August 29, 2018 – September 4, 2018

Legend has it that the sun god, Inti, looked down on the world in the 12th century and decided that the people needed a leader.  He created the first Inca (king), Manco Capac and his sister-wife Mama Occlo.  The pair emerged from Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca.  Inti gave Manco Capac a golden rod and told the pair to settle where Manco Capac was able to plunge the rod completely into the earth.  This spot would become the navel of the earth (qosq’o in the Quechua language).  And that is how Cusco got it’s name.  The city has been inhabited ever since, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in South America.  It was the centre of the vast Inca empire and it was, and still is, the centre of Inca culture.

When the Spanish came and conquered the Inca people, they tore down much of what had been built, reusing the stones to build catholic churches and colonial homes.  Great works of art made of gold (the Inca valued gold because the metal resembled their sun god), were plundered and melted down by the Spanish.  Many aspects of the Inca culture are, however, still to be found all over Cusco and in much of Peru.  Spectacularly built walls still stand after centuries of earthquakes and weather.  The Quechua language, the language of the Incas, thrives in the rural communities.  People still follow Inca teachings, for example, “Today we work for me, tomorrow we work for you”, a saying that we have been told a few times by locals; people here help each other out, knowing that the favour will be returned when needed.  Cities and graves, hidden from the Spanish, give us insight into what the pre-Colombian world of the Inca people may have looked like.

As full of tourists as Cusco was, we loved it.  You couldn’t walk ten paces without a tout offering you a massage, an alpaca sweater, a shoe shine, or a meal in a restaurant, but a smile and a “No, gracious” was sufficient to make them turn their attention to the next gringo that was guaranteed to be coming along.

We visited several sites in the city.  We wandered through museums.  We shopped and ate at the San Pedro market, where you can buy clothing, crafts, produce, cheese, meat and coca leaves.  We also wandered about in the ancient streets.

The hilltop ruins of Sacsaywaman (pronounced similarly to “sexy woman”) were within walking distance of our camping site, and were one of our favourite sites in Cusco.  The ninth Inca, Pachacutec, envisioned Cusco in the shape of a puma, with Sacsaywaman as the head of the puma with its jagged walls as the teeth, the central plaza as the heart and the sacred temple of Qorikancha as its genitals.  Only about 20% of the original structures at Sacsaywaman remain, mostly stones that were too heavy for the Spanish to move.

Sacsaywaman was the site of a bloody battle in 1536.  Manco Inca had recaptured the fortress from the Spanish, and was on the brink of defeating the conquistadors, when the Spaniards attacked, killing thousands, retaking Sacsaywaman.  Manco Inca survived and retreated to the fortress in Ollantaytambo (which we would visit in the coming days).  The bodies of the dead attracted carrion eating condors to the site, and the event has been memorialized by the inclusion of 8 condors in Cusco’s coat of arms.

We also toured Qorikancha, a catholic church built on top of Inca ruins, where we decided to hire a guide.  Qorikancha was once one of the richest, most spectacular temples in the entire Inca empire; the interior walls were lined with 700 solid-gold sheets, each weighing 2kg, there were life size gold and silver replicas of stalks of corn, there were solid gold altars, statues of llamas, and replicas of the sun.  All this, of course, was melted down by the Spanish, and all that remains today of this amazing temple is the stone foundation and aspects of the temple that have re emerged as colonial facades within the church collapsed in some subsequent earthquakes.

The temple was the site of religious rituals and, as well, was an observatory where the high priests observed the movement of the stars and planets.  Windows were placed in exact locations in order to catch the sunrise and sunset on solstices.  Walls were built with exacting precision.

Our guide would point out different aspects of the original Incan architecture that were uncovered within the cathedral.  At one point she said, “There are nine windows…why?”  Derek and I looked at each other and shrugged, “Why?” we asked.  “Three is an important number, three times three is nine.  Mathematics!”, she said.  In another room, there were 4 windows.  “Why four windows,” she asked.  “Why?” we asked.  “Four, six, twelve, seven”, she recited.  “Mathematics!”  We didn’t quite understand, it seemed more like throwing out random numbers than mathematics, but she seemed very pleased with her response.

As we left Cusco to enter the Sacred Valley, we visited three more sites.

Our time in and around Cusco impressed upon us the advanced skills and complex nature of the Incan empire. The sometimes vague understanding and interpretation of the exact nature of Incan things emphasized how much was lost when this culture was conquered, dismantled and suppressed. The resilience of what amounts to Incan language, farming techniques, artistic influence and cultural pride are also a testament to what was accomplished here in pre-columbian times