June 25: Cusco/Sacsayhuaman

This was the first full day we had in Cusco. After breakfast we headed to the Qoricancha/Santo Domingo complex. The Qoricancha was the prinipal structure of Inca Cusco. Before the Spanish conquest, it was the main religious and royal center of the city. Inside it contained temples dedicated to the moon, sun, and stars. The individual temples were decorated with gold emblems and carvings, most of which were offered to the Spanish as a ransom for the release of the Inca leader Atahualpa (he was nonetheless executed by the conquistadores and the gold was melted down and sent back to Spain!).

After the conquest, the Spanish began to dismantle the complex to make way for a church, but they found the Inca stonework so formidable that they left about 40% of it standing and used it as a foundation for the church, cloister and monastery of Santo Domingo. After the big Cusco earthquake of 1950, more of the Inca structure was exposed and so now the visitor can get a pretty good idea of the layout of the original complex.

We returned to Granja Heidi for lunch, then met Irene, the guide we had at Qoricancha, so she could take us on what best can be described as a "shopping scavenger hunt." Betsy ended up with a lovely silver pendant with images of the Nasca lines on it, and Jim and I each bought a baby alpaca scarf (which would serve us well later in the trip).

We had one more major site to see that day: Sacsayhuaman, the great Inca fortress. This fortress sits on a high hill overlooking the city. We climbed a steep street which then turned into a steep trail, which then blended with a stairway to finally get to the top. Both the view of the city and the ruins themselves are impressive. The fortress was built in a zig-zag formation to make it more impregnable. The stones used are the largest of any Inca structure. The picture of me and Betsy doesn't really give a good idea of the scale of these giant stones, polished so they fit together perfectly, and still standing after 500 years of ransacking, earthquakes, and battles.

Before dinner we toured the foundation that the Niños Hotel supports for poor children in the Cusco area. The foundation serves approximately 500 children. According to Gladys, the hotel receptionist who gave us the tour, these children come from the most abject poverty: houses made of mud brick with no electricity or running water. The foundation has actually opened another center in a separate neighborhood because of the large number of children it now serves. The children are fed nutritious meals, given dental and medical care, and receive help with their schoolwork.



Typical street scene in Cusco (pay the ladies when you take their picture!)