Last Day in the High Altitude of Cusco

Templo de la Compañía de Jesús, the statue of Pachacuti atop the fountain in the center of the Plaza Mayor,
and a small child who seems oblivious to Pachacuti just over her left shoulder. 

For a tourist town, Cusco sure has a lot of beautiful and/or interesting places where you are not allowed to take photographs inside, even "sin flash." Outdoors? Snap away. Step inside? Put that camera down.

First stop was the often-overlooked Museo Inka, the Inca Museum. Maybe you'd get more visitors, Museo Inka, if you let people take photos inside "sin flash," without flash. A surprisingly large amount of the exhibit space is taken up by the civilizations that prospered and controlled notable swaths of Peru in the pre-Inca era. And thus I learned: the only really important pre-hispanic archaeological area I have not yet visited is Tiawanaku, between La Paz, Bolivia, and Lake Titicaca. And it's high on my list, especially now that Bolivia has cancelled its visa fee for U.S. passport holders.

The Inca exhibits go back to the early years of the Inca, when the Inca were based out of the Lake Titicaca area, before they settled in Cusco. That leaves a surprisingly small part of the collection for the era of the Inca in Cusco, that 125-year period of the Inca Empire that existed before the Spanish arrival. There was pottery. There was jewelry (lots of its nasal based). Some textiles, but those were recreations because textiles disintegrate and do not survive the ravages of times. Mummies? Yes, a few mummies (and this where I would agree with the "no photography" rule -- it's bad enough you spend your eternity as a museum exhibit, but being subjected to endless photography somehow adds to the insult -- so "no photography" is a minor nod in the direction of dignity maintenance).

The biggest disappointment was only one small exhibit case showing the Incan quipus. This is a system of tying knots on strands of cloth for record keeping purposes, mostly numeric but apparently alpha-numeric. The Inca quipu system would be worth a museum in its own right. It's amazing and ingenious and I want to learn more. The Inca Museum, however, is not the place to achieve this objective.

What to do next? Sit in the Plaza Mayor, a.k.a., the Plaza de Armas, and contemplate one's next move.

While sitting there, I noticed something to the northeast corner of the plaza that I had not noticed the other day when I chilling in the chill of Cusco's Plaza Mayor:

Can you see it? Or should I see, can you see him? Up on the horizon line, at the top of the green hill.

Zoom a little closer:

Between those two trees sticking above the horizon line is Cristo Blanco, Cusco's answer to the Christ The Redeemer Statue on Corcovado above Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Zoom in to the max:

Of course, you can walk up and get a close up. But, of course, walking in Cusco Town requires climbing endless stairs. And I'm all staired-out at this point. Of course, it might not be the stairs, or at least not primarily the stairs. Could be the lack of "oxigeno," or, more specifically, "oxígeno respirable," breathing oxygen. I haven't gotten full-blown altitude sickness -- and yesterday's visit out of the "altitude sickness" zone to Machu Picchu helped-- but I do feel a mild tightness in my chest -- sort of like the mild onset of a panic attack -- but it's not a panic attack -- unless I am panicking from the insufficiency of breathable oxygen -- and I tire easily. So no trek up the hill to visit Cristo Blanco.

Final stop of the tourism day was a visit inside El Templo de la Compañía de Jesús, the Church of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit Church:

It's beautiful inside and out. And admission is only 12 soles, which is $3.50, a ridiculous bargain. But, of course, no photography inside the church, even though some of the altar pieces on display are breath-taking. This church, however, has come up with a really good compromise on the "no photography" rule. You can download a QR code and received pictures of everything photogenic inside. It did not do so because I do not have the QR code downloading software on my phone, primarily because I don't trust it. I don't know what's being loaded into my phone with a QR code. While, yes, I do trust the Jesuits to be on the up-and-up with their QR code, I can't say that with most QR codes I'm asked to download (such as restaurants that don't want to give me a paper menu, even one laminated in plastic, and want me to get the menu via a QR code which will send me spam when it's detected that I'm driving close to the restaurant).

But the church's exterior balcony is a "take all the photos you want" zone. So I did. 

The balcony overlooks the Plaza Mayor, which I've photographed before. But not from height!

Same goes with the Cusco Cathedral:

Looks even better from the balcony. And the street view was pretty good to begin with.

Zoom a little closer:

You can barely see Cristo Blanco in this photograph, especially since the clouds are perfectly placed so that the white statue blends almost perfectly into the white cloud.

Same shot, artsy version, framed by the balcony's arch.

Same artsy touch, only the other side of the arch:

Not a lot of photos today because I visited places where photography was verboten. I tried to paint a mental picture here. But this is a photogenic town and real photos would have been preferable. Tomorrow, it's back to sea level or close enough. Where's there's more than enough oxygen for everybody. Oxygen. You don't miss it until there's not enough of it.