Day 15 - Cuzco City Tour

I woke up still feeling tender this morning but on the whole better than the previous day, we have decided to give the Inca Trail a miss which is really disappointing as we were both looking forward to the challenge of the trek and had spent a lot of time planning it all out. We are still going to go and see Matchu Pitcchu as its something we have both wanted to see for a long time now, but instead of hiking there we will be getting the train instead.

This afternoon after a lazy morning we decided to take it easy and go on a tour of the city. We got on a coach late afternoon and headed off to see the cathedral in the main square in Cuzco, some churches and a set of Inca ruins around Cuzco.

The first stop was at the cathedral. We were both amazed at the vast amount of gold in the cathedral it was really beautiful. We managed to take a couple of sneaky shots inside before one of the many security guards enforced the 'no pictures' rule.

Next we headed to the sun temple which is the original Inca temple with the Spanish church built over the top. We had a guided tour around the sun temple and learnt many interesting facts. which were promptly forgotten! The temple contained many original Inca rooms built with black stone. We did remember one fact (mainly due to it being said repeatedly over many tours) that the Incas had a knack for stone work. All the stones used to create the temple where very well polished and fitted together perfectly with no mortar required. The Inca stone work is very high quality and still stands well many centuries later. Another fact, learnt in the same way as the last, is that when the Spanish conquered the area they removed and melted all the gold and silver that was in the temple. This included the sheets of it covering on most of the main temple walls as well as the idols sat within them. Due to this there is very little in the way of gold or silver Inca artifacts left in world, most that do remain are in western museums or private collections outside of Peru.

Next stop was the Sacywaman area just south of Cuzco. On arrival to this area the bus was instantly swarmed by locals trying to sell all manner of local handy craft. (We later learnt that this is standard procedure for all tourist related points.) This site contained a huge Pre-Inca and Inca site that contains the remains of a pyramid and a large multi layered temple site. The stone used to build the walls where very large. Some walls had animals and signs built into them using the large stones as can be seen in the photo below.


We had our first encounter with Lamas at this location. The Lamas here where owned by the locals and used not only for there fur but also for the photo opportunities with tourists. This was taken advantage of and later exploited by both of us as we took sneaky pictures from the bus when they weren't looking!

We continued to move between several Inca sites located around the Cuzco area including a temple dedicated to water and a site used for mummification. The water temple was a short walk up hill which was a lot more effort at altitude then expected. The second site was mainly built set around natural stone including the cave room used to prepare bodies for mummification. You'll also notice from the full set of pictures that we have started to develop a tendency towards pictures of Lama's and their rear ends!!


After the tour had finished we took the advice of the tour guide and ate at a local restaurant in the main square called the 'Inca Grill' which was a superb restaurant.

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