Land of the Incas
Day Five – 3 October 2011
Weather: Cloudy, some sun, 18ish
I’m not entirely sure what was in that cough syrup, but I like it. I never hacked once last night. The moment I woke up, it started again, but I can deal with that after a good night’s sleep.
I woke just after 6 and went down right away for some breakfast. Not a bad selection and the chef makes nice omelets. I sat with a nice couple from London but originally from India.
Outside the hotel, as we waited, some women came up to us with our photos from Machu Picchu.
Yes. They will track you down!
I had seen the photographer taking the pictures as we walked along and as he raised his camera to take my picture, I raised mine and took his picture. Luis was next to me and burst out laughing. He had never seen anyone do that before.
But the picture came out beautifully with Wayna Pichu behind me. How can you give that up for the sake of $6?
Our included city tour began at 8:30 and we started with a short walk up to the Convento De Santo Domingo Del Cusco, an active convent.
The church has a courtyard but on either side are the intact remains of original Inca settlement. Again we see an amazing display of their precision stone work. No mortar is used between the stones. They cut them to fit precisely and tightly. The walls lean at a slight angle and the walls have proven to be very resistant to earthquakes. Cusco has had several major quakes – in 1350, 1650 and 1950.
Are you sensing a trend?
Word to the wise. Don’t visit Cusco in 2250.
In the last earthquake, part of the convent collapsed around the Incan walls. They remained intact.
On one stone, Luis showed us an imperfection in the stonework and said that with such perfectly precise work, the stone workers had to leave something imperfect, since none of us are perfect.
In another room, he showed us the heaviest stone in that building that had been cut to fit in a doorway and contained 14 corners. (Roughly in the shape of a T with a short bottom).
Luis told us the story of the fall of the Incas in which the Spaniards arrived when the north and south native populations were at war. The Spaniards waited until the north won and approached the north, asking to see the king. He went to meet with them and the only Spaniard to meet him was a priest carrying a bible. The priest told him it was the word of God. The king put the book to his ear and heard nothing.
Except maybe the sea. Who knows?
Disgusted, he threw down the bible and the Spaniards were enraged. The battle between the Spaniards and 3000 Incans ended in a massacre of the Incans as they were facing Spaniards in armour. Not a single Spaniard died. The king was taken prisoner and eventually executed.
The south then thought…the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Yeah. Right.
So, they became allies for a while, but the Spaniards being Spaniards and wanting gold, started to increase in numbers and soon the south figured out that the old saying had caveats they hadn’t figured out yet. The battles lasted between 1536 and 1572.
Do I need to say who won?
After the convent, we were picked up by two smaller buses. As I sat in the back seat, I realized the windows would open.
Big mistake. The moment you open a window, all the street vendors swarm your window.
So, closed it is.
Then a guy walks by wearing the same blue Peru t-shirt I was wearing. He stopped in his tracks, smiled and gave me a thumbs up.
From there we drove a short distance to an ancient Inca city called Saqsaywanman. Again, the same incredible stone work but the stones are the size of Volkswagans in some cases.
A herd of alpacas was hanging around the field next to the city.
And yes, the same girl that had manhandled the baby alpaca before was off across the field trying to get close to them while 30 other people were trying to just get a shot of them grazing in the field.
<sigh>
There’s one in every crowd.
We have two.
One to herd the alpacas and one to take her picture….with an ipad. LOL
The Incan city here was the capital of the Incan Empire. American researchers had determined that there had been two prolonged periods of drought in Peru prior to the rise of the Incas and both corresponded with the disappearance of a major civilization. First the Nazca disappeared in 600 CE then the Waki disappeared 400 years later. The Incas were a combination of many civilizations that came to the rich area of Cusco and began the Inca Empire in the 1200s. With the different groups, they got different skills that helped expand the civilization.
The American researchers also determined that the city, from the air, was in the shape of a puma and that the street names reflected which part of the puma it was supposed to be.
With my luck, I’d live at the ass end of Saqsaywanman.
Of course, the Nazca influence is obvious there somehow.
Either that or it was the aliens.
Yes. We are picking up on similarities between Egyptian and Inca civilization that is spurring a lot of conspiracy talk.
All we can see of the city is the exterior wall. I guess the rest needs to be excavated. Some researchers thought the city to be a fortress but the only battle that took place there was between the Spaniards and the Inca in 1536. The Spaniards were in armour. The Incas had slingshots.
Do I still need to tell you who won in 1572?
We got back on the bus for a short ride to an amphitheatre/cave where the locals used to gather for various ceremonies. They had discovered some 350 different ones around Cusco but this one remained undiscovered until recently.
The natural formation lead down to a cave with an alter and a pit behind it where they found thousands of alpaca and llama bones.
After this, we drove to a lookout for a great view of Cusco. We could see Plaza de Armas…
…the convent and the roof of our hotel as well as the airport. It is smack dab in the middle of the city but they’re building a new one. Where? I don’t know. I can’t imagine where they can find enough flat land for an airport up here. As it stands, they don’t permit night landings because of the hills.
Then it was the obligatory factory stop. This time, a silver jewelry factory where we got the usual spiel and a chance to buy jewelry. Cameron Diaz and Olivia Newton John have shopped there.
That was enough to tell me I wasn’t going to afford the place
I did get to use the washroom and got a free Inca Kola.
The factory stop wasn’t too long and after that, we went to another church (does it never end?) called San Blas. It had an alter that went from floor to ceiling but the most impressive part was a pulpit carved from cedar that had taken the artist four years to carve. The detail is amazing.
Yes, there would be a picture here to show you, but they don’t allow any pictures with or without the flash.
When the artist finished the pulpit and was putting the top part in place, he fell and eventually died of his injuries. He was first buried under the pulpit but eventually moved.
Except his skull. That’s still sitting up on top of the pulpit.
From here, we walked to Plaza de Armas where we had almost an hour before those of us doing the optionals had to pay for them at the hotel.
I went to get a couple of fridge magnets and helped a tourmate find some memory cards. Photo shops are very plentiful. Since we had so little time for lunch, we got a box lunch prepared for us by the hotel. I had chicken sandwich and salad.
And it was real chicken! A home, you’d so often get processed crap.
I paid for my FLA optional with Visa and watched as the guy taking the payment used a stick the rub the numbers through the carbon. The cost was $63.
We left at 2:30 to take the same road we took to Pisac. The ride in the smaller bus was much more “exciting” than in the slower big bus. You know those Hollywood movies where the cars are speeding along the curving highway in the hills with sheer drops and no guardrails?
Well, I know how their passengers felt.
But we got to the farm in one piece. Luis showed us to a board that explains the different types of alpaca and llamas.
The primary difference is that the alpaca has wool on its legs and llamas don’t. The alpaca is smaller as well. There is also the vicuna and guanaco which are the wild varieties of each. The fur of the vicuna is considered to be the second finest in the world after silk.
There are actually two types. The Lama which include the Llama Q’ara, the Llama Ch’aku and the wild Guanaco. And the Vicugna which include the Alpaca Huarago, Alpaca Suri and the wild Vicuna.
The tame ones can live to 16 or 17 years while the wild live to about 12 or 13.
We followed Luis into an open corral with about 8 or 10 llamas which were all making their way towards us.
Yeah. We’re the silly tourists holding out the wheat.
Like ringing a bell.
Well, talk about cute factor. We spent about a half hour going from corral to corral – some open, some not, feeding them.
One of the farm workers was always there to hand us more wheat to feed them and in the open corrals we could walk among them. Some didn’t mind being petted, others let us know they didn’t in their own special way.
Bring lots of tissue.
There were several baby alpacas and llamas and the vicuna were on the hill above us with big wild rodents from the chinchilla family.
Did I mention cute factor?
Off the scale. I took video that you can view here and here.
The animals are obviously well cared for and they get us to pay them to do the feeding for them. They have it made!
Then we moved on to visit the weavers sitting in open huts. The weavers come from local villages and remain at the farm a short while then are replaced by another weaver from another village and so on. Sixty percent of the proceeds from some of their work goes directly to their community. Some items, one hundred per cent of the proceeds go to the weaver and community.
In the shop there was all kinds of alpaca products. The prices were higher than the other place, but the work was amazing. I bought a scarf for about $50. It’s a doubled up one that would actually be useful in Canada.
We got on the bus and Luis told us there was a second stop. I had forgotten but just down the road was an animal rescue site. After we got inside, I noticed a gorgeous German shepherd sitting next to a cage door staring inside the room.
He would not take his eyes off the door. As we approached, the answer was obvious.
There was a wild cat inside with her kitten. The dog didn’t want to move for us.
We saw a hawk, ketchels and two pumas.
Then the centre’s guide brought us *inside* the condor cage.
No worries he said. The birds are scavengers. They won’t kill anything.
Like us.
The birds were sitting at the top of a hill and the centre’s guide went up there to entice one of them to fly down. The first was a baby condor.
Cute factor overload!
The centre has short pillars where the birds will sit while we can get our pictures taken with them. At a respectable distance.
Well, I get up there thinking,…nothing to it.
But all I remember is the centre’s guide making a lunge for me.
Just as the bird decided she liked my hat.
Everyone else was snapping pictures.
Yeah. Forget the poor Newf up there. Get the picture!
(Notice the German shepherd in the background? It still had not moved from that spot).
I survived. I expect you’ll see the pictures all over the net. Me, totally oblivious to what’s going on just behind me as this bird’s fist sized beak is opened like scissors and his eyes on my cap….and the guide lunging at me from the other direction.
That was worth the $63.
The baby condor – oh wait…I say baby. It’s nine months old and the size of the German shepherd still sitting out there staring at the wild cats. So, anyway, this flying German shepherd hops down off the pillar, opens it wings and walks back up the hill. 
It didn’t mind getting a pat on the back.
For not eating my hat.
Or me.
Then one of the adult condors came down on its own and went straight to the pillar and opened up its wings.
It knows how to get tips.
I skipped that photo op. I had figured the adult condor was coming down to get the hat for the kid.
We got our pics then went back to the bus for the 30 minute drive back to the hotel. We got back at 5:30, so I had a chance to relax for a bit before we left for the optional dinner in Plaza de Armas. The restaurant offered a buffet and the usual local folklore dancers.
The buffet was delicious. They even offered alpaca.
No, it doesn’t taste like chicken.
We ate and the show started with the five guys in Peruvian ponchos playing local instruments including the flutes. Dancers came out every couple of songs and then everyone (from the numerous tour groups here) got up to take pictures. No one else could see the show then. I went up and sat on the floor to get some video a couple times. You can view one here. Not a bad show.
As time went on though, all that was on our minds was the 5:15 wake up call the next morning and Cesar mercifully led us out just after 9 pm.
I rearranged my day pack for the long 10 hour drive tomorrow. I decided to take my laptop so that I could type up today’s tale tomorrow on the bus.
That way. I get to sleep now.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Go to Day Six
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