On the 17th, I left Arequipa at 8.45pm via CRUZ DEL SUR. The journey was shorter, just a little bit over 8 hours and arrived in Cusco at 5am. However, immediately I faced another problem. It was still very dark at 5am 😬 But luckily the driver allowed me to stay in the bus until dawn!! Phew..... 😅
When it got brighter, I cruised around the downtown of Cusco, a Unesco World Heritage Site that was once the capital of the Inca Empire. About noon, I took a bus to Urubamba, then another bus to Ollantaytambo, which was my last pit stop before the grand final destination, Machu Picchu 😍
Picture 1: La Catedral Cusco
Picture 2: Qoricancha, "The Golden Temple," was the most important temple in the Inca Empire.
Picture 3: The twelve-angled stone. Frankly, I didn't go and looked for this stone. When I walked through the street, a local saw me and asked me to take a photo of it (most likely because I looked like a tourist 😂). After I came home, then only I understood the significance of this stone ☺️
The twelve-angled stone was part of a stone wall of an Inca palace, and is considered to be a national heritage object. In fact , it's one of the most sophisticated examples of Inca ingenuity as it is made up of about 12 angles that fit perfectly into the adjacent wall. The joints of the wall are so precisely fashioned that even today, hundreds of years after it was first constructed, not even a single piece of paper can fit between any of the wall’s blocks! By the way, do you manage to count the 12 angles? 😁
March 18, 2009 in Peru ⋅ 11 °C