Peru Trip Days 9 through 11

Tour of Peru

June 15-28, 2010

I figure that the easiest way to document this trip is to start from their itinerary and add my own comments, observations, and pictures. My stuff is in black.  Theirs is in blue.

Day 9/June 23:  Seminar time with Gregg.  Enjoy a walking tour to visit the Coricancha, the "enclosure of gold."  Its perfect architecture and stonework reflect the fact that it was the most important, most sacred temple in the entire Incan realm, the sacred hub of the mystical Incan Empire.  The essence and feeling of this temple was the heart of this land is not to be missed.  Its Altar of the Sun, the holy of holies of the ancient Incas, still remains.  Also, you will have free time today to explore charming Cusco, including wonderful shopping opportunities.

Our hotel in Cusco was across the street from the Coricancha.  It was originally an Incan temple, but the Spanish took it over and made it into a major Catholic church and monastery, which it still is.  They plastered over the original Incan stonework, however there were earthquakes in the 1950s which cracked the plaster revealing the Incan stonework.  The church was going to replaster, but the government prevented that, so now it is a mixed ethnic place.  We saw the Incan part of it, but could look into the church part, as well.  (No photos.)

Day 10/June 24: Experience the ancient Incan Festival of the Sun -- "Inti Raymi" -- celebrated today. Our guide will escort us to join the festivities that commence at the "Cathedral". The parade of hundreds of Incan descendants dressed like their ancestors, chanting the prayers in Quechuan, is soul stirring. The parade ends at nearby Sachsayhuaman, a gigantic stone temple on a hill above the city, where the festival is celebrated. We will have seats in the stands built especially for this festival to be able to enjoy the rest of the celebration and re-enactment of the ancient ritual that calls back the Sun. There will be festivities in Cusco throughout this day -- the most exciting time of the year to be in Peru!

I skipped the blessing and procession in town – decided that I didn’t need to mingle with all the tourists and pick-pockets since we would see the people from the procession when they arrived at Sachsayhuaman for the Inti Raymi festival.  We had bleachers seats and a wonderful view of the festivities.  Again, absolutely amazing to see people running and dancing when it was all we could do to walk briskly!  We only watched the first part of the day, leaving during the intermission around 4:30.  Apparently it was going to continue until around 7:30!  They said that about 40,000 people were there!  (There were a lot of bleacher seats, but there were also tons of people arrayed on blankets, etc., on the hillside opposite the square.  With police and/or military personnel standing on top of the cliffs behind the square to keep people off of that part.)

Day 11/June 25:  Travel to Puno on a beautiful first class tourist train and enjoy spectacular scenery on your way to Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. Incan legend tells us that children of the Sun, Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, emerged in a shower of spray from the deep waters of Lake Titicaca to found the Incan Empire in Cusco, where Manco Capac's golden staff sank into the ground.  Anyone fortunate enough to look upon Lake Titicaca today cannot help but feel the same sense of awe that the ancient Incan peoples had when viewing their sacred lake, their spiritual birthplace.  With lofty snow covered peaks rising above distant shores, the vast blue lake at 12,400 feet elevation presents one of the most breathtaking panoramas of the Andes.  The 3,000 square mile lake is located in the "altiplano" which extends for hundreds of miles across Peru and Bolivia.  On the grassy plains graze herds of llamas and alpacas, whose fine wool is woven into clothing and sold in the markets of Cusco and all over the Andes.

The train ride was 10 hours!  As noted, beautiful scenery and very nice train.  We stopped at the top of a 15,000 foot pass for “shopping.”  (Everywhere we stopped there would be vendors trying to hustle you.  And a lot of times it was the same vendors who would call themselves by popular names – Martha Washington, Kevin Costner, etc. so that their names would be memorable.  They would stop you and say “Remember me?  Kevin Costner?  Buy my…”  I finally realized that the fastest way to get rid of them was to actually look them in the eye and say “No, gracias.”  If you acknowledged their existence, then they seemed to accept that you were not going to buy, but if you tried to ignore them, it was an invitation to try harder…)

There was also a small church next to the “market.”  Anyone who knew my mother knew that I would not be allowed to be that near a church without going in.  What a mistake!  Don’t know whether it was the llamas or the people, but someone had been using it as an outhouse!  What a smell!!!