The navel of the world
Written: Nov 22 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: History, nature, culture, architecture...everything!
Cons: Hope you don't get altitude sickness
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| cinimod's Full Review: Cuzco |
Review Topic: Overview
29 March 1999, too early in the morning – Lima airport
Yet another early morning wake-up call (3.30 a.m.!) after sightseeing all day and partying all night. Remind me not to travel with a day person and a night person at the same time again! So here we were at five in the morning, Dran (day person), Gus (night person) and me (very tired person), waiting for the Aero Continente flight to Cusco. It was fortunate that we even were able to get this flight, since Aero Peru had just gone insolvent and stopped operations the week before. The plane was an old Boeing 727 (I haven’t been in one of those since 1979!) but the flight was smooth enough and I managed to catch about 20 minutes sleep.
Still too early in the morning - Cusco
Cusco is 11,000 feet above sea-level and surrounded by “hills” which are a few thousand feet higher. Surprisingly for such an altitude, there were a lot of trees and grass, which made everything look green. I had only been above 11,000 feet once before, climbing Mt.Kinabalu in Borneo, and that was above the tree line. We did not take any pills against altitude sickness before getting on the flight, and luckily all of us felt fine.
Cusco was once the capital of the Incas (they called it the “navel of the world”), and today is a charming bustling market town that has many attractions for visitors. Apart from its proximity to the Sacred Valley of the Incas and Machu Picchu, there are many fine colonial buildings (unfortunately built over the original even finer Incan buildings), lots of restaurants and pubs, and if you’re lucky, a festival or two. Our hotel (Hostal Centenario) was in a quiet area about 10 minutes walk from the center.
After resting for a couple of hours, we hit the street and made our way to Plaza de Armas (the central square). What a busy place – there were people walking everywhere, lots of cars, lots of activity. I liked it immediately! For some reason I had expected it to be cold, dreary and empty except for the occasional scowling man in a trenchcoat (I think I have read too many adventure books). We saw a lot of buildings that seemed to have two different designs for the ground floor and the second floor. We later found out that when the Spanish came, they knocked down many of the Incan buildings to build their own Spanish colonial style buildings. However, the foundations of the Incan buildings were so well laid and solid that the Spanish kept the foundations and supporting walls, and built in the colonial style above this.
Evening – Plaza de Armas, the right time, the right place!
That evening, the streets kept getting more and more crowded and stalls were set up selling all kinds of things from sweaters and ponchos to electronic goods to skewered pieces of meat grilled over an open flame. We decided to follow the flow of people and finally asked someone what was going on. It turns out that there was going to be an Easter procession that night, one of the grandest occasions of the year. The Spanish conquerors managed to convert most of the indigenous population into staunch Catholics, and Easter is celebrated with great fervour in most of Latin America.
We made our way to Plaza de Armas. By this time, the crowds were so dense that we would not have been able to go anywhere else even if we tried – people were being pushed along by the sheer weight of the crowd. All the buildings were beautifully lit up. We decided to find someplace from which we could get a bird’s eye view, and ended up at the Gran Chifa Kam Lung Chinese restaurant, which had a small balcony on the first floor. From here, we could see the procession slowly inch its way towards the cathedral, just on our right. The Chinese food was mediocre, but being able to watch the procession from such a vantage position was worth poisoning yourself with a year’s worth of MSG for.
I have seen Easter processions in other places including Spain, but this one was remarkable for two reasons – first, the number and size of the floats (each one with the figure of one of the patron Saints of Cusco), and second, the number of people in the crowd. All streets leading to Plaza de Armas were packed, as well as the square itself. Cusco’s population is only 300,000 but all of them seemed to be in the square this evening.
30 March - Sacsayhuaman
We spent 3 nights altogether in Cusco, but only one full day. The next day we took a full day tour to the Sacred Valley of the Inca (which I am writing about separately), only returning in the evening. Although it was rapidly getting dark, we just had to go and see Sacsayhuaman, which our guide to the Sacred Valley pronounced as “Sexy Woman”! As we were running out of daylight, we took a taxi which cost only 5 Soles (less than US$2). Sacsayhuaman is a fortress overlooking Cusco. The jagged walls of Sacsayhuaman resemble the teeth of a Puma, and were very effective in repelling attackers, whose flanks were always exposed due to the angle of the walls. Normally you need at least half a day to do it justice, unfortunately we had about an hour before it got completely dark. As a bonus however, we saw the sun setting over the red-tiled roofs of Cusco, the moon rising over the jagged walls of the fortress and the lights coming on in the valley below.
A culinary adventure
We descended on foot to the center of Cusco, a 30 minute stroll downhill via quaint narrow alleys. The view of Cusco spread out below us, all lit up, was fabulous! We had decided that we try the speciality of the area – Cuy (roast guinea pig). Those of you who are not used to seeing the whole animal that you are eating might get a shock – the guinea pig is fried whole and served with head, tail and little paws intact. As for the taste – hmmm, OK, nothing special. Not much meat either. But the Cuzquena beer is excellent. We were all very tired from two very active days at high altitude, but we were fired up in anticipation of the next day’s trip to Machu Picchu.
Information
Photo album accompanying this Epinion is available at:
http://www.extra-income.com/Travel/PeruCusco1.html
Hotel we stayed at in Cusco:
Hostal Centenario, Av. Centenario 689, Cusco.
Tel: (51-84) 224235
WWW: http://www.telser.com.pe/centenario
Excellent service. Room for 3 US$58 per night, breakfast included.
Travel agent we used for Cusco, Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca:
Inka Wasi Travel, Jr. Porta Of.213 – Miraflores, Lima
E-mail: inkawasi@lullitec.com.pe
Very highly recommended! They arranged everything, hotel, flights, train, transfers etc. without any hitches and at a reasonable price.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
cinimod
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Member: Dominic Lim
Location: World citizen (in an ideal world)
Reviews written: 42
Trusted by: 53 members
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