Cusco City, Cusco Dept.

Cusco City was the heart of Tawantinsuyu (the Inca Empire) and considered the navel of the world. The modern city is built upon underlying Inca foundations. Places of interest in and around the city are numerous. A personal favorite is the ethnic markets, a culmination of the vegetal and animal wonders of Peru’s ecotypes. We visit the ceremonial center of the Incan world, the masterfully built Qoricancha, believed to be destroyed during the conquest until a massive earthquake in the 1950s revealed it to be hidden within a Dominican monastery. This temple and astronomical observatory once housed life sized gold and silver sculptures of exquisite gardens replete with fauna down to small insects and peopled with radiant men, women and children. Tragically, such delicate wonders now only exist in our collective dreams, all was melted down at the caustic time of the Spanish conquest. The Qoricancha was also the hub of the Incan ceque system, similar to ley line theory, from which numerous lines, or ceques, radiated out, mirrored in the physical landscape by Incan roads and shrines. The Incan city of Cusco was laid out like a Puma, the fantastic ruins of Sacsaywaman above the city were the head. Once an elaborate ceremonial center, Sacsaywamen was destroyed by the Spanish after an Incan revolt in 1536. Up until the 1930s it served as a pre-cut rock quarry for the city, so now all that remains is the unbelievably massive stones, still masterfully fit together. The surrounding hills house many other Incan sites - Q’enqo, a massive intricately carved rock and ceremonial cave, Puca Pucara; a tambo with superb views of Cuzco valley, and Tambomachay; an elegant water shrine with cascading fountains channeled through fine stone work.