Peru: Cusco, the Inca capital

      If you know anything about the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, you probably know the story of the 1534 Spanish kidnapping of the Inca (emperor) and the ransom of a room full of gold. The Inca Atahualpa was on his way to Cusco after winning a civil war with his half-brother when he was taken hostage by Francisco Pizarro. The great sun temple in Cusco was stripped of much of its gold to pay the ransom. After it was paid, the Spanish killed Atahualpa anyway. It was the beginning of the end of the short-lived Inca Empire.
    Today, Cusco, a city of more than 500,000 people, abounds with reminders of its past. Its first people were the Killke, who founded the town around 900 A.D. Some of the ancient stonework that is thought of as Incan was in fact built by the Killke people.  Cusco was conquered by the Inca in the 1200s and became the center of the Kingdom (or Chiefdom) of Cusco. The people were mainly farmers -- all the much-photographed mountain terraces of the Andes were built for agriculture -- until a leader came along to use Cusco as the base for one of the world's great empires.

Statue of Pachacutec in Cusco's
main plaza.

     He was Cusi Yupanqui, the son of the eighth Inca and the brother of the designated successor.  When he was a young man, a rival empire, the Chankas, attacked Cusco.  His father and brother fled. He stayed to successfully defend the city and the legend is that even the stones of Cusco rose up as soldiers under his command. He was recognized as the Inca around 1438 and ruled for more than 30 years.
    He became known as Pachacutec ("shaker of the earth") and ruled as a warrior king, He conquered many other ethnic groups and expanded his empire's territory, creating a model of Inca conquest that was still in progress a century later when the Spanish arrived and conquered the Incas. He also was a great builder.  Machu Picchu is thought to have been built as a winter retreat for him.  Under him, the empire built roads and cities, and consolidated conquered peoples into the empire.
    Pachacutec's empire was known as Tawantinsuyu (the four corners). Today, thanks mainly to the Spanish who didn't use the Tawantinsuyu name, we know it as the Inca Empire.  It lasted little more than a century yet its impact survived three centuries of Spanish rule and can still be seen today. Its language, Quechua, is one of Peru's two official languages and is widely spoken in the Andes.
    A visit to Cusco means breathing at 4,300 meters above sea level.  Most hotels have oxygen tanks available for guests who have trouble adjusting to the altitude.  Another aid is coca, and everywhere there are coca leaves for people to chew or use as a tea. Candies containing coca are available at every corner grocery. Peru and Bolivia are the only countries where coca (it's the essential ingredient needed to make cocaine) is legally cultivated.  Our stay in Cusco came after our visits to Arequipa (elev. 2,335 meters), Ollantaytambo (elev. 2,772 meters) and Machu Picchu (elev. 2,430 meters), so we thought we'd have little trouble. Both Jane and I found that walking up a slope or a flight of stairs could make us short of breath, and this is an extremely hilly town. In fact, some pedestrian-only streets are nothing but steps.  Other than that, which didn't lessen appreciably during our four-day visit, we had no problem.
     I found Cusco charming.  It has several very good restaurants, some tucked away in hard-to-find narrow streets and some overlooking the main square, Plaza de Armas. There are also a lot of shops to browse -- from handicraft alcoves in alleys to top-of-the-line shops selling very fine alpaca goods. A thorough search found bartenders capable of making decent mojitos, and it takes no effort at all to find solid pisco sours, the "national drink" of Peru that very few Peruvians seem to drink. Pisco is a grape brandy much like Armagnac except that it's not aged in wood. They prefer to mix pisco with ginger ale or Sprite.  Perhaps it's because pisco sours require more work (pisco, lime juice, simple syrup, and egg whites, shaken very hard with ice, strained and topped with drops of bitters).

This wall was once the foundation for
 the main sun  temple in Cusco.  Today,
 known as Coricancha, it is part of the
 Santo  Domingo Monastery complex,
 the Spanish having  demolished 
much of the sun temple   and  built a 
cathedral atop  its ruins. This temple, its
 walls  and floors  covered with plates of
 gold as  thick as four  inches,  supplied
 much of  the gold that was given  to the
 Spanish in an  attempt to ransom
 the Inca Atahualpa.

Here you can see how the Santa Domingo Monastery
is built on the ruins of the Incan sun temple. 

Over the centuries, Inca-era stone walls have been given new life
as parts of new buildings. Note how no two stones are exactly
alike. The wall is a stone jigsaw puzzle that is strengthened
by the way the stones fit together. 

Tile roofs give Cusco a Spanish look.
This view is from a roof terrace at the hotel
Andenenes al Cielo. The woman is sweeping a
walkway above the hotel's courtyard.

The Cathedral of Cusco dominates the city's Plaza de Armas.
The Cathedral Complex consists of, from the left, the
extravagant Iglesia de Jesus Maria (mostly hidden here), the
twin-towered Cathedral itself, and the Iglesia del Triunfo.
The Cathedral is home to many works of arts by the
so-called Cusco School, painters who combined
European techniques with native content, such as
a painting that shows a local delicacy, guinea pig.
being eaten at the Last Supper. 

A French flag flies on a typically narrow Cusco street.
Note again how partial old stone walls are reused.
Its role as the gateway to Machu Picchu and the "Sacred
Valley" of the Urubamba River,  along with its own ruins
and other attractions, has made Cusco a popular destination
for travelers from all over the world.

The historic central district of Cusco has a number

of pedestrian-only streets. This one climbs a hill north 

of the Plaza de Armas.

Ornate wooden balconies such as this one in Cusco are
common on Spanish Colonial building throughout Peru.
In Peru, the Spanish Colonial period is referred to as
the Spanish Viceroyalty.

The ruins of Sacsayhuaman (pronounced "sex-say woman,"
 to the endless amusement of many visitors) are on a hill overlooking
Cusco's historic district. This was a huge fortress and temple
 complex that the Spanish used as a quarry, taking stone from
 it to build their palaces and churches in Cusco.

Although the Sacsayhuaman's builders were able to work with
 gigantic stones weighing as much as 361 tons, they were
apparently too large for the Spanish to move. The smaller
stones in this photo  represent repairs that allowed the
 terrace above this wall to be restored. The sign below
is at  Coricancha.

Peru: Don't Skip Ollantaytambo

This is a bath, still with running water, dating to the Inca era.
 In the background you can see the beginning of terraces that
rise high above the town of Ollantaytambo.

     
       This small town (population 3,000) is more or less the end of the road for people traveling from Cusco to Machu Picchu.  If you make it to Ollantaytambo by car or bus, this is where you transfer to a train because there is no road connection to Machu Picchu. Oddly, hiking from here isn't an official option.  None of the established trails --  the classic Inca trail, the Salcantay trail and the Inca jungle trail -- go through Ollantaytambo, and simply walking along the railroad track isn't an approved route.
          Many visitors take a train all the way from Cusco to Aguas Calientes (the town at the foot of Machu Picchu), giving them at best a quick glimpse at this town's Inca-era ruins, which are considered second only to Machu Picchu in grandeur and have more historic significance. Ollantaytambo is worth much more than a glance from a moving train.
          The town, pronounced oh-yay-tay-TAHM-bo, predates the Inca culture.  Some of the ruins that overlook the town were built by the Quillques, who were living here in 1440 when the great Inca empire-builder Pachacutec conquered it and started building a ceremonial center and a royal compound with an estimated 1,000 workers. Others may have been built by the Colla people of Lake Titicaca, brought here to work by Pachacutec. Time ran out on the Inca's rule before his buildings were complete. In the mid-1530s, the ruling Inca, Manco Inca, transformed Pachacutec's incomplete temple complex into a fortress and from it was able to defeat a 100-strong Spanish force led by the Pizzaro brothers, Hernando, Juan and Francisco. It was the last defeat for the Spanish, the last victory for the indigenous people.
         In addition to the ruins, the town itself provides testimony to the past.  Many buildings consist of adobe, brick or stone walls built atop lower walls dating to the Inca era or earlier. Ancient water channels still provide drainage, testimony to the native peoples' genius in managing water.

Terraces and fortifications rise above corn fields and climb
 the mountains that surround Ollantaytambo. 
Photos below: Stairs connect the terraces.

Like most Inca-era stone work, the walls at Ollantaytambo sit directly on
bedrock.  The smaller stones appear to be a rather unartful repair. Notice
the lack of mortar between the larger stones. 

Unlike Machu Picchu, most of what visitors see at Ollantaytambo is original
stonework. Few areas show signs of repairs.

Six giant slabs of pink rhyolite are perfectly slotted together
 and oriented to glow at sunrise in Ollantaytambo's never-finished
 sun temple. The long straight lines  and the use of molten bronze to hold 
the wall  together are unusual and not seen in sun temples elsewhere.

This throne-like carved stone sits among many rough-carved
 stones near the sun temple. Its purpose and intended
 location are, like most of Inca culture, lost to the ages.

The terraces are the most striking feature of the Ollantaytambo ruins. Similar
terraces can be seen in many areas of the Andes in Peru.

A narrow path takes people who don't suffer from vertigo from
one section of the fortress to another. On the opposite moutain,
Ollantaytambo's famous granaries -- grain storehouses --  and the trail
that leads to them are visible. We did not visit those ruins.

A restored structure clings to the side of the mountain
overlooking Ollantaytambo. Thatched roofs were
commonly used by pre-Columbian cultures in Peru.

Water rushes through a centuries-old channel to
feed Inca-era fountains and baths.

This small street in Ollantaytambo may predate the 1440 Inca
conquest of the town, but the lower stones on the walls sure
look like Inca stone work to my eye: the stones interlock in
various ways, walls appear to tilt slightly inward, and there's
little or no visible mortar. Below are some more street scenes
from this remarkable place. 

Note the water channeled along this street.