Tuesday May 28th 2019 - Cusco

Today was a free day in Cusco. I had a very bad night as even when lying down I was breathless.  I wasn't very pleased when Jim got up early for breakfast and woke me up. I gave breakfast a miss and we met up with Charlotte at 9.30am. Sarah was going to a cookery course with Pauline so we headed to the Plaza where we sat for a while. Then we started to make our way downhill past Coricancha to a textile market where I was hoping to get a blanket for Carol. It was quite a walk but we stopped on the way for coffee. The loo was basically a broom cupboard under the stairs but the only way of flushing was using a bucket for water that was in a big barrel - interesting experience!

At the junction of Avenida del Sol and Avenida Tullamayo is the Paccha de Pumaqchupan fountain. This name means "source of water in the tail of the puma". It is said that the city of Cusco had the shape of a puma and in this place in the past two rivers were joined - the Saphi and the Tullamayo. This pacha has a corridor where you can walk behind the water. Behind the fountain is a very impressive mosaic

Figures that stand out and have significance are: the puma, the symbol of the city of Cusco, representing the existence of force, courage and intelligence; the sun of Echenique representing the divine origin of the Incas; circles representing the vital energy of the world constantly in motion; elliptical shapes representing the earth, a deity in the Inca empire; six steps (the chacana) representing the interconnectedness of the 3 realms - Hanan Pacha, Kay Pacha and Uku Pacha (a bit like Catholic notion of Heaven, Earth and Hell); the coca leaf , a symbol of cultural identity; the lightning, an important divinity to the Incas and a symbol of power.

Inside in the Centro Artesanal on Avenida Tullumayo there were interesting things to see. Many were of religious significance.

Walking round the market was exhausting but I got a blanket and a few keyrings. We got a taxi back to the Plaza for 5 soles - very cheap.

The ubiquitous Irish pub!

We sat there a while and then went to Inka Grill for lunch where Sarah joined us after a very disappointing cookery experience.

After lunch we did our tour of the Cathedral which filled us with awe - or was it disgust - at its opulence. The fact that, sitting on the ground, outside the Cathedral was a beggarwoman, only increased the experience.

Cusco Cathedral was built on the site of an ancient Inca temple called Kiswarkancha. The temple was the site of Viracocha's  palace. Viracocha was a 15th century emperor named after the creator deity worshipped by the Incas. Taking stone from Sacsayhuaman citadel on the hill above Cusco the spaniards forced the Incas to construct the cathedral. Their aim was to destroy the Inca religion and replace it with Catholicism.

Taking photos was not allowed in the Cathedral so Jim had to buy some postcards to capture one of its most remarkable features - a painting of the Last Supper featuring Jesus and his disciples feasting on traditional Peruvian dishes. The central dish is guinea pig (though some people say it is a wild Andean chinchilla) lying paws up on a platter. Bread and wine are usually associated with the last supper but this painting has corn and potatoes, both typically peruvian food. The painting also shows Judas as the traitor he was. He is the only only of the disciples not caught up with reverence for Jesus but is painted as looking at the viewer, with his hand below the table, clutching a money purse.

The choir stalls are made of pure cedar and have carvings of former bishops of Cusco.










One of the main altars is visually striking and quite unusual. It is embossed in silver but was originally wood.

This is the main altar in the Church of the Holy Family.

The Altar of the Holy Trinity.

The Altar of the Agony of Christ.

Painting of the Lord of the Earthquake. The Lord of the Earthquake's power was shown in 1650 when there was an earthquake and the people paraded the figure of Christ in the streets and the worst of the earthquake was averted.

This is called the Black Jesus (also Lord of the Earthquakes) . It is said that the Spanish conquerors, having the mission to evangelise Peru, created this figure of Christ dark in colour and with indigenous features in order to make the people feel more identified with the figure of Christ.





Following our visit to the Cathedral we then went to the Machu Picchu museum which was very good. It is set in a huge colonial mansion called Casa Concha. It is a beautiful example of Andean residential architecture during the early years of the Spanish conquest. Like many colonial buildings in Peru it was built on the foundations of an Inca palace, in this case that of Tupac Yupanqui, the son and successor of Pachacutec, the founder of Machu Picchu.The museum is dedicated to the history of Machu Picchu and the people who lived there and exhibits hundreds of artefacts taken by the American explorer Hiram Bingham in 1911 and only returned in 2011 by Yale University. The exhibition rooms open off the first floor baroque-style balconies that surround a central courtyard.

Sarah approaching the glass-covered excavation pit revealing the Inca floor 6 feet below the present surface.

Model of the archaelogical site of Machu Picchu

The Quipu is a fascinating way of keeping records and conveying information used by the Inca in place of a numerical or alphabetical system. They are often called talking knots or threads that speak.

The exhibition includes ceramic objects, metals, rocks, Inca stonework, cloth and silverwork as well as relics excavated from the ruins of the site of the museum. Most of the objects are ceramic and were used by the people of Machu Picchu till the end of the fifteenth century.

Features of Casa Concha.













En route back to the square we passed these colorful features:

That evening we dined in Paprika across the road from our hotel where I ate a little of my pollo relleno - not because it wasn't good (it was very good!) but because my appetite was affected by the altitude sickness.