A day in Cusco

I wake up with firecrackers popping outside my window and apparently across the whole city.  It seems that every day the people here in Cusco celebrate some saint or virgin and their celebration starts with firecrackers.  One morning it was 5:00 am.  Then they parade all over the city.  They’re obviously not at the gym before their latte and work.

When I get outside my room I hear the monks chanting throughout the hotel and courtyards.  It’s very mystical and I love it, so I bought the CD.

After an outrageously delicious breakfast y café con leche , I head for the steep cobblestone streets.  The cobblestone is murder on my Prada flats and I still need to get some walkers before Machu Picchu.  I purchased a cute shoulder bag hand knit by a sweet lady in the market.  I feel like a 60’s hippie when I wear it.

Many Andean women come down from the mountains with babies in a bundle strapped to their backs with llamas and baby sheep following along.  Tourists will have their pictures taken with them and this supplements their income – or more likely it’s all of it.  The main industry in Cusco is tourism.

As you look at the city you see a sea of Spanish tile roofs and colonial adobes.  When the Spanish first arrived in Cusco they burned everything they saw and what they couldn’t burn they tore down.  Most cathedrals, churches, and other places are built on the remnants of the Inca structures.  Pizarro wanted to conquer the land but he also wanted to convert all the Inca people to Catholicism.  The Inquisition was carried out at a building I saw.  If the Indians did not totally renounce their gods (i.e., sun, water, earth) and “become” Catholic, they were beheaded on the spot.   There’s a weird painting in the cathedral where a padre and a conquistador are participating in the holy decapitation.  God made them do it. 

   

The Indians who were left were commissioned as builders and artists to paint the many religious paintings the Spanish wanted in their churches.  Even though the Indians were forbidden to honor their gods they would put subtle references to them in the paintings – mountains, sun, and snake.   And in the cathedral the Indians carved beautiful wood choir seats for the monks.  At the end of every armrest was a big breasted woman, naked – no complaints from the monks.


Sorry but no photos today.  I'm having technical difficulties.

 

Now it’s off to bed before my early morning trip to Machu Picchu.

Hasta luego.