Day off Cusco 19.6.12

We were taken on Geerts, “World famous walking tour of Cusco, powered by Peru motors”. It turns out that Geert is a closet Incophile and knows a hell of a lot about the Inca culture and architecture, and has a real passion for it. He lived in Cusco for 6 months while learning Spanish and hence knows the place very well. Interesting morning wandering around the street of Cusco looking at the various grades of Inca wall, depending on the stature of the building.

We started with a look at the general lay out of the city as represented in an excellent street map made from concrete at the start of the Inca city. The Incas had heaps of gods, the most important being the Sun god, and a monument and fountain has been built at the start of the city. The city itself is set out in the shape of the Puma, which is another Inca God. OF course over the years it has grown to the shape of the geography, however the old city form has been maintained. We wandered up to the old site of the sun temple, the most sacred of temples for the Incas, with only the high priest and the king (Inca) being able to enter it. It was open roofed, and lined with gold so would have been fairly brilliant. The Spaniards when they concurred the Inca were not satisfied with beating them they set about completely demoralizing and squashing there culture and heritage (no cultural sensitivity in those days). Hence the took all of the gold and sent it to the King in Spain then demolished the temple and built a Catholic church on the exact site of the Sun temple. They were not silly though and they maintained the Inca wall foundations were excellent and gave a good foundation for the church. In keeping with the status and importance of the sun temple the walls are probably the best example of Inca dry wall masonry with the walls being perfectly smooth and 500 years later despite numerous earthquakes are still in perfect position.

We moved on to the city center and looked at the Catholic cathedrals of which there are three, one named after the triumph over the natives and depicting a Spanish Knight with a devil under his boot and sword, the next the main cathedral and the third something to do with the Family. Interestingly there is a fourth chapel that has been renamed (how history changes). It was a chapel where the Spanish inquisition occurred and people were tortured and murdered here in the name of religion. It was previously known for this use, “casa dela inquisition”?, but has been renamed to the “house of the holy sacrament” or some such thing, that disguises its bloody history, along with the bloody history of the Christianity in these parts. There was a huge fan fair occurring in the Plaza, with a stage set up for the Cusco dignitaries and a huge series of street dance troops from various religious, corporate, and school groups proceeding around the Plaza square. A very energetic and exciting atmosphere, with loud music, dancing, cheering and general good fun revelry. There were as always heaps of police present. We went down a few very old alleys and past important Inca walls. It is really interesting architecture as the buildings are generally build on the Inca foundation walls with adobe Spanish colonial buildings on top, with very ornate balconies. An interesting mix of two architectural style, both very impressive but quiet different, however they blend very well.

The “World famous walking tour of Cusco, powered by Peru motors” excludes any shopping however Geert had one exception for a shop that he felt had good stuff, not the usual ‘Sh#t’, so we dutifully looked in here and I purchased couple of gifts for the kids. We then progressed to the Dutch café, and had a pretty decent Coffee and some Dutch Balls, a deep fried delicacy, very nice. The tour continued, a stop at a high quality tee shirt shop, to satisfy Haxs search for the perfect tee shirt. I was told off by Geert for drifting towards another shop, much to the shop owner’s disgust. I dutifully went into the tee shirt shop and bought a tee shirt to wear on the plane, we are getting pretty smelly at this point. Geert reassured us that he receives no commission, but his shopping allowance was very tightly controlled, hmm I wonder.

The ‘World famous walking tour of Cusco, powered by Peru Motors’ continued, we headed up through the steepest street in Cusco, which is also very narrow, to another plaza where most of the artists hang out in this city. Another old church here. All of these churches are in very close proximity, and with a large Christ the redeemer statue looking down on the city, it leaves no doubt about the religious affiliations in this neck of the woods.

Numerous other facts and figures came flooding from our world famous guide who was very animated in his enthusiasm for this city and the Inca culture. (Less enthusiastic about the religious history other than to point out the numerous cruelties that have flowed from the church over the years). Our ‘World famous walking tour of Cusco, powered by Peru Motors” ended at a café for lunch, which Geert said we would feel at home in. Close but no cigar, it was an Australian flag at the door. Excellent café put together by its Aussie owner. Sadly Hax let on that he is not well and had no appetite and headed back for a lie down after this café. (Felt a bit better on the way back and lay on the grass watching the festivities, then had a one hour massage, and did some shopping!)

Harry and I took a taxi up to Tambomachay, about 10km up the hill. This is an Inca ceremonial bathing area, which is fed from a spring from the hill and is still flowing. We planned to walk back to town from there taking in a few sights along the way. Across the road was Pukapukara, the red fort, which is thought to have been either a hunting lodge, guard post or stopping point for travellers. It got its name as the granite has a red tint to it. Both of these are typical Inca stonework.

From Pukpukara, we walked down the road for a bit but then decided to cut across country and walked down the hill to a gravel road we could see in the distance. We commented that this looked like typical Puma territory, then got a terrible fright to hear the high pitched squeak of several guinea pigs, notorious wild hunters. Before we knew what was happening the surrounding hillside burst into motion, as the grass appeared to boil with a massive mob of previously hidden Guinea Pigs. There was a brief second when time seemed to freeze as we processed the impending certain death in the most painful way imaginable with guinea pigs slowly nibbling the flesh from our bodies as we fought hopelessly to free ourselves from the pressing masses. Guinea pigs, despite their cute looks, are vicious and highly organized pack hunters. It was every man for themselves as we launched into the downhill sprint for survival.

Now both Harry and I have studied the Flashman chronicles and have a few tricks up our sleeves from this invaluable source of rapscallion behavior. I speak for myself, but am pretty sure we are cut from the same cloth, when I say, once again, that I am a natural coward. This said we don’t call him ‘Harry the bastard’ for nothing. He ankle tapped me in a predictable attempt to knock me down and thereby save himself by my sacrifice to the surging mass of guinea pig death. Of course I predicted this move and went with a quick forward role and was straight back to my feet but not before hurling my Nikon camera in a Kung Fu Panda style, mid role hurl at Harrys feet. Harry had underestimated me and caught by surprise failed to stop the camera strap successfully wrapping around his ankles, and down he went in a grinding heap. “Brilliant!” I thought, “I’m clear now”. There was a spine chilling high pitched, squeaking noise as the hungry mob descended on Harry’s prostrate body. Harry was to his feet in a flash though and only two of the pigs had managed to get a hold of him, one by his ear the other at his neck dangerously close to the jugular, the guinea pigs favorite target. Harry ripped the pigs from his body as he used all of the martial arts training skills to full effect in a cartwheeling descent, the successful pigs flew of at high velocity, followed by a squirt of Harrys blood that seemed to intensify the resolve of the pursuing Guinea pig mobs enthusiasm for a feed of Gringo. 

To my shock Harrys cartwheel technique was incredibly successful as he sped past me. As he passed me he picked up a huge, square and smooth rock, presumably an Inca building block and threw it to me. My reflexes let me down as I instinctively caught the bolder and naturally slowed down. With this brief loss of pace, the pigs grabbed at my ankles! In a peculiarly detached way I felt the sharp teeth penetrate my skin. The pigs moved as a mob but worked as one. The first pig with its teeth in my flesh held on with a vice like grip, as the next following Pig climbed up his back to reach the flesh of my lower calf, then a third was up the backs of the first and second ones to fly at my mid calf with its terrifying buck teeth fully extended. Just then in a moment of clarity I realised I still had the boulder in my arms. I dropped the boulder down the back of my leg which had the effect of ripping the pigs out of my leg leaving ragged wounds, but more importantly the stone completely flattened the three pigs and momentarily shocked the pursuing mob into a rapid retreat. There cute little legs going in a blur in the reverse direction causing several of them to lose grip and go into a head over heals tumble. I wasted no time to get back into my pace.

Meanwhile Harry had become discombobulated with his vertiginous decent in a high speed and sustained cartwheel. He seemed to loose control and go across the hill rather than down the hill. This is a terrible mistake if you are ever in this situation, as the guinea pig has the greatest speed across the hill, compared to the straight down hill descent where their small front legs put them at a critical disadvantage. Harry seemed to regain his senses and stopped the cartwheel, and started running again, but his world was clearly spinning, as he couldn’t maintain a straight line. Now once again this is a terrible strategy when being pursued by these man killers, as those same short front legs while hopeless for descending are brilliant at rapid change in direction. It looked like Harry was doomed and I was free, as surely one Gringo would satisfy this pack of pigs. Just to be sure I took the opportunity to scream at the top of my voice “ Cuidado! Cuidado!… there are Llamas!” (Translates roughly to “Danger, Danger… there are Llamas!”) pointing just down hill from Harry. I felt the sweat triumph of watching Harry panic and slow down. Everyone knows that Llamas are even more dangerous than guinea pigs.

I felt the panic subside, as Harry was clearly doomed. I watched with morbid curiosity as the pig pack flowed down onto him like a horrific guinea pig tsunami.

Clearly I forgot HTB is also the explosives expert.  

Harry in one smooth movement, with calm certainty, even under the shadow of the wave of razor sharp buck teeth, pulled a stick of dynamite that he had saved from the silver mine in Potosi, out of his back pack, lit the fuse and threw it to me.

Damn my reflexes. I caught it and the guineas seemed to understand what this means. Pre chewed food…

Of course I am writing this, and lets not forget who the hero of this story is, so the dynamite obviously failed to explode as expected. In fact now that I re-read this part of the story that last bit didn’t actually happen. The squeaking was a peculiar long billed bird, or flock of birds that flew off once they saw us. We continued our peaceful walk down the hill.

We were uncertain of our chosen path, and there were a lot of horses being ridden down this gravel road, which had us wondering if we had lost our way. It was a real wild west scene again with two cow boys galloping after three horses running with all of their will, in what at first looked like and escape attempt, but then it became clear that the cowboy was whirling a rope around his head and the head of the horses to keep them running, so he was just burning off energy I guess. We trusted our instincts and traversed to the next monument successfully. This was Q’enqo. Another Inca ruin that is made around a limestone outcrop, and had a series of caves, with areas for presumed sacrifices, and ceremonies.

Wet traversed across the hill once more and gained our bearings when we saw the Jesus Christ statue. We went across to the main event of Saqsaywaman (pronounced “sexy woman”, by us anyway). It means satisfied Falcon. It also represents the head of the Puma city plan. This was the main fortress of Cusco and is really very impressive for several reasons. One is that it has three levels of fortifications, in 22 zigzag patterns, which provided a defense barrier, but also represents the teeth of the head of the Puma. The really puzzling thing is the sixe of the rocks, they are huge and weighing several tonne. They are shaped in the typical Inca pattern, interlocked on several planes and must have been lifted into place and removed numerous times to get the fit perfect, all with human power. It is not know how they did this or what tools they used, a bit surprising really. The Inca had no records however the Spanish documented everything when they arrived, but despite this no record of tools or building methods. This is a big site, however only 20% of the original fort remains, with the rest of it having been removed by the Spaniards for their own buildings.

We were admiring the view of the city from the top of the fort. An American couple asked Harry to take a photo of them if front of the city. He obliged, and then they asked “would you like a photo with your friend?” “oh no thanks I don’t really like him” Harry replied, they looked puzzled, I added “he only hangs around me because he gets lost easily”, they looked quite concerned and retreated into the fortress.

We headed back through town to check on Hax who was still alive, and in bed. Hax still had no appetite so Harry and I were guided to the best guinea pig restaurant in town. The festivities were still in full swing; they were dancing in the streets. We went up to the restaurant in the plaza and Geert ordered our Guinea pig. They are only little so we ordered another dish as well. The Guinea pig came out on a plate, whole with a pepper in its mouth. We got a photo then it was taken away and chopped up into quarters and returned. The skin was very chewy, and the flesh was like salty rabbit, well I guess it was more like guinea pig really. There was an excellent local band playing panpipe and flute dominated music. Dancers accompanied them and were very vigorous at times. I was dragged up onto the dance floor by one of the dancers and made a hash of imitating the local dance moves. I resisted the temptation to break out some bath towel moves, which can be used to any music in a truly cross-cultural dance routine. We took the Guinea pigs head home in a doggy bag to offer to Hax but he was sound asleep. He didn’t want it for breakfast either?