A Sunny Day in Cusco

A sunny day at the Plaza Mayor in Cusco
(Templo de la Compañía de Jesús in the background)

It's the rainy season in the Andean highlands. The forecast was for a 60 percent of rain. Instead, it was a sunny day, perfect for exploring the city at a slow pace. (A slow pace because my adjustment to the altitude is, as they say, a work in progress.)

The hotel is about a half-mile from the Plaza Mayor, the tourism epicenter of the City of Cusco.

It is located on Calle Union, which gets a lot of traffic for a one-lane, one-way street.

This is the Iglesia de San Pedro.

It is across from the Mercado de San Pedro:

The area around it is packed, probably more locals than tourists. The Mercado de San Pedro is supposed to be a good place to by souvenirs (at a lower mark-up than the souvenir shops around the Plaza Mayor) and is supposedly a great place to try local food in that middleground between street food and a sit-down restaurant. It's only open until late afternoon, so it's not a dinner option.

This is the Arco de Santa Clara, on Calle Santa Clara.

Passing through this Arch means you've left the Cusco of the locals and now are in the pure tourism town.

This is the Basilica Menor de la Merced:

Strolling along:

This is the Cusco Cathedral, on the eastern perimeter of the Plaza Mayor:

The Cathedral is incredibly beautiful and ornate inside. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside, even "sin flash" as they say in español. There are a lot of photos online of the interior. Not sure if they are official church photography, or if they were taken surreptitiously contrary to church law, or if the rules changed at some point. 

Which means we skip right to the exit door from touring the cathedral.

The Cathdedral was built on the site of the primary Incan temple in the City because, of course. Lots of cathedrals in major Latin American cities were built on such locales, primarily to destroy the indigenous religion in a manner that demonstrates the dominance of Roman Catholicism over the pre-hispanic religions. And before you tut-tut-tut about this, the Catholic church was not unique to this. See, e.g., Hagia Sophia in Constantinople/Istanbul being repurposed into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire.

And this is the Plaza Mayor, a.k.a, the Plaza de Armas, as seen upon exit of the Cusco Cathedral.

There is no "no photography" rule in effect outside the Cathedral proper. The statute of Incan Emperor Pachacuti is in the middle of the plaza, on a pedestal atop the fountain int he middle of the plaza.

It's a popular portrait-photo spot. Pachacuti is the Incan ruler who is believed to have transformed the Inca from a regional presence into the dominant military and cultural force in western South America.

He is the first true "emperor" among the Inca.

That is the Templo de la Compañía de Jesús, on the southern perimeter of the Plaza Mayor.

Let's juxtapose Pachacuti and the Dome of the Basilica Menor de la Merced.

Let's zoom in on the juxtaposition:

The two cultures of Cusco, together forever. Whether they want to be or not.

This is Qorikancha. It is the ruins of an old Inca temple where the walls were covered in pure gold.

As you can see, the Spanish built the Iglesia y Convento de Santo Domingo de Guzmán literally atop Qorikancha.

Next up: the search for the Twelve Angled Stone.

It is a building stone with 12 angles, perfectly fit into the stone wall along what is now Calle Hatunrumiyoc. It's somewhere among the stones in this wall.

This wall was built by the Inca, who perfectly fit the stones together without mortar and without any visible space between the stones. The twelve angled stone is the most prominent of the large stones used in this wall construction.

Selfie at what might have been the Twelve Angled Stone:

I've got the eyes of a man ready for his afternoon nap.

This is now part of the exterior wall of the Palacio Arzobispal del Cuzco, now a religious art museum. The Palacio Arzobispal del Cuzco (no photography allowed inside) was built atop ... what? ... built atop what? That's right. An Incan temple.

Next top, the Museo de Arte Pre-Colombino:

Photography allowed! So let's click away!

This is a collection of Chimu Silver Spoons:

I didn't know the Chimu used spoons. Or had good silver cutlery for special occasions.

Above is a fine example of Chimu silversmithing. I like the Chimu. I visited their main hub, Chan Chan, outside Trujillo, Peru, on the northern coast, back in 2018. I soon realized the main purpose of this museum. Most of the tourists visiting Cusco and Machu Picchu will not go to the Chimu sites in Trujillo or the Sican and Sipan sites in Chiclayo. This museum, a Cusco outpost of the awesome Museo Larco in Lima, serves as an appetizer course for the pre-Incan cultures of Peru for those whose only visit to Peru might be to Cusco and Machu Picchu.

And there's nothing wrong with that. None of us can go everywhere. And, even if you did, could go through everything at a deliberate enough pace to remember anything?

Woodworking.

Bird staffs.

An owl to the left. Parrot to the right. I can't recall which bird species is stuck in the middle.

The explanatory language says this guy is in a religious pose.

He looks like he is having a particular difficult B.M.

I always find these sort of masks a bit on the creepy side.

And here are ceramic bowls from a pre-Incan culture, I believe the Paracas from the southern coast of Peru (near Nasca) (but not the Nasca, famous for their desert lines that will always remain inexplicable). The bowls are decorated with chili peppers.

Many thoughts. First, I did not know that South American tribes had chili peppers pre-Columbus and the globalization of the food trade. I associated chili peppers with Mexico and the four corners region of the USA. But they had them in Peru over a thousand years ago. And they decorated their bowls with them. Which left me with this thought: I too have some ceramic bowls with a chili pepper motif. Should I save them for the collection at the future Spretnak museum?

Dog and fox ceramics.

Unlike a lot of "anthropomorphic" imagery on ceramics, especially ceramics from more than a thousand years ago, these two -- especially the fox -- are very realistic.

Same with these llama head ceramics.

But I think the fox gets the gold ribbon for "most realistic" looking.

That's it for the museum. That's it for the day's sunshine-filled tourism. I'm tiring out easily here due to the combination of altitude and old age. But, in this instance, I think altitude is legitimately the primary culprit.

Time to pass through the Arch of Santa Clara and leave the tourism part of town.

Coda:

Supper blogging.

I decided to eat at a restaurant close to my hotel, primarily because I didn't feel like walking much. I chose the Restaurante y pizzería URPI, which was just down the hill from my hotel.

This was a local's joint. I was definitely the only tourist in here.

This is an Italian restaurant serving a lot of Peruvian dishes. I was going to order the lomo saltado because it is the classic Peruvian dish. But I realized that I really had a craving for pizza. So I opted for an "Italiana," with ham, mushrooms, and tomatoes.

I had a pitcher of maracuya juice -- passionfruit juice -- because I was thirsty. And they served up a big plate of ooey-gooey garlic cheese bread that would have been worth it at any price and definitely was worth what they charged for it: nada. Gratis.

The pizza arrived looking beautiful.

I ate so much of the ooey-gooey garlic cheese bread that I could only finish four of the six slices of my personal sized pizza. The price was 20 soles, or about six or seven bucks U.S. Yes, the mushrooms were probably canned. Tough to get fresh-everything up on a mountainside in a third-world country. Yes, the ham was processed and not artisanal. Did I mention it was six or seven bucks? I would have gladly paid that for the ooey-gooey garlic cheesebread by itself. Essentially, given that reality, the ham and mushroom pizza came free.