Cuzco Public Market & Historic Sites

After a long travel afternoon from Machu Picchu yesterday, we arrived in Cuzco. The city was the center of the Incan Empire, and its Quechua name, Qosqo, translates to the “navel of the world.”

Now, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a bustling center of tourist attractions, as well as a very livable city for everyday people. Our tour guides are all from Cusco.

We started the day with a trip to San Pedro Market, a kind of farmer’s market that operates every day. Our guide took us to her usual shopping stalls and explained some of the traditions and uses for some of the unfamiliar foods. Two holidays are coming up — Reformation Day and All Saints Day, so some special breads and flower arrangements are on display for sale.

We tried to get to an archaeological site, but the roads were temporarily blocked for a visit by President Castillo. For security reasons, the site of his meeting wasn’t revealed ahead of time, so the tour company couldn’t anticipate this.

So we went to a Spanish colonial church and monastery built on the foundations of the “Golden Temple”built for the Sun God, Inti. The walls and floors of the temple were covered with sheets of gold. The conquerors tore down the gold adornments and covered the walls with frescoes. It wasn’t until an earthquake in 1950 severely damaged the Dominican complex that it was decided to reveal the Incan structures in one part of the site. Now you can see both the colonial and Incan structures side by side. Also on display were the various methods used to join the large stones—such as mortise and tenon, but also brass rings, “][” shapes and many more techniques. These were never visible, leaving a smooth outer surface.

We did eventually get to the Sacsayhuamán archaeological complex built as a fortified city by the Inca in the 1400s. Archeological evidence indicates that the earliest occupation of the hilltop dates to about 900 CE. Since Peru didn’t begin protecting any of its historic sites until 1941, the site was subject to parties and looting of its stones (how do you steal a 1 ton rock?) Czytaj więcej