A Trip to Peru: febrero 2008

A Trip to Perú

I arrived to Lima, a big extense city with beautiful parks and an elegant modern district, but then during the city tour we visited a pre-Inka "huaca" (shrine.- not to confuse with "huaco"= pottery) and after that, we drove to the "Plaza de Armas" (Main square), with the baroque Cathedral (and Pizarro's tomb inside ), the Bishop's Palace with its beautifully carved wooden windows, the government Palace and then we also visited the church and convent of La Merced, also dating from colonial times.
Next morning, I had to wake up very early to fly to Cusco. There are small, poor houses in the suburbs, (Just as we also have here in Argentina ) but the historical centre is really beautiful and well kept, sorrounded by colonial buildings with their wooden balconies. It's a crowded area ( specially in the evening, not so much early in the morning) and there you can see native people with their typical clothes along with young backpackers and tourists from eveywhere. Everything is mixed: restaurants offering typical cuisine, global ATMs where you can draw money from your account at home, jewelry stores (Peruvians make beautiful silver and gold jewels) together with cyber cafes, souvenir shops (with colourful alpaca wool quilts and sweaters and hats) and pizza bars.
I had a city tour in the afternoon and saw the splendid Cathedral with its gold trimmed altar and the crypt with the tomb of the Peruvian writer, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, son of a Spaniard and a noble Inka lady and his chronicles about the Inkas ("Los comentarios reales") are still one of the sources for historians interested in Inka culture. We also visited the remains of the Sun's temple at the "Koricancha" (Golden Square), now under Santo Domngo's church ( sigh!) Later we went to Sacsayhuaman, an Inka fortress and ritual centre just outside Cusco. The stone walls are really impressive: each stone weighs 4-5 tons, with the biggest one reaching 20 tons, all of them so carefully carved and adjusted, that they even withstood earthquakes.

Parque de los Enamorados, in Lima (Lover's Park)

Around Lima

Huaca Huallamarca (a Pre-Inka shrine)

Plaza de Armas (Main Square) of Lima

The Cathedral of Lima

The Government Palace.

The Bishop's house.

The wooden balconiesof the Bishop's house.

In Cusco

Plaza de Armas, Cusco's main square-

The Cathedral

The houses around the square

Peru's National Flower

This is "Kantuta", Peru's National Flower

People from Cusco

A family

Mother and daughters in full native garb

Santo Domingo Church and the ruins of Korikancha

This is the cloister. Here was the "Koricancha", the golden temple

This is what remains of the "Inti Wasi", the temple of the Sun.

The church, built upon the ancient Inka temple

The fortress and temple of Sacsayhuaman

Views of the fortress.

This stone weighs 20 tons. and is perfectly polished and adjusted!

The temple of water at Tambomachay

Cusco's main square by night

Machu Picchu

Had to wake up early again to get the bus to Ollantaytambo and catch the train to Machu Picchu. It's a very comfortable train,with hostess service on board. But the greatest about it, it's the ride itself always following the valley of Urubamba or Vilcanota river: you get to admire the mountains, the crop fields, the trees,then the forest that gets more and more dense until you find the train is in the middle of a tropical jungle. When I finally arrived to Aguas Calientes ( a small termal enter), the weather was grey and cloudy, but fortunately, it did not rain, so I went with the guide to the stop of the local buses to reach the archeological centre. It's really amazing, because the last thing you'd expect is to find such a city almost on top of the mountain. There is a crop and storage area and then the village and ceremonial area, with the temples of the Sun, the Water and Pachamama (Mother Earth). We also went to the Intiwatana (the altar of the Sun): it functioned as a kind of solar calendar that indicated solstices and equinocces so it was the way to organize the work in the fields and then we got to see a reconstruction of a "kollca" (a barn). I must say that I'd enjoy it a lot more if there were less tourists! It was also unfortunate that it was scheduled that I had to go back to the village for lunch. I had prefered to eat a sandwich up there and be able to walk around on my own, but...
Next day, I woke up early, but it was raining (actually, it's the rainy season), so no way to go up to the ruins again. But then it stopped and a local girl at a shop adviced me to go, since it would be cloudy, but not raining. So I went with the bus again and actually, it was all covered by clouds, which made the landscape look really mysterious. I walked around and took pictures, also admiring the plants, ferns,mosses and lichens. I also went to the visitor's center, had my passport maked with the Machu Picchu seal . Then I went back to the village right in the moment when it started to rain again. Then I picked my luggage and went to the railroad station to catch the train back to Cusco.