lot of items in these temples come in threes because of these three worlds, which hold religious significance.

Sacsayhuaman. Three levels for three worlds.

Another major part of Sacsayhuaman, which is mostly closed off, are the cave trails that lead from one mountain to the other. Our guide actually took us through a short open one, where we had to use a flashlight and squeeze through carefully. I still hit my head. We then went across a huge square, which our guide told us used to hold all the water for the city, which would actually drain out through the tunnel we had just walked through. A little scary to think of. Then we climbed up a bit higher for an actual entire view of Sacsayhuaman, after telling the little children who lived on the hill nearby that we didn't have any candy for them. It was pretty amazing.

After, we went to a local chicken restaurant our guide had recommended, forgetting how he had mentioned that we shouldn't eat the salad until we were halfway through. It was still a pleasant meal with no complications, and on our way back to the hotel, we ran into a small parade making its way down the street, with dancing girls and guys with bells on their legs. They seemed to have some sort of saint on their shoulder, but we couldn't figure out which one, and no one else seemed to have any idea. It was like before, when there had been fireworks in Puno and no one seemed to know what was being celebrated because they have so many little festivals.

Tomorrow is the Sacred Valley and the train to Machu Picchu town, or Aguas Calientes. And the day after that is our final tourist day before a day of traveling to head home!