Peru - Cusco (day 3)
Originally published at BlackTabi Blog. You can comment here or there.
On Wednesday, we got up pretty early to have breakfast in the hotel and meet our ride in the lobby at 7:25 - back to the airport! This time we were catching a domestic flight to Cusco, so our guide helped us to check in and guided us through the line to pay airport taxes.
For domestic flights in Peru, the taxes aren’t included when you purchase your ticket, so you need to pay them - in cash! - when you check in for your flight. So, we waited in one line to check in and get our boarding passes, then transferred to another line to pay our taxes, and then moved to a third line to go through security. We found out that we wouldn’t be sitting together, and after a crowded wait for our domestic flight in a tiny terminal, trooped out to our plane that looked to be mostly full of tourists, and settled into our separate seats. I was seated between two men who either didn’t speak English or didn’t feel social, so I spent the 40 minute flight reading my book and trying to catch a glimpse of the mountains out the window.
Once we landed in Cusco, we were warmly greeted at once:
The terminal was full of billboards advertising designer lines of alpaca clothing, a stand selling bottles of oxygen (Cusco would be the highest point of elevation during our trip - 10,860 feet in the city, not counting our excursions into the surrounding mountains), and a band performing traditional Peruvian music.
I took some pictures while Matt waited for the luggage, and then we ventured out into the parking lot to look for our guide. Our entire trip was operated through the same local travel agency, so we got very good at looking for guides in red shirts or vans with condors painted on the side any time we were supposed to be meeting with a tour or guide.
A short bumpy ride from the airport (all of the streets in Cusco are cobblestone!), and we arrived at our hotel, the Libertador Cusco. Our guide sat us down in the large hotel lobby full of couches and sunlight from the glass ceiling overhead, served us mugs of coca tea, and went to take care of checking us into our room. Coca tea was readily available everywhere in Cusco, and tourists especially were encouraged to drink it. Made from the leaves of the Coca plant, the same one that is used in a much more potent form to derive cocaine, coca tea is supposed to help alleviate the symptoms of altitude sickness. Our guide told us to feel free to drink it when we felt we needed it, but warned not to have more than six or 7 cups a day lest we end up unable to sleep all week (the tea is a stimulant.) I liked the taste of the tea right off, sort of a pleasant herbal green tea flavor, and we continued to enjoy it with most of our meals.
After we’d checked into the hotel, our guide left us alone to rest for a few hours and have a light lunch while we adjusted to the altitude before we set off for the afternoon’s excursion. I was only too glad to take a nap after our early morning and travel, and we met our guide mostly refreshed.
Our first stop in the afternoon was at the Santo Domingo Convent across the street from our hotel - also known as Koricancha, or Temple of the Sun. This temple had originally been built by the Incans, with separate sub temples for the sun, moon, and stars, but the Spanish had eventually built a large convent up around the original temples. You can still see the standing walls of the original temples inside the newer European construction.
Inside, we learned about the marvels of ancient Incan architecture. The temple walls have withstood centuries and earthquakes, and remain standing even while the newer Spanish construction needs more frequent repair. The Incan construction consists of bricks laid upon bricks, fit together precisely and with grooves and knobs on the inside to help lock them into place. The temples themselves feature trapezoidal niches that appear to be windows at first glance, until you realize that there is more wall behind them - they were in fact used to store and display sacred and meaningful objects inside the temples. The doorways to the temples are also trapezoidal, which has helped them to withstand the force from earthquakes.
The Spanish architecture is more ornate and fragile. The blocks are not as smooth, and are held together by thick layers of crumbly mortar. They’re the first to go in an earthquake, and require maintenance to make sure that the mortar remains intact.
After the convent, we hit the road in our travel van to head to the Plaza de Armas, the main square of Cusco. The streets of Cusco are twisty, frequently narrow, and often steep. The street signs are often set directly into the walls of buildings that are only a small sidewalk away from the traffic.
We toured the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, but photography was not permitted inside the cathedral. I mostly remember that it was quite dim inside, the cathedral was full of ornate carvings, and I was struggling to stay awake on the tour because I was still trying to adjust to the altitude and make up for lost sleep (that, and the cathedral tour notes were remarkably similar to the one we’d just been on the day before). I do recall that the cathedral was actually divided inside into three separate sanctuaries, each with their own large door on the outside. The ones in this photo aren’t them, though - these all go to the largest middle sanctuary!
After touring the cathedrals, we hopped back in the bus that was waiting for us conveniently outside, parked on the traffic circle around the Plaza de Armas. (Yes, we had this large touring bus to ourselves - us, a driver, and one guide!)
This time we headed up into the mountains, to visit the Saqsaywaman National Archeological Park (also spelled Sacsayhuamán; pronounced “sak-sey-wa-man” - yes, we thought this was hilarious on several levels). This ruin is a walled complex built by the Incans. Together with the city of Cusco, the ruin and the city look like a puma from the air, with Sawsaywaman forming the head.
Parts of the ruin are more intact than others, but this has nothing to do with Incan craftsmanship or wear and tear from the elements - the Spanish harvested a lot of stone from parts of the structures to build their churches in the city.
There is a series of underground passages within the structure, that extend to connect to other ruins, but these have been closed off to the public after several treasure hunters were killed in the passages. Festivals are still held on the flat ground between parts of the structure, and inbetween solstices it’s also a popular area for jogging and tai chi!
As we exited the ruin on our way back to the van, we encountered a group of native Peruvians who offered to take a photo with us. Our guide had warned us that they would be happy to have their photo taken with us, but they’d expect a tip in return! We posed for a photo, I refrained from dragging out my knitting to show it to them, but noted that they all continued to weave, knit and spin during the photo. We also got to pet the alpacas!
We got into our private bus again, and headed not back down to Cusco, but further up into the mountains. Our guide explained that there was a good spot for taking photos up the road a bit, so we stopped there to take a lot of photos looking over the city of Cusco from above.
Our guide had vaguely mentioned that we’d also be taking part in a traditional Payment to Mother Earth (or Pachamama) ritual to bless our marriage, but had been pretty quiet about when and where that would take place. After our scenic overlook photo, we continued deeper into the mountain, turning off the paved roads and traveling through what looked to be smaller, private farmland. I was becoming a little nervous, since we really had no idea where we were and our guides had become quiet, since there wasn’t much to explain along the way.
At long last, we pulled into a clearing where a man in traditional garb waited for us by a small fire. He was our Indian Priest, there to perform our ceremony. The ceremony itself took about half an hour, and during that time many blessings were given on us, our families, and the earth. It was really interesting to watch and participate in, but the end of the ceremony must be performed in private by the priest, so we bid him farewell and piled back into the van while he continued to give blessings and sit vigil over the fire.
We were pretty tired, but it was still reasonably early to just retire to our hotel room and watch TV in Spanish for the rest of the evening, so we decided to head out to visit the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco. It was only a few blocks from our hotel, and I’d been interested to visit because I’d read about it in one of the knitting blogs I read. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the museum, but we did learn a lot about traditional forms of spinning and weaving, and how the art is taught. We were able to watch some women weaving in the gift shop area of the museum, which was exciting. We poured over the gift shop, looking at shawls, pillow covers, blankets, ponchos, hats and bags, and selected a few examples of the textiles to bring home. I thought it was really neat that all of the textiles were marked with the name of the woman who had made them.
On the way back to the hotel, we passed by the Santo Domingo Convent again (at night), so I decided to stop on the path to take some pictures of the wonderful job they do with artistic lighting after dark.
Upon our return to the hotel, we picked one of the several hotel restaurants to visit for dinner. We were pleasantly surprised to find that a traditional song and dance show had just begun in the restaurant, and were given a table right near the center of the action - so we were treated to a fine show with many flashy costumes while we ate. We dined on soup and a cheesy quinoa risotto (I was fast learning that a lot of dishes in Peru focus on cheese. I’m normally excited to eat any sort of cheese, but I think this is the first time I recall starting to get tired of all the rich cheesiness!), and the chef surprised us with a dessert sampler on the house. On the way back to our room after dinner, I caught another glimpse of the convent through one of the hall windows:
Once we returned to our room, we spent awhile re-packing our luggage. The next morning we’d be heading into the Sacred Valley, and were told to only take one small suitcase because we wouldn’t be able to take more luggage than that on the bus or train. We were able to check our larger bag into the secure storage at our hotel in Cusco, but figuring out how to pack for two people for three days, including two pairs of hiking boots, in a small carry on was exciting!
Once again, a few of the photos from Cusco are embedded in this post, but if you’d like to see more, you can visit my flickr set for day 3 and view many more photos, along with commentary!