2009 PERU: CUZCO

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru.

Cuzco is the gateway to Machuu Picchu. Every tourist heading for Machuu Picchu spends at least a night there and most spend three. The city is tourist-ready. There are hotels with as many or as few stars as you might like. You can get a meal for $2.50 or $25.00. Street vendors, local markets, ‘official’ Peruvian artisan’s shops, and worldwide brand name shops battle to open your wallet. There is a travel agent and a money exchange ... or two or three .. on every block. And with the exception of the occasional, persistent street vendor, they treat the tourist very well.
The museums aren’t very good. They aren’t very big and they lack English translations of their information signage. I realize that Peru is a Spanish speaking country, but a fairly large percentage of the tourist are English speaking either as their first or second language. The idea of a museum is to showcase your culture and/or teach your history. The non-Spanish speakers are in museums to learn those things more so than the hordes of school children who inhabit every Latin museum.
The churches are locked immediately after 6:00 AM mass so only a few devoted old ladies get to view the incredible gold-leafed altars and wonderful statuary inside the 16th and 17th century masterpieces. Only the main Cathedral is open to the public ... for a $10 entry fee. I suppose it is worth it. It is full of paintings ... a Peruvian twist on church decoration. Practically all the walls are covered with pictures done in the “Peruvian school” fashion which is quite like that of the Renaissance masters.
All the standard tour packages include a half day city tour and a full day Sacred Valley tour. Both are well worth the time ... if you can ignore all the stops at roadside ‘markets’. I sure hope the guides are getting a huge kickback from the vendors because they lose a lot of tip money forcing the bus load of aggravated passengers look at still another stack of alpaca wool scarves and silver necklaces.
Ninety percent of the Peruvian guides speak heavily accented English made even more difficult to understand by the names of places usually being in an ancient, unpronounceable Inca dialect. I am not sure that I have identified my pictures correctly because I often just could not understand fully what was being said.
If you are only traveling to Cuzco and Machuu Picchu, the Cuzco city tour is a warm-up for what is to follow. Qorikancha in the Santo Domingo church in the city, Tambomachay, and a couple places I can’t identify are interesting. Saqsayhuaman ... or sexy human as the guides like to jokingly call it ... is a great introduction to the enormity of Inca construction projects. Probably built as a fortification near the end of the Inca era, it has a commanding view over the city of Cuzco.

The Sacred Valley trip winds through the mountains with many a spectacular view all day long. Pukapukara introduces you to agricultural terrace construction, while Ollantaytambo’s terraces were a spectacular climb up to temples dominating the valley below.
Chinchero is a nice little village which is basically in the middle of nowhere. The town and its gold-leaf and fresco-covered church are built over the ruins of an Inca city. That’s what the Spanish conquistadors did ... they used the stones of Inca cities to bury the Inca culture and build new Catholic cities. Many of the places we visited had just been found and excavated in the past century.
By the end of those two days my legs were weak, my knees collapsing, and my lungs hungering for oxygen ... and I run every day at home so I am in pretty good condition.
My new friend in Cuzco was Jung Shin, a Korean woman on her dream vacation. I met her on her first day of her two month around-the-world trip. She was on the city tour ... at least she was until the bus began to pull away from our first stop without her. I got the bus to stop and we became friends. That night we met in front of the Cathedral.
While out to dinner I ask where she was staying ... and she couldn’t remember. She hadn’t taken a card from the front desk like all travelers should do. She was pretty sure it was behind the Cathedral ... or maybe some other big church. As we set out to find the hotel she remembered that the name might be the Cuzco Plaza. A policeman said there were two of them, but he didn’t know where either was. Luckily a street vendor overheard the conversation and said he could lead us to it. In front of the hotel he put on a full court press trying to sell ‘his’ paintings which looked surprisingly similar to those of very other kid selling paintings on the street. Jung bought two at a price too high and then gave me one ... the one I had told her was the best in his portfolio.