Peru - Cuzco

Cuzco was our next destination in Peru- about an hour flight southeast of Lima.  Since it is the main starting point for the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu, this city has been coined the "gringo" capital of Peru since it's usually awash with tourists.  Heidi and I arrived however, the day before the Inti Raymi festival (sun festival) and found Cuzco packed with probably every Peruvian in the country.  

Tiny little Cuzco streets with no sidewalks to safely walk on to speak of...

The famous Coca tea made from the same leaves as cocaine of course.  Heidi, who abstains from all things even slightly alcoholic, had about 4 cups of this a day and brought home a Costco-sized box.

This is when I started wondering if all Peruvians were midgets.

The sun is one of the major deities in the Inca religion, and while the Spanish came in and tried to quash this with Catholicism after conquering the Inca people, the festival in addition to a fair bit of other Inca culture lives on anywhere outside a major city.  Unfortunately, the full splendor of the Inca times is less apparent, with all the gold that swathed the buildings melted and sent back to Spain and the majority of the temples and idols were built directly over with the Christian-based churches that stand there today.  Obviously I understand that this is how the modern world was born, but I kept finding it very sad how a whole culture was just totally dismissed.

When we first got out to walk around, we found a parade going strong in the Plaza de Armas.  Quite novel we thought, not realizing the same parade would STILL be going strong with mass amounts of debauchery a full 12 hours later.  All in preparation for the festival the following day. 

We went through the Cathedral (no pictures allowed), which is home to the Last Supper painting where Jesus is eating the local delicacy, cuy (guinea pig).

I thought it would be a good idea to prep for our hike, and since Cuzco is at 11,000 feet, I encouraged Heidi to walk to the upper parts of Cuzco with me.  The first stop was San Cristobal, a church that while closed, was host to an excellent view of the City.  There were also random alpaca cruising around outside.

 

Then we pushed on further up the road to view the ruins called Sacsayhuaman, which apparently is coined by locales as "Sexy Woman."  As is the case with most of the ruins we saw, there is debate on whether this was a military fortress, or religious structure, though more people defer to the latter these days, since the graves of priests were found there at some point.  Heidi was totally over me at this point as every step was causing us to huff and puff.  Clearly the altitude and not our state of physical fitness.  

   

Near Sacsayhuaman is the Cristo Blanco, a statue given to Cuzco by Palestinian refugees.  This is lit up brightly at night, so it looks like Christ is floating in the sky, whereas in Lima they had a neon cross in the hills lit up at night- with a similar result. 

While we were up there, I lamented missing my puppies (crazy me), and found two that reminded me of the boys if they didn't live their super posh lifestyle with me as their mom.

 

And then on our walk back to the hotel we discovered the sole Jewish restaurant in Cuzco, denoted by smurfs for some reason or another.

That night we ventured out for dinner and found the parade and festivities still in full swing, and the various plazas were PACKED with people old and young partying like there was no tomorrow.  

 

For some reason there were quite a few balloon vendors out and about, and all the balloons said "It's a Girl."  Hmm... There was also a little girl just hanging out in the streets by herself (lots of really beautiful but clearly poor children milling about).  Apparently there have been two organizations recently set up in the City that try to provide food, shelter and education for the kids in the area.  Heidi started having visions of becoming a poorer version of Brangelina around this time. 

 

The next day Heidi and I went to visit the local markets.  This was about the time I decided I was going to be vegetarian. At least for the rest of the trip. 

 

Various other pics of Cuzco below: