Cusco - Adventures of Briggani and Brori

We landed in Lima and hit the ground running. Cusco is a beautiful city and way way way way nicer than Lima. So it's true what the travel books say - the days are nice and the nights are like bloody Antarctica. 

Cusco is the cosmopolitan Inka capital. I can see why. There are beautiful ornate cathedrals. I think the entire country is super Christian or Catholic (to be fair I can't tell the difference between the two). According to legend, in the 12 century the first inca (king for us English speakers) Manco Capac was ordered by the ancestral sun god Inti to find the spot where he could plunge the golden rod into the ground until it disappeared. At this spot, deemed the navel of the earth, he founded Cusco. The Inca empire's main expansion occurred in the hundred years prior to the arrival of the conquistadors in 1532. The ninth inca, Pachacutec, gave the empire its first bloody taste of conquest with an unexpected victory against the more dominant Chanka tribe in 1438. His first wave of expansion would form the Inca Empire.  This ninth Inca is also credited with the puma shape and diverting the river around the city. Expansion continued until the Europeans arrived. At this point the empire ranged from Quito, Ecuador to south of Santiago, Chile. Pizzaro entered Cusco on November 8, 1533! It was eventually captured by the Spaniards in 1536. What is more interesting is the Spanish kept chronicles in Cusco including Inca history as they related by the Incas themselves. 

Today we wandered to the centre of the historic city - the Plaza de Armas. Everything is steep and cobblestone. In Inca time, this was called Huacaypata and was the centre of the capital. Two flags are flying in the centre - the Peruvian flag and a rainbow flag of Tahuantinsuyo representing the four corners of the Inca empire. 

In the Plaza we went into the La Cathedral. It's construction started in 1559 and Tom almost a century. It was built using blocks pilfered from the nearby Inca site of Sacsaywaman. El Trifuno, Cusco's oldest church, houses a vault containing the remains of the famous Inca chronologer and a few really old priests. There's tons of colonial art and gold throughout the church. It's amazing to see the paintings and the age of some of them. 

We also saw the Palas de Justicia and just wandered generally. The best part of the day was Starbucks where we were called Briggani and Brori, respectively. 

Tomorrow the plan is to go visit museums and site see a bit more. 

Step count: 17,461 over 69 floors and 12.05 km 

AFN