6th of June
Cusco is a city so steeped in history, tradition and myth that it can be difficult to know where fact ends and myth begins. Legends tell that in the 12th century the first Inca, Manco Capac, was charged by the ancestral sun god Inti to find the qosq‘o (naval of the earth). When at last Manco discovered such a point, he founded the city.
Sleeping on 3‘850m was a bit difficult and we woke up several times. We get up at 05.30h in order to see the sunrise over the lake. Really beautiful with fantastic light to take pictures. A nice breakfast, packing up and checking out.
Julius Cesar, our guide for the morning, is picking us up with a van und after half an hour drive we board a boat that brings us out to the lake and the floating islands. On these islands, some of the Ayama people still live. Today they make the money with tourism; kind of Peruvian Ballenberg! At least we can visit them, get a lot of explanation how they live and we can take pictures of them. Usually indigenous people don‘t like to be photographed.
All this information you can find under the tab „About America – Lake Titicaca“.
Getting back to Puno, change into uniforms and drive out to the airport. Taking off within 30 minutes and flying directly to Cusco. The landing there is the most challenging the pilots had to do during the whole journey as the airport is situated between mountains and there is no room for errors! But a perfect landing by Capitano Frey, handlers are there and within half hour we are at our hotel in downtown Cusco.
Cusco – 7th of June
The high flying city of Cuzco sits at a 3‘300 m crossroads of centuries-old Andean tradition and modern Peruvian life. As the continent‘s oldest continuously inhabited city, it was one the Inca empire‘s foremost stronghold, and is now both the undisputed archaeological capital of the Americas.
Today is on of our days off – meaning we are not wearing uniforms and we can relax. That is at least what we thought!
After a nice breakfast, we decide to make it a „cultural day“ with visit to museums and attending the Corpus Christi celebration. So we start of with the Museo de Arte Precolombino followed by a visit of the Museo Inka. With this, we did our cultural part of Cusco because at 11.00h the procession starts at the cathedral. There are tons of people at the Plaza de Armas and a religious service is performed. I is an interesting mixture of a serious catholic service and a „take it easy“ South American attitude. Finally after 45 minutes it is over and the procession around the square starts. There are several bands playing and they remind us very much of the „Gugge Musiks“ in Switzerland. The atmosphere is hard to describe – just look at the picures on the photo side.
After lunch we take a cab and drive up to Saqsaywaman. The name means „satisfied falcon“. Although it seems huge, what today‘s visitor sees is only about 20% of the original structure. Soon after the conquest, the Spaniards tore down walls and used the blocks to build their own houses in Cusco. In 1536 the fort saw one of the fiercest battles between the Spanish and Manco Inca, who used Saqsaywaman to lay siege to the conquistadors. Thousand of dead littered the site after the Inca defeat.
Dinner is at the wonderful Divina Comedia restaurant with Opera singers performing live in the restaurant. A day full of culture.
Located in southern Peru at an altitude of 3399m, Cusco, also known as Qosqo (meaning navel or bellybutton in Quechua) is considered the oldest living city on the American continent with a continuous habitation extending for over 3000 years.
Cusco’s history does in fact extend way back to before 1000 BC when the Marcavalle Culture was the dominant power; indeed organized life in QosqoCity began practically with them. In the second phase of its history, around 800BC, Cuzco was home to the Chanapata culture and later developed several regional states, one of the first being that of Qotakalli around 600 A.D. By 750 AD, the Wari invasion from the north of Ayacucho began, resulting in the construction of buildings and what today is known as Pikillaqta. Subsequently, by 800 A.D. the regional state of Killki was formed, which included Sacsayhuaman itself and later that of Lucre around 1000 A.D. What is traditionally known as the Inka civilisation began around 1200 AD in its initial phase, with the first Inka, Manko Capaq and Mama Ocllo. It is also suggested that Pachakuteq, the ninth king, elaborated another foundation in 1438 which is also known as the expansive phase. Inca builders hereafter laid out the city in the form of a puma, with the fortress of Sacsayhuaman as the head, the plaza of Huacaypata as the belly, or navel, and the converging Huatanay and Tullumayo Rivers as its tail.
The ancient plaza was the core of the suyos, the four regions of the Inca Empire extending from Quito, Ecuador to northern Chile. The plaza was the site of official and ceremonial buildings and residences of ruling officials and was the locus for the famous road network where swift runners carried communications to all parts of the empire. Surrounding the city were areas for agricultural, artisanal and industrial production.
After the arrival of the first Spaniards to the city on November 15th 1533, Francisco Pizarro refounded it for the Spanish King on March 23rd 1534. In 1536 Manko Inka began a long and bloody war against the Spanish invaders with a siege lasting over 8 months over the city. Finally in 1572, after a war that lasted 36 years, Tupaq Amaru I, the last emperor of the Inka dynasty was defeated, captured and executed in the city’s main square. The Spanish subsequently destroyed many of the structures in the city or used them as foundations for many of their own churches and buildings.
Machu Picchu – 8th of June
Machu Picchu is undeniably the most spectacular archaeological site in South America. The actual purpose and function is still a matter of speculation and educated guesswork. The citadel was never mentioned in the chronicles kept by the colonizing Spaniards and it was only in 1911 when American historian Hiram Bingham discovered the overgrown ruins.
Today is the big day – visiting Machu Picchu. And it rains!! So far we have been really, really lucky with the weather and almost had no rain at all. But today…
We are actually coping quite well with the altitude and have no problems. Considering that we are at 3‘300 m altitude – as high as the Klein-Matterhorn in Switzerland – we are doing well. After breakfast a cab picks us up and drives us to Poroy where the train is waiting for us. Actually not a regular train; it is a luxury train run by Orient Express and its name is Hiram Bingham, named after the American researcher who discovered Machu Picchu. The old, nicely restored coaches are wonderful and we spend a lot of time on the platform of the last car where one has a beautiful view. Lunch is served and after three hours we reach Aguas Calientes, a real ugly place. From here we take a bus that climbs up a winding road to the entrance of Machu Picchu.
There are already people there but it is not as bad as we expected. Pretzel, one of the stewardess‘ of the train, is also our guide for the afternoon. And she does a great job explaining a lot. We are very much impressed by this place; it is very difficult to compare to any other one. It is different from the Pyramids in Egypt or Angkor Wat in Cambodia; but as impressive as these places. At four o‘clock we are quite tired and have almost a memory overflow with all the information. Therefore we are happy to have the afternoon tea, drive back down to Aguas Calientes, board the train, have dinner on the way home and some drinks. Back at the hotel – straight to bed. Everybody is really tired – what an impressive day it was!
Machu Picchu bears, with Cuzco and the other archaeological sites of the valley of the Urubamba a unique testimony to the Inca civilization and is an outstanding example of man’s interaction with his natural environment.
Standing 2,430 m above sea level, in the midst of a tropical mountain forest in an extraordinarily beautiful setting, Machu Picchu was probably the most amazing urban creation of the Inca Empire at its height. Its giant walls, terraces and ramps seem as if they have been cut naturally in the continuous rock escarpments. The natural setting, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, encompasses the upper Amazon basin with its rich diversity of flora and fauna.
Machu Picchu covers 32,500 ha in some of the scenically most attractive mountainous territory of the Peruvian Andes. As the last stronghold of the Incas and of superb architectural and archaeological importance, Machu Picchu is one of the most important cultural sites in Latin America; the stonework of the site remains as one of the world’s great examples of the use of a natural raw material to provide outstanding architecture which is totally appropriate to the surroundings. The surrounding valleys have been cultivated continuously for well over 1,000 years, providing one of the world’s greatest examples of a productive man-land relationship; the people living around Machu Picchu continue a way of life which closely resembles that of their Inca ancestors, being based on potatoes, maize and llamas.
The construction of this amazing city, set out according to a very rigorous plan, comprises one of the most spectacular creations of the Inca Empire. It appears to date from the period of the two great Incas, Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui (1438-71) and Tupac Inca Yupanqui (1472-93). The function of this city situated at least 100 km from the capital, Cuzco, has not been formulated which are not verifiable given the absence of written documentation and sufficiently explicit material evidence.
Without making a judgment as to their purpose, several quite individual quarters may be noted in the ruins of Machu Picchu: a quarter ‘of the Farmers’ near the colossal terraces whose slopes were cultivated and transformed into hanging gardens; an ‘industrial’ quarter; a ‘royal’ quarter and a ‘religious’ quarter. Inca architecture reveals itself here in all of its force with the titanic earthen works which multiplied the platforms, leveled the rocky relief, constructed ramps and stairways and literally sculpted the mountain whose cyclopean constructions appear to be a prolongation of nature.
