Friday - Sept 29, 2017 Cusco

Our guided in-depth tour of Cusco was arranged for 1:30pm and our briefing on the trek was set for 7pm at Restaurant Calle del Medio on the 2^nd floor.

The morning was spent walking down to the main square and back up to the hotel twice, and sitting on the outdoor terrace thinking about starting the blog.

Joseph met us the hotel at 1pm and made sure we got connected with the person who escorted us to the organized tour. Joining the tour was accomplished by walking down the hill again to the main square. Our tour guide was Puma Sanqo, a Quechua from Chinchera. Indigenous lore says that Chinchero, one of the valley's major Inca cities, was the birthplace of the rainbow. Puma was very proud of his ancestry.

The tour began at the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin, also known as Cusco Cathedral (WHS), located on the Plaza de Armas. It is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cusco. Adjacent and joined to the cathedral is the smaller Iglesia del Triunfo, the first Christian church to be built in Cusco, and built around the same time as the cathedral.

The Incas built the temple known as Kiswarkancha on the main square in Cusco. It was the Inca palace of Viracocha, ruler of the Kingdom of Cusco around a century before the Spanish colonists arrived.

Near to the Kiswarkancha was the Suntur Wasi, an armoury and heraldry centre for the Inca royalty. When the Spanish conquistadores arrived in Cuzco, they decided to take down the temple and build their Christian cathedral in that prominent site.

The cathedral's construction began in 1559 on the foundations of Kiswarkancha. It is shaped like a Latin cross. The location of Viracocha's palace was chosen for the purpose of removing the Inca religion from Cusco, and replacing it with Spanish Catholic Christianity. Because 1559 was only 26 years after the conquistadores entered Cusco in 1533, the vast majority of the population was still of Quechua Inca descent. The Spaniards used the Incas as a labour workforce to build the cathedral.

Most of the stones from the building were taken from Saqsayhuaman, an Inca holy and defensive structure located on the hills above Cusco. Due to its large size, much of Saqsayhuaman remains intact. Just as the temple of Viracocha was removed and the holy stones of Saqsayhuaman were employed to build the cathedral, the intentional desecration of Inca religious architecture, once the Spaniards learned that the very sand spread on Cusco's main plaza was considered sacred, they removed it and employed it in the cathedral's mortar. Building was completed in 1654, almost a hundred years after construction began.

The Cathedral, in addition to its official status as a place of worship, has become a major repository of Cusco's colonial art. It also holds many archeological artifacts and relics.

Puma pointed out to us how the Quechua people incorporated their inca beliefs into the art of the cathedral. For example, the women represent mountains through the addition of hats, the baby Jesus is absent from statues of the Virgin Mary, to portray Pachamama, and serpents, condors, pumas and hummingbirds can be found in the paintings.

Next we viewed some Inca walls, built to withstand powerful earthquakes.

Then we visited the Santo Domingo and Coricancha Temple. Cuzco was laid out on a grid plan in the shape of a puma, a sacred mountain lion. The pre-Inca site of Sacsayhuaman, on a plateau near the northern edge of the city, forms the head of the puma and the Coricancha temple forms the center of the grid.

The Coricancha was the centerpiece of a vast astronomical observatory and calendrical device for precisely calculating precessional movement. The Inca took over an earlier sacred site at the center of the city, upon which they constructed their primary temple and astronomical observatory. The Inca used the Coricancha in conjunction with standing stones positioned on the horizon of nearby mountains for determining the dates of the solstices and equinoxes, as well as monitoring the passage of precessional time. The great temple also incorporates a prominent solar alignment using a nearby peak called Pachatusan as a sightline for the June solstice. The elliptical exterior wall of the temple may have served as a model of the celestial ecliptic.

The Coricancha temple (meaning literally, "the corral of gold") was primarily dedicated to Viracocha, the creator god, and Inti, the Sun god. The Coricancha also had subsidiary shrines to the Moon, Venus, the Pleiades and various weather deities. Additionally, there were a large number of religious icons of conquered peoples which had been brought to Cusco, partly in homage and partly as hostage. Reports by the first Spanish who entered Cuzco tell that over 4000 priests served the Coricancha, that ceremonies were conducted around the clock, and that the temple was fabulous beyond belief. The wonderfully carved granite walls of the temple were covered with more than 700 sheets of pure gold, weighing around two kilograms each; the spacious courtyard was filled with life-size sculptures of animals and a field of corn, all fashioned from pure gold; the floors of the temple were themselves covered in solid gold; and facing the rising sun was a massive golden image of the sun encrusted with emeralds and other precious stones. All of this golden artwork was quickly stolen and melted down by the Spanish conquistadors, led by Francisco Pizzaro, who then built a church of Santo Domingo on foundations of the temple. At the center of the Coricancha, marking a place known as Cuzco Cara Urumi (the ‘Uncovered Navel Stone’) is an octagonal stone coffer which at one time was covered with 55 kilograms of pure gold. Major earthquakes have severely damaged the church, but the Inca stone walls, built out of huge, tightly-interlocking blocks of stone, still stand as a testimony to their superb architectural skills and sophisticated stone masonry.

After that we went up the mountain to visit the archeological site Saqsayhuaman. The size of the stones here have left historians massively impressed but utterly at a loss for an explanation of how Sacsayhuaman was constructed. This led the way for theorists such as Eric von Daniken who was convinced this was the work of visitors from outer space.

From the simple perspective of construction techniques, this is probably one of the best examples of masonry in all the Pre-Columbian Americas.

The quarries for the stones are located 9 miles and 20 miles away, on the other side of a mountain range and a deep river gorge. Within a few hundred yards of the complex is a single stone that was carved from the mountainside, moved some distance, and then abandoned. The stone contains steps, platforms and depressions, probably intended as a part of the fortifications. It now sits upside-down, the size of a five-storey house.

The largest stone blocks at Sacsayhuaman (some of which are over 28ft high), are regularly estimated to weigh over 120 tons, while more enthusiastic estimates place the largest stones at 300 to 440 tons . So precise was the masonry that one block on the outer walls, for example, has faces cut to fit perfectly with 12 other blocks. Other blocks were cut with as many as 36 sides. All the blocks were fitted together so precisely that a thickness gauge could not be inserted between them.

The Spanish nicknamed the site ‘the Fortress’. However, current research suggests that it was more likely to have been a temple. The layout of the site makes it likely it was used as a sanctuary and a place to worship the sun. Puma says it was a temple, a fortress, and an astronomical observatory.

Next the bus took us to a spot where we walked about 200 meters up a gravel track to Tambomachay, which translates as ‘Inn Cave’, but is more frequently referred to as ‘The Inca’s Baths’. The carefully cut stones frame and channel a fresh water spring which issues from high on the slope above the site and is channeled from one terrace to another, vanishes underground and re-emerges in twin cascades. The precise purpose of the site is unknown but it was likely used in the worship of water.

The next site we visited was Q’enqo. It is a large limestone outcrop, the name of which translates to ‘zigzag’ or ‘labyrinth’. It has many designs cut into it, some of which are very detailed.  The site is a sacred site and many of the carvings have special significance. A llama, a condor, and a snake have all been identified. Channels and rivulets have been cut into the stone and may have been used to course chichi during ceremonies.

At the front of the site, a standing stone enclosed by a finely sculpted niched wall has also been identified as casting a shadow shaped like a puma’s head when the sun rises on the winter solstice. Inside the sacred site is a tunnel that leads to what appears to be a beautifully sculpted altar.

There was also a wonderful view of Cusco from high above the city.

Finally, we stopped at a Vicuna store where we had an opportunity to purchase llama and alpaca sweaters, etc.

I was getting a bit concerned we would be late for our briefing on the trek, but we got to the appointed meeting place at virtually exactly 7pm. One other couple was also on the trek, Mike and Sue-Anne from Sydney Australia. Mike had good experience trekking at high altitudes, having hiked in the Himalayas on two occasions. It was the first trek for Sue-Anne but she was very fit looking and younger than the rest of us. Our guide Carlos was a bit late arriving, a reputation he had no trouble living up to.

Carlos was 27 and had been a porter/guide for the last ten years. He had a thick crop of curly black hair and instantly instilled a feeling that we were in good hands. He said we were a family on the trek, and would all stick together. There were going to be 12 porters accompanying us, including a head cook, and a head porter.  The porters were only allowed to carry a maximum of 20kg each. Our duffle bags were not to exceed 7kg. He ran through the essentials of what we needed to bring. We were all staying in different hotels in Ollantaytambo tomorrow, but we were to be ready to be picked up in our hotel lobby at 8:30am on Sunday, to be driven to the trail head at km 82.

The meeting lasted about 20 minutes. The four of us chatted for a few more minutes after Carlos left and then we parted ways. Russ and I hadn’t had supper yet, and decided to go to one of the two restaurants Joseph had recommended, that was close to the main square where we had just had our meeting. Mike and Sue-Anne had eaten there and said the food was excellent.

Russell had an Alpcaca curry and I had a beef tenderloin curry – both excellent. We hadn’t been drinking alcohol because apparently it wasn’t good if you were acclimatizing to a high altitude, but we broke down and each had a glass of wine. Unfortunately we had to walk up that big hill to get to our hotel after dinner, but we survived. Tomorrow we are off to the sacred valley.  One more day until we start the trek!

Back at the hotel, we carefully arranged what we were bringing in our duffle bags on the trek and what we were leaving in our suitcases at the hotel in Cusco. Our bags ended up being much less than the maximum of 7kg. Mine was 4.6kg and Russell’s was around 5.5kg (he had the trail guide etc.).