Back in Cusco . . .

We are happily back in Cusco, staying at Hotel Corihuasi with its winding stone stairways and rooms overlooking the city (and lots of hot water). Today we spent walking around the town with Al, Pam and Kayla, seeing the city anew through their eyes. We taught Kayla how to say no politely in Spanish to the many street vendors, yet it's difficult to say no to the beautiful crafts here -- weavings, silver, caps, ponchos, finger puppets, sweaters -- all in such vivid colors, and all featuring themes from the Andes.

Just now everyone is visiting the main cathedral here. I'm resting a bit here at the internet cafe, catching up with the high altitude.

Later we'll walk down Lareto Street (a narrow street along what was once the House of the Sun) to admire the Incan stones still making up the walls here: their large geometric shapes fit so tightly together that even today, no one seems able to replicate their walls. Cusco itself, like many other sacred places, takes the shape overall of a crouching feline -- the puma. While we have visited museums here, we've mostly gained an understanding of the artifacts of the Incan culture, but the religion and ideas still elude us. Popularly, Cusco is known as the center or navel of the world, but in planning this city, Incan astrologers planned temples and reshaped hills to create the puma.

Tomorrow we'll visit the Pisac ruins, built in the shape of a condor, and Monday, we go again to Macchu Picchu, which is built in the shape of a llama. Understanding the link between the shape of these places helps me understand the Nazca lines, those mysterious and controversial lines visible only from the sky -- hummingbirds, monkeys, spiders, plants and other shapes. Perhaps once they held a sacred meaning, even as the crouching puma did once for Cusco, and for many, still does.

This mix of ancient traditions and modern struggles with poverty would take more than one visit to understand. Here in Cusco, I've read that about 1 million tourists a year visit. That's a prodigious number of people. What do they take home? Cusco, Incan culture, superimposed with the history of the Spanish conquest and colonial traditions cannot be easily captured in a single photo, a diary entry, or even a memory. The average Peruvian works very hard. Taxi drivers, for example, work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Farmers work their fields and harvest by hand. We pass road crews repairing cobblestoned streets, again by hand. Every job is important. Yet unemployment averages 50%. So our tourist dollars help support artisans of all kinds. Today I bought a finger puppet of a llama, beautifully hand knitted with little tassles for roughly 33 cents. Today also, police and protestors clash over how tourist sites are managed and developed. Violence is always under the surface of such a peaceful and beautiful place. I have no answers and yet I am glad we came here.

Incan Cusco . . .

We traveled from Puno to Cusco by Inka Express, a ten hour bus ride punctuated by stops at 6 different sites, each one adding to our understanding of Incan culture and Peru. We passed through snow-covered Andes mountains to the lush green fields and trees, sycamores, eucalyptus and cypress, a welcome change from the very dry desert of the south. We entered the Sacred Valley and stopped at Raqchi, our first Incan temple.

We only had 30 minutes to explore the temple grounds near a small lake, and into the temple complex with outer walls, a series of linked courtyards, connected by a perfectly symmetrical alley (perfectly aligned with the summer solstice and the rising sun), round stone storage graineries, and housing for about 1,000 priests and nobles, and the main temple walls still standing. Our guide said about 6,000-7,000 commoners lived outside in humble houses.

Along the hills surrounding Raqchi, the Incan ruler, Wirococha caused a 10 foot high defensive wall to be built, similar to the Great Wall of China in design, but not as expansive.

I am used to the monumental Mayan and Aztec pyramids and temples. This 15th Century temple at Raqchi was entirely different. Its walls stretch up nearly 90 feet and 300 feet long, a mix of Incan block stone of volcanic rock at the base, and adobe bricks made of mud, straw, wood, and cactus juice (a natural waterproof gum). The roof was supported by this monumental wall in the middle with two rows of columns on either side (you can see their remains in the foreground). The temple faces south, which I found interesting, as earlier burial towers we had seen at Sillhustani had faced east, the rising sun, the source of life.

Wirococha's temple at Raqchi (source Wikipedia)

And so we came to Cusco and yesterday visited Qorikancha (also Coricancha or "golden enclosure"), fabled temple complex located in the Incan capital of Cusco, the center or navel of the world. This complex is actually several connected room-sized temples to the rainbow, the moon, the thunder and lightning, the stars and moon, and one long entry to the Temple of the Sun. When the Spaniards arrived in 1532, they were awed by the gold-plated walls and floors, the life-sized sacred statues of animals, plants (including corn), and people made of gold. Apparently a magnificent solid gold Sun Disk was used in religious rituals. The Spaniards razed the temple, looted it, melted the gold, and used Incan stones to build a church and convent to Santo Domingo over the Temple of the Sun.

In 1650 and 1950, terrible earthquakes hit Cusco. The colonial buildings tumbled; Incan temples stood unshaken. You can read about the history of Qorikancha in Brian S. Bauer's Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca, available online through Google book; a wonderful series of photos and drawings traces the discovery and first impressions of this temple.

Qorikancha and Santo Domingo Church (source Wikipedia)

Note about photos: Ordinarily I post my own photos, but since my laptop is no longer with me, I can't download or upload my pics. So until June, I'm using Wikipedia and Webshots (with credit), and will update my photos on Webshots then.