Today began my explorations of the cultural attractions of the city of Cusco. And what attractions they were. Me and my guide, Julio, visited the Inca temple of the sun, La Coricancha, and the massive site that sits above Cusco on a nearby hill, Sacsaywaman. This would be my first insight into the mystery of Inca culture.

Coricancha is apparently the most important site in Cusco, and probably the rest of the Inca empire. It was a massive temple to the sun gods. Up until the 1950´s this site wasn´t even really known about. A massive cathedral had been built directly on top of it by the Spanish after they had demolished a good deal of it. The Spanish built churches on top of most of the important Inca sites to demonstrate their ´power´over the empire. However, when a large earthquake hit the area in 1950, over half the city crumbled, along with a good part of the cathedral, revealing under it, the far more structurally sound Inca stonework. The Incas somehow had a knack for building things to withstand earthquakes. The Spanish didn´t. The cathedral was rebuilt, but now that the secret was out, the ruins had to be protected and maintained for their historic importance. They really were quite spectacular, and it was interesting to see the contrast between the beautiful ancient stone walls, and the, to my mind, somewhat garish catholic religious art.

From there, we had a taxi ride up to the top of a nearby hill, where we explored the huge, and mysterious Saccsayhuaman (or ´sexy-woman´as Julio likes to call it). One thing thats for sure about this site, its beauty is only surpassed by its mystery. It was amazing to see the sheer size of the stones used to create the walls here, some weighing over 150 metric tons (I really don´t know how much that is, but it sounds impressive). Not only that, but these huge stones are so immaculately fit together, one cannot even slide a piece of paper through. To boot, these stones were brought up from miles away. Science has failed to find an answer for how they accomplished this spectacular feat. Way to go, science.

Many of the buildings that were originally found at Saccsayhuaman have long since disapeared. The Spanish liked to use this place to quarry the stones for their own churches and cathedrals (of which there are 15 in Cusco). Apparently durring Inca times, this was an affluent neighborhood, and also had many temples to various gods. The significant gods that they liked to pray to were that of the Condor, representing heaven; the Puma, repsenting power, and the world of the living; and the snake, representing the underworld. The most common figure was, and still is, Pachamama, or mother earth. Every time, Cusqeañans drink, they spill a few drops on the ground in respect for the earth. That seems like a pretty good idea to me, kind of like spilling a forty on the curb for the fallen brothers, but, the earth.

After a brief lunch, we visited the San Blas district of Cusco, an old part where artisans like to sell their goods. There is a well known art school in Cusco, so art is pretty prevalent. Theres a lot of neat stuff to buy, and cheap too, but i´ve decided to wait it out awhile.

A quiet night and a much tamer dinner left me happy and asleep.