Cusco was the capital of the Incas, and the most important city in South America in its heyday. The Spanish of course conquered it, and ransacked the temples (which were full of gold and silver), and converted the remaining of the people to Christianity. Also like all other catholic states, they built a ton of churches, like 6 of them literally side by side in the main plaza of the city! Anyhow, we arrived from Machu Picchu by train pretty late, and got a taxi to our hotel (my wife is the master of haggling now!). It is close to the city center with killer views of the city. They also have laundry service, which we took advantage of. The next day, we started exploring the city, and visited a few museums. We learned some interesting facts:

  • Machu Picchu was actually built as a royal retreat for the Incas by the most famous and accomplished Inca, Pachacuti.
  • The first rebellion of the indigenous people against the Spanish was led by Tupac Amaru II, who was a descendent of Incan royalty (Tupac, the late rapper, named himself after him). He had some initial successes, but then he was captured, and the savagely tortured and killed in the main plaza of Cusco, to teach a lesson to others (I spare you the gory details). In general, Spanish conquistadores were not the good guys, to put it mildly. 

  • Incas didn’t have a written language, but in order to do the math and keep the tax records (which is necessary for an empire), they invented a partial script called Quipu. A Quipu was a knotted-string device that has one main cord to which were attached a variable number of pendant strings (picture below). They used different colors of strings and various types and number of knots in each string to signify numbers and financial expressions. It’s such an incredible, yet difficult invention to use! We take our written systems for granted, and we forget/don’t know how difficult it was for people to write simple things, or do math. Unfortunately, no one knows how to read these quipus anymore. 

  • Incas used to deform the skull to elongate it, as a sign of beauty. They would do it to the newborns using tight ropes. Apparently this does not impact the brain.

  • Saint James was one of the apostles that according to some catholic accounts went to Iberia to evangelize people, and after returning to Jerusalem, was beheaded. Spanish catholics believed that his body was returned to Spain (!), and is now buried in Santiago de Compostela. Anyhow, there was a legend in Spain that Saint James (aka Santiago) miraculously appeared and fought in a battle against Muslims in Andalucia (more than 1000 years after his death, of course). After this, Saint James became the saint warrior for the Spanish, so much so that they believed he appeared in numerous battles in South America against the natives!

  • One of the delicacies in Peruvian cuisine since ancient times is “cuy”, which is grilled guinea pig (no, I haven’t tried. Yet). As the native people were being evangelized, they of course started to inject their culture and beliefs into Christianity. One of the funny incarnations of this, is a painting of the famous Last Supper, were Jesus and the apostles are enjoying a hearty, yes you guessed it right, cuy!

We’re going to Pisac tomorrow, and then will be back for one last day in Cusco, before leaving for Arequipa!

Anecdotes:

  • Two noises that you hear constantly at night are dogs barking, and the trains honking their horns, A LOT.
  • I thought by now we should have been acclimatized to the altitude, but since Cusco is higher than other cities that we visited (and even Machu Picchu), we still feel it, especially when walking up the steep alleys of Cusco.