Last updated on June 9, 2022
We flew from Baltra Island in the Galapagos to Guayaquil, Ecuador and had a 6 hour lay over which was fortunate as it took a while to get our bags checked. Somehow our tickets were purchased through the tour company as the wrong class so we had to pay for our bags…$67 each which we plan to get reimbursed by Lindblad. We then flew on to Lima, Peru, arrived at 9:30pm, and got to bed around 11pm.
Peru is in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pacific Ocean. Peru has habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region near Lima in the west to the peaks of the Andes mountains to the tropical Amazon basin rainforest in the east. It has a population of 34 million, and its capital and largest city is Lima with over 10 million people. At 0.5 million square miles, Peru is the 19th largest country in the world, and the third largest in South America. It is almost as big as Alaska and almost twice the size of Texas.
Peruvian territory was home to several ancient cultures dating back to 3500 BCE where one of the five cradles of civilization arose. The Inca Empire took over the area of present day Peru in the early 13th century reaching peak influence from 1438 to 1533 CE. The Spanish Empire began its conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532, eventually conquering its last stronghold in 1572. They established a viceroyalty that encompassed most of its South American territories. Peru officially gained independence from Spain in 1824.
The morning after our arrival in Lima, we had rapid Covid tests done at our hotel (Belmond Miraflores Park) which fortunately were all negative once again. Nat Geo has an arrangement with Belmond Limited, a hospitality and leisure company that operates luxury hotels, train services, river cruises and restaurants worldwide in 22 countries. We stayed at 4 of their properties while in Peru and they are all splendid and very unique. The day started with a drive through the district of Miraflores (there are 43 districts in the city!) and a tour of the Larco Museum which is dedicated to artifacts from native people in Peru over 5,000 years of pre-Columbian history, basically up to European colonization which began with Christopher Columbus’s voyage of 1492. The museum showcases crowns, earrings, nose ornaments, garments, masks and vases, finely wrought in gold and decorated with semi-precious stones. They also display the country’s largest huaco collection, finely made pottery artwork that include portrait vessels featuring highly individualized and naturalistic representations of human faces. Ancient Peruvian cultures often represented their daily lives in ceramics, and this gallery holds the world’s largest collection of erotic ceramics. It was quite a site and led to some very interested questions from Marin. The boys did not go in the “red light” section. The entry path is gorgeous with two floor-high walls of brightly colored flowers, geraniums, bougainvillea, and many types of cacti.
Inside the museum are many well described exhibits. There are multiple languages shown on each display which was really a nice surprise. We saw stone jars that held chicha, a fermented corn beer, and human faces, animals and plants. These were found in tombs of important people. We also saw their methods of keeping records called quipu. A quipu usually consisted of cotton or llama fiber strings. The Incas used them for collecting data and keeping records, monitoring tax obligations, collecting census records, calendrical information, and for military organization. The cords stored numeric and other values encoded as tied knots, often in a base ten positional system. A quipu could have only a few or thousands of cords. There were drawings and tapestries showing human sacrifice with an important holy man drinking their blood. We saw a mummy that they had previously x-rayed and saw the human curled up in the fetal position at the bottom of the wrappings. There was gold jewelry on display and we learned about the importance of gold to the Inca. We also heard about the first attempts at brain surgery to decrease intracranial pressure after head wounds during battle.
After the museum, we drove a few minutes to a pedestrian-only street where we walked up a few blocks to the city center square called the Plaza Mayor de Lima. The city was founded by the Spanish in 1535, specifically by the conquistador Francisco Pizarro who conformed to established procedure that growth of a city in the New World should follow a grid centered on the square shape of a plaza. A water fountain was first placed in 1578 and remains the centerpiece of the plaza to this day. During the colonial era, the plaza served as a market, bull fighting ring, and the city gallows. The plaza also became home to the Auto de fe in which the inquisition occurred. In 1622, the Cathedral of Lima was completed and still stands today. In 1855, the first public gas lighting system was first installed on the light posts of the plaza and the first gardens were planted. In 1922, construction of the Archbishop’s Palace of Lima was completed. In 1938, the Government Palace was completed and in 1944 the Municipal Palace was completed.
We spent a few minutes walking around the square and taking photos in the warm sun. It was Sunday afternoon and there were a lot of local families out for a walk and lunch. There were street vendors selling popcorn, ice cream, bubbles and kid’s toys. Street performers were dancing, singing and performing magic in the park.
We stopped for a lovely visit at the colonial mansion Casa de Aliaga which is a nearly 500 year old, 40-room home right off the square that is still owned by the same family that built it long ago. The house is the oldest Colonial mansion in Lima, maybe even in all of South America. It has been owned and lived in by the Aliaga family and their descendants since Francisco Pizarro granted the land to Jerónimo de Aliaga in 1535. It has a giant oversized door (the kind that you could drive your horses and carriage through back in the day) and a smaller door that opens just for humans. Inside the door is a courtyard and a white marble staircase up to the main floor. We were greeted with Pisco sours, and small hors doevres including chicken liver on toast with some kind of dark purple jam. Griffin took one of everything and ate it all. He asked what the liver was and I just said “chicken”. He shrugged and ate it. The home has dark wood walls with large portrait and landscape paintings covering most of the walls. There is antique dark wood furniture, tapestries and tiles lining the hallways and walls. There is a large courtyard with a fountain and a 500 year old ficus tree growing from the ground up over the second floor roof.
We were lucky to have a presentation by Kike Pinto, a musician specializing in indigenous instruments of ancient Peru. He played many songs on about 20 wind instruments to demonstrate the types of sounds that you can make. Many of the more basic ones sound exactly like birds and they advanced over time to playing chords. Most were made from bamboo or ceramics, but a few exotic ones were made from animal skulls and bones.
After the music presentation, we had a delicious lunch in their formal dining room which included asparagus mouse with parmesan crisps, fresh poached fish with roasted asparagus. carrots, green beans, potatoes and a dill-type sauce. Desert was the traditional Peruvian fruit lucuma that was transformed into a pudding with chocolate sauce. Peruvian white and red wines were served and Trey and I managed to day drink and stay awake until the 30 minute bus ride home when I passed out.
We spent the late afternoon doing some schoolwork (as we completely slacked and did nothing official in the Galapagos) while Trey went for a run and did hill sprints in front of hundreds of wide-eyed, picnicking Peruvians. Then we went up to the 11th floor roof-deck heated pool and did a swim workout. Sy learned how to do a back flip into the pool. Excellent room service and early to bed as we had a 5 AM wake up call to catch an early flight to Cusco.
The next early morning, we transferred to the airport for our Cusco flight which went relatively smoothly.
Cusco (also spelled Cuzco) is a city in southeastern Peru near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. This valley is also called the Sacred Valley of the Incas as it was incorporated into the Inca Empire during the period from 1000 to 1400 CE. The Sacred Valley is a major tourist destination. Over 1.5 million people are estimated to have visited Machu Picchu in 2019, its most famous archaeological site. Cusco is the seventh most populous city in Peru with a population of over 400,000. Its elevation is around 11,200 feet and it was the capital of the Inca Empire from the 13th century until the 16th-century Spanish conquest. In 1983, Cusco was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
We drove by van from Cusco to Tiobamba in the Sacred Valley. On the way we got our first glimpse of the Incan agricultural terraces called andenes. We stopped for a lovely lunch at UNU restaurante in Maras, a remote spot nestled amongst the majestic Andes mountains. The place was beautiful and had a multi-course lunch for us with lots of authentic Peruvian dishes. We also got our first chance to try coca tea. This is an herbal tea made using the raw or dried leaves of the coca plant, which is native to South America. It is made either by submerging the coca leaf or dipping a tea bag in hot water. The tea is consumed all around the country of Peru and it is greenish yellow in color with a mild bitter flavor similar to green tea. Coca tea is a mild stimulant; its consumption is compared to the consumption of a moderately strong cup of coffee or tea. It is often recommended for travelers in the Andes to prevent altitude sickness although its actual effectiveness has never been studied. Coca plants are known more commonly because the psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine, is extracted from them. There was an old church nearby, and creepy corn fields and animals all over.
We followed this with a trip to Moray where we learned about the Inca knowledge and study of agriculture, elevation, soil and air temperatures and water/irrigation management. Moray is an archaeological site 31 miles northwest of Cusco on a high plateau at about 11,500 feet and just west of the village of Maras which is known for its salt evaporation ponds. Moray contains Inca ruins, mostly consisting of several terraced circular depressions, the largest of which is approximately 100 feet deep, as well as an irrigation system. The purpose of these depressions is uncertain, but their depth, design, and orientation with respect to wind and sun creates a temperature difference of as much as 10° F between the top and the bottom. The wide temperature differences in the terraces have created micro climates, similar to what is achieved in greenhouses in modern times, and is believed to have been used by the Inca to study the effects of different climatic conditions on crops.
We next visited the Pablo Seminario workshop where we saw the local artist’s workshop and garden. There were a few parrots, dogs, and cats as the owner’s son is a veterinarian! The artwork was striking and beautiful and too large to bring home for a traveling family. We did pick up a few small, unique, ceramic pieces that should fit in the carry-ons. Trey thinks he found his new giant cereal bowl.
We finished the day upon arrival at the Belmond Rio Sagrado Hotel around 4:30 PM and were amazed by the gorgeous grounds on the side of the river at the base of the mountains. The boys did some impromptu hill sprints on the plush grass. The rooms were lovely and we had a delicious (but really too late for the kids) dinner at the restaurant. We managed the whining by having Griffin sit outside by the fire pit with an iPhone while we waited for the food to arrive.
The next morning we met the llamas who free range on the hotel grounds each day. We also were given a lecture (with slides and all) by Peter Frost, one of the guides for National Geographic and a leading expert on the Inca. He spoke about the history of Peru, the Inca and the Spanish conquest of Peru. He has been exploring Peru for over 45 years and has written the definitive guide for the area called Exploring Cusco. He came with us to Ollantaytambo, a town and Inca archaeological site.
Ollantaytambo is 45 miles from Cusco and located at an altitude of 9,160 feet. During the Inca Empire, Ollantaytambo was the royal estate of Emperor Pachacuti, who conquered the region and built the town and a ceremonial center. Pachacuti transformed a small kingdom in Cusco into the Inca Empire which encompassed nearly the whole of western South America. Most archaeologists now believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for Pachacuti. Nowadays, it is an important tourist attraction on account of its Inca ruins and its location en route to one of the most common starting points for the four-day, three-night hike known as the Inca Trail.
We walked around the present day town of Ollantaytambo and then went to lunch at Casa Hacienda Huayoccari, a family run Spanish estate that is open to the public for lunch and to view their extensive art museum. They also have Paso Fino horses which were imported from Spain and have a characteristic four-beat, lateral ambling gait. They are apparently born with this tendency to raise their forelimbs higher than the average horse. I hear these horses give a very smooth ride. Several of the horses performed, along with a traditional Peruvian dance demonstration.
After this, we met Nilda Calanaupa, the founder of the Center for Traditional Textiles and another National Geographic grant recipient. She and several Peruvian women showed us all the weaving techniques they use to make textiles from alpaca, baby alpaca, vicuña, and llamas. They use all natural plants and insects to dye the wool different colors or sometimes they just use natural colors like tan, browns, and creams. The textiles they produced were absolutely gorgeous. It was a little overwhelming as there was the opportunity to buy some of them to support the local communities. The kids got small bags and bracelets and we got a beautiful, long table runner.
When we got back that afternoon, our guide Jenny had arranged for the pool to stay open later than normal for us. We did a swim workout and played sharks and minnows for a while in the super heated pool. It was a great way for the kids to burn off some steam since they do have to “behave and listen” a lot these days! Just before dinner there was a Peruvian dance based on traditions and folklore about the sun god, moon goddess, thunder god, and the Earth Mother, Pachamama, a name now synonymous for Mother Nature. After the Spanish colonization of the Americas, they converted the native populations of the region to Roman Catholicism. Due to religious syncretism, the figure of the Virgin Mary was associated with that of Pachamama for many of the indigenous people. It was a striking performance with a light show, fire sticks and ornately costumed gods on huge stilts. The kids were mesmerized while drinking Shirley Temples and eating bowls of apple slices.
The next morning, we started our journey to Machu Picchu. There are only two ways to visit Machu Picchu; you can hike in or take a train from Ollantaytambo. We did the later. There is no road to drive in on. Tip: Passports are needed at the Ollantaytambo train station. The ride was 1 1/2 hours to Aguas Calientes station which lies at the base of Machu Picchu. It was a beautiful ride through the mountains along the Urubamba River. You drop down in elevation a little and the scenery changes to taller trees with more greenery and a cloud forest appears. You can see the suspension bridge at Km. 82 which marks the beginning of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. While here we were looking for a few animals…the spectacled bear (which we didn’t see live, but did get to see a video of 2 young ones clambering over Machu Picchu), the viscacha which is kind of like a chinchilla/rabbit/squirrel and the national bird of Peru called the cock-of-the-rock, named for its very prominent fan-shaped crest. The kids did some math, Duolingo, and started working on the Africa and South America maps. They have a great app called Stack the Countries which has been fun for learning geography.
The area around Machu Picchu is not what I imagined. Aguas Calientes is a legitimate town that did not exist until the railroad was built. It took off after the railroad opened in 1931 and foreign tourists started arriving to visit the ruins. Enterprising individuals set up businesses serving the tourists, primarily restaurants and small hotels. There are hostels almost every other building. There are no cars in the town, as there is no road access. The only motorized transport are the buses that take tourists up the mountain to the ruins; they were brought in by train. Other sites in the town are its thermal baths which come from a natural spring with temperatures from 100 °F to 110 °F, a 30-meter waterfall called Mandor Falls, an artisan market and a difficult hiking route to the summit of Putucusi Mountain, one of the three mountains that surround Machu Picchu.
To get to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes, we boarded a bus for a 30 minute switch-backy ride on the side of a cliff up to the entrance. You can also hike up a very steep set of stairs for 90 minutes if you want to. We were very fortunate to stay at the only hotel at the top of the cliff near the site, the Belmond Sanctuary Lodge. It is literally a few feet from the entrance to Machu Picchu and well worth it. We had a 4 hour pass for the afternoon and completed circuit 2. Since Covid, Machu Picchu has been tightly regulated with different circuits and one-way paths to avoid people coming in contact or passing too much. It was impressive! It makes you want to throw your arms out and take huge breaths and just look around. Tip: There are two visitor time slots: one from 6am to 12pm, the other from 12pm to 5:30pm. There are no toilets within the ruins.
Machu Picchu is an Inca citadel built around 1450 on a nearly 8,000 ft mountain ridge. The Inca had no written language so there are no written records about the site while it was in use. The names of the buildings, their supposed uses, and their inhabitants are all the product of modern archeologists, on the basis of physical evidence, including tombs at the site. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was constructed as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti. It was occupied from 1420–1532 when it was abandoned due to the Spanish conquest. It likely was called Huayna Picchu by the Inca, as it actually exists on this smaller peak.
Machu Picchu is 50 miles northwest of Cusco sitting in a saddle between two mountains, Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu. It is situated above a bow of the Urubamba River, which surrounds the site on three sides. The area is subject to morning mists rising from the river. The location of the city was a military secret, and its deep precipices and steep mountains provided natural defenses. There were two bridges that provided a secret entrance for the Inca army, an Inca grass rope bridge across the Urubamba River, and a tree-trunk bridge where a twenty-foot gap was left in a stone path cut into a cliff face over a 1,900-foot drop that could be bridged with two tree trunks. The city has a commanding view down two valleys and a nearly impassable mountain at its back. It has a water supply from springs that cannot be blocked easily. The hillsides leading to it were terraced, to provide more farmland to grow crops and to steepen the slopes that invaders would have to ascend. The terraces reduced soil erosion and protected against landslides. Two high-altitude routes from Machu Picchu cross the mountains back to Cusco, one through the Sun Gate, and the other across the Inca bridges. Both could be blocked easily should invaders approach along them.
The sun gate, or Inti Punku, was once the main entrance to Machu Picchu and it was the primary approach from Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire. The gate likely would have been protected by Incan military. It is now also the name of the final section of the Incan Trail between the Sun Gate complex and the city of Machu Picchu. It was believed that the steps were a control gate for those who enter and exited the sanctuary. Because of its location on a ridge southeast of Machu Picchu, the rising sun passes through the Sun Gate each year on the summer solstice.
Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style with polished dry-stone walls, meaning there is not any mortar to bind the stones together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction method, which is characterized by the presence of a load-bearing façade of carefully selected interlocking stones. Its three primary structures are the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows.
The Intihuatana is a ritual stone associated with the astronomic clock or calendar of the Inca. It was carved directly into the bedrock of the mountain’s summit area and is characterized by complex surfaces, planes and angles at the top which stands a cubic protrusion. It is basically the shape of a polygon and has a height of 1 meter and 2 meters in diameter. Every major Inca site supposedly had a similar stone. There is even one close to Machu Picchu that has a specific astronomical alignment with this main one. The one here is the only one in all of the Empire that survived in its original condition as it was spared from the diligent attention of the Spanish extirpators of idolatry because they never found this site. We aren’t exactly sure what its purpose was, but the name Intihuatana means “where the sun is tied.” The Inca believed the stone held the sun in its place along its annual path in the sky. It clearly had religious and astronomical purposes as it is arranged to point directly at the sun during the winter solstice and it is aligned with the equinoxes so that the sun stands almost above the pillar casting no shadow at all. Another thought is that it could have been a huanca, an ownership stone, which represents the human owner of the site in that person’s absence.
The Temple of the Sun is a semicircular temple built directly into the bedrock. The stonework is of ashlar quality. Within the temple is a rock platform, smooth on top except for a small carved out area on its southwest quadrant that is precisely aligned through a window to the rising point of the sun on the morning of the June solstice. There are two of these trapezoidal windows that have some astronomical significance. They both have pegs on the outside that may have been used to support a shadow-casting device.
The Room of the Three Windows is likely a temple that held great spiritual and astronomical importance for the Inca. Research shows that this temple was a representation of the 3 worlds that the Inca believed in with each one represented by one of the windows. There is a marked stone in the temple walls which showcases the three animals that represented each world. These animals are part of what the Inca called the “trilogy”. The three animals represented are the Puma which refers to the world where humans live, the Snake which refers to the underworld or land of the dead, and the Andean Condor which represents heaven or the realm of the gods. There is also a stone pillar here that once supported the roof that bears the chacana, a step symbol motif that is common to so many other Inca buildings including the Royal Tomb discussed below.
Because we were able to spend the night so close to Machu Picchu we were able to do a second circuit into the site early the next morning. It was such a different experience seeing the site in the light of the rising sun. I definitely recommend spending two sessions in the site if possible.
The highlight of our morning session was the Royal Tomb. It is located below the Temple of the Sun and is formed by a small natural cave with an opening. The interior is made up of finely carved stones, niches and lithic pegs. The main feature of the tomb is a large altar with 2 levels and the symbolic chacana staircase carved in situ in the natural rock. It is comprised of a series of steps, and represents the three levels of existence in the world of the Inca. Although the term tomb suggests a closed dark burial chamber, the tomb was actually open to light and should be thought of more as a chapel for worshipping.
The next day was full of travel as we went from bus ride to train ride to van ride and ended up in Cusco. We arrived around 7 PM at the Belmond Monasterio Hotel which as the name suggests is an old monastery. It is a very cool place with a gorgeous courtyard, gardens and long, arched outdoor hallways. There was incredible religious themed artwork all over and it is located just a short walk from the main square in Cusco. All three kids had their own bed, which was great for sleeping and not waking each other up inadvertently or otherwise. Ha! We ordered room service for them and put them to bed. Trey and I made it to the hotel restaurant alone and had an amazing meal.
Friday, we started the day with a half-day tour of the city of Cusco. We went to Coricancha, the most important temple in the Inca Empire. Pachacuti built this site, as well, and dedicated it to Inti, the ancient Incan sun god. It is known as the House of the Sun or the Golden Temple. Pachacuti added plates of fine gold to the rooms and provided vases of gold and silver for the cloistered women to use in veneration services. He also took the bodies of the seven deceased Incas before him and adorned them with masks, head-dresses, medals, bracelets, and sceptres of gold, placing them on a golden bench. The courtyard was filled with golden statues like a field of gold maize and gold llamas, figurines, jars and pitchers. None of these treasures survived as all of them ended up being melted down by the Spanish. The most important religious item of the empire was here. It was an image of the sun know as the Punchao. This was an all-gold image of a young boy surrounded by reflective golden discs with a central cavity containing a dough made from the hearts of dead Inca emperors. It was supposedly found in the last Inca city of Vilcabamba and sent back to the king of Spain never to be seen again.
Coricancha housed over 4,000 priests and attendants. Offerings to gods and Inca ancestors were made daily. It contained temples to both the sun and moon in addition to shrines to thunder and lightning, to the stars, to Venus and to the rainbow. It was also the Incas’ principal astronomical observatory. Priests here studied the celestial bodies, noting the movements of the sun and solstice and equinox dates, and predicting eclipses. This allowed them to time sacred rituals and the planting of crops.
Coricancha was the center of the ceque system, a series of ritual pathways leading outward from Cusco into the rest of the Inca Empire. This system is illustrated in the colorful picture above left in which the empire was divided into four sections called suyus and 42 lines, or ceques, radiated out from the center hub like spokes in a wheel. Along these lines lay over 328 wak’as, spots of ceremonial, ritual, or religious significance. Some wak’as were natural features, such as springs, boulders, or caves, while others were man-made features like buildings, fountains, or canals. The number of wak’as on each line varied, typically from 3 to 13 or more per ceque. Certain people from specific kin groups were designated as caretakers for each wak’a.
Most of Coricancha was destroyed after the 16th-century war with the Spanish conquistadors, as settlers took it apart to build their own churches and residences. Much of its stonework was used as the foundation for the seventeenth-century Santo Domingo Convent. It was built after the 1650 earthquake destroyed the first Dominican convent. During the Spanish takeover of the area, the priests would build their churches on top of or next to the Inca temples and holy sites. This is one of numerous sites where the Spanish incorporated Inca stonework into the structure of a colonial building. A major earthquake in 1950 severely damaged the church and laid bare some of the inner Inca walls. These walls of huge, tightly interlocking blocks of stone still stand today due to their sophisticated stone masonry.
Our next stop was Sacsayhuaman, a fortress that is now part of a national park. The park stands on a hill looming over the city of Cusco to the north at an elevation of 12,142 ft. On the way there we stopped to take some photos of Cusco from a higher point. It is gorgeous and you could just make out our hotel because it is one of the only buildings in the city with a still standing cypress tree in it. There is a statue here called Cristo Blanco that looks out over the city as a scaled down replica of the one in Rio de Janeiro. The funds used to construct it were donated by Palestinian refugees that were relocated to Cusco in 1944. It is on top of Pukamoqo hill, a sacred Inca site holding soil from all four corners of the empire.
Sacsayhuaman is a citadel that was built by the Inca in the 15th century under Pachacuti. It is part of a national park now that is used for important festivals. If you pronounce this the way the Peruvians do it sounds like SexyWoman. Once Cathy pointed this out I couldn’t NOT hear it! It was an Inca site that had been used for sun worshipping and observing the stars. The Inca used the location of the constellations to help them track the seasons and the weather. They dragged giant limestone blocks from quarries up earth ramps and added them in multiple terraces and walls in a zig-zag pattern for stability. There was a labyrinth of buildings on the summit with room enough for 5,000 troops and it was crowned with three great towers whose foundations can still be seen today. The Inca were well aware of earthquakes and how to build structures to withstand them. It is thought that 20,000 men employed over a period of fifty years were used to build the dry stone walls that are constructed of huge limestone blocks. The Spanish and Inca had an important battle here in 1536 in which the Spanish won over the forces of Manco Inca, a successor of Pachacuti. This sealed the fate for the Inca and assured that the Spanish would take over the entirety of the Inca empire.
For hundreds of years after the Battle of Sacsayhuaman, even up until the mid-1900s, the site served as a pre-cut stone quarry for other buildings in the city of Cusco. Too recently, someone finally said, “let’s stop destroying our history” and Ecuador created a national park here to protect the remaining structures. The large stone behind us in the photos is over 100 tons. We also saw some alpacas grazing on the hills of the landmark.
At the exit, they have a tree nursery where you can pick up a baby tree to plant near your home. They are trying to increase the number of native trees and plants and to decrease the number of eucalyptus trees that have become quite prevalent due to their fast growing, straight trunks that the people like to use for construction.
Later that day we visited the main square of Cusco, Plaza de Armas. The great Inca square that preceded Plaza de Armas was twice the size of the modern day plaza that occupies the land today and was home to regular meditation ceremonies that were performed by Inca nobility. These ceremonies typically ended in tears, giving the original square the name Huacaypata, which translates to “place of crying” in Quechua. Plaza de Armas is anchored by two of the city’s most well-known religious buildings: the Church La Compañía de Jesús and the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin.
The famed rebel leader Jose Gabriel Tupac Amaru, who piloted a late 18th-century uprising against the Spanish colonists, was executed by dismemberment in the plaza in 1781 as a violent and public warning to others that may have been inclined to follow in his footsteps. Today, the death and memory of Tupac Amaru, who became a mythical figure in the Peruvian struggle for independence, is honored with a statue in the center of the square.
The Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin, also known as the “Cathedral of Santo Domingo” or simply as “the Cusco Cathedral” was the first cathedral built in the city. Construction started in 1559 on the grounds of the Inca’s Kiswarkancha temple and the Spaniards used stones from dismantled Inca temples that lined the square to build the church, which was finished in 1654. The cathedral is known for housing many paintings from the Cusco School of painting, a style of European art techniques that incorporated local indigenous elements in their religious works. One painting from this school is a one-of-a-kind depiction of The Last Supper depicting Jesus and the twelve apostles feasting on guinea pig, a traditional Andean delicacy. The Spanish allowed this type of art as a method to convert the native Incas to Catholicism.
We went on a tour of the interior of The Cusco Cathedral that was really interesting. It is still used today for church services and weddings and, in the artwork on the walls and the alters, you can see the melding of the Peruvian/Incan beliefs and the Catholic beliefs. Unfortunately, the church does not allow photos so you will just have to live it through our description. They compared Pachamama (Mother Earth) to the Virgin Mary and slowly started to convince the local people that Catholicism was the right religion to follow. To this day the Virgin Mary is highly esteemed.
Trey and I felt angry and sad for the Incas and the native Peruvians who were overtaken by the invading Spanish and forced/coerced/manipulated into adopting the Catholic religion. We took some solace is seeing that they have not given up all of their roots. They still believe in Pachamama, the mountains, the sun, the moon and the old ways. They just added this in to their own slightly modified version of Catholicism. The Peruvians seem ok with it all now.
There are a lot of very interesting pieces of art in this church. One that stood out is Señor de los Temblores, meaning Lord of the Earthquakes, but also called Black Christ. It is a 16th-century statue of the crucifixion of Jesus whose color is darker than most depictions of Jesus. It is not a coincidence that a darker Jesus was put here as the Spanish conquistadores had the mission to evangelize the population and for them to feel more identified with the image of Christ crucified. The black color has become increasingly darker as the result of having been exposed for centuries to smoke and dust, the buildup of soot from candles and oil lamps, and pigment and pollen from the red ñuk’chu flowers that are showered on the statue when it is taken in procession on Easter Monday. It is popularly believed that the statue reduced damage in the city during the 1650 earthquake when, after a big earthquake that produced more than 5,000 deaths, the devotees from Cusco took it in a procession at the exact moment that the aftershocks and tremors stopped.
It has been interesting to see our kid’s reactions to the religious side of the church. We are both atheists and have not taken our kids to church or temple or any other formal religious training. They do go to a Quaker school and learn about the 6 Spices (Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship) and we feel like these are wonderful ideals to live by. To see Jesus on the cross, for me, is not a really surprising thing since I grew up attending an Episcopal church and learned all the Bible stories and religious culture that goes along with this. Our kids are seeing this with fresh eyes and are alternatively horrified, curious, confused and observant. I told them short versions of the story of Jesus and these were some of their questions:
Why is it called the Bible? What does the word Bible mean? Why do the Jesus dolls all have human hair because that is disgusting. Why did they make Jesus keep carrying the cross after he fell down and his knees were bloody? How many times did he fall down? Why did they put his feet together on the cross instead of apart? Why did they kill him anyway? They asked what the little confessional booth was and why you have to tell the priest what you have done wrong. Why can’t you just say sorry? What is a priest anyway and what makes a priest special? Why is there so much gold here? And so on…
As a complete twist of fate, the Cusco city flag is a rainbow. This flag was introduced in 1973 and was declared an official emblem in 1978. Needless to say, Trey has gotten a lot of positive comments about his mask in Peru!
In the afternoon, the hotel arranged for us to swim at their sister hotel next door where there is a heated pool. We spent a little over an hour doing a swim workout, practicing back flips (Sy) and getting thrown high in the air by Trey (Sy and Griffin). After a quick hot shower, we ventured forth into the square nearby and had an early dinner. We did a little window shopping for some soccer jerseys (Lapadula is popular), t-shirts and earrings and a quick turn around the Patagonia store for home vibes. Early to bed today as the next 2 days are going to be long travel days.
Trey got up early on our day of departure to find an ATM to get some Peruvian sol. He was able to see a presentation from one of the local schools that used traditional costumes and dances. It was cool to see all of the Peruvian parents get excited about seeing their children perform.
We finished our tour of Peru with some last minute souvenir purchases. The vendors here all take on famous names like Pablo Picasso and Kevin Costner so they are easier to remember. Our guides knew them all by name. They are very persistent and showed up in every town that we went to. I purchased some necklaces from the very sweet woman below who went by Martha Washington, and took a final picture with some cute llamas. We are going to miss the kindness and spirituality of the Peruvian people.
We leave Cusco for Lima at 12:20pm and then wait around in the hotel near the airport until our 11:50 PM flight to Miami where we have a 6 hour lay over, then a 2 hour flight to the Dominican Republic and a 2 hour drive to Cabrera. Yikes!
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