caramelo

Once we had finished in the center of Cuzco we move to the suburbs.

We noticed the radical change between the center and tourist area and the streets even just a few hundred meters from the center, similar to what we had seen in Lima and La Paz, humble and poor areas... ... ... so closebut so different.On the other hand we also saw great potential for future growth.

Our agency gave us another entrance ticket that would be needed for both the sites which would visit today and also for what we would see tomorrow:

We stopped a few miles from Cuzco to see the famous fortress of Sacsayhuaman, strategically built on a hill overlooking Cuzco.Its fame comes from its enormous carved stones joined with astounding precision, which formed the outer walls.Some of them exceeding 9m in height and weighing over 350 tonnes, one of the greatest architectural works of the Incas. The stones fit so perfectly that no blade of grass or steel can slide between them. There is no mortar. They often join in complex and irregular surfaces that would appear to be a nightmare for the stonemason

What is sad is that just 30% remains of what it was, because with the arrival of Spanish colonizers and their descendants and future, they used the stones and blocks to build the foundations of many buildings in Cuzco.

Sacsayhuaman was actually a Sun Temple and also was where the Incas performed their sacred rites and festivals.

The Sun Temples were privileged complexes, much like small towns within the city of Cusco, where the general God or the Sun was worshiped, but where also lesser gods and individuals were worshiped.

It still is surprising that for a culture so close in time, there is so little written about it and there are still so many unknown answers or information.

I was surprised to see so many police when we came out:

In the above photo they don´t seem to be so many but in the following photo you can see their workmates beside the wall and in total there are 13! :

And if I include their 10 friends who were in the Plaza de Armas, hahaha

Just outside you had the local women trying to get the tourists to pay for a photo with them and their baby llamas or they tried to sell some of their textiles:

And this one with a client:

It is a convent of the Order of Preachers.During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Convento de Santo Domingo became the way where the friars trying to reach Spain had to cross.

When the earthquake of 1650, the structure of the Convent of Santo Domingo was seriously affected.Then they began the repair work which only finished in1680.

The inclination of 7 degrees impregnable walls made it survive earthquakes since the time of its construction until today. The following picture is from a postcard I bought.

The Church of the Sacred Family

The Cathedral is notable for the large variety and quantity of art treasures it holds.In the vestry are pictures of unquestionable merit suchas the famous Christ attributed to Van Dyck and portraits of the bishops of Cuzco.The entire temple is full of pictures, many of them of great artistic value, such as the Madonna placed on the Altar of Sorrows, the Virgin of Bethlehem "historical anecdotes depicting a scene, the" Virgen of Almudena "," The Death of Santa Catalina ","The Apotheosis of San Cristobal”, and many others.

It was forbidden to take pictures inside the cathedral but I scanned some postcards that we bought there:

My attention was drawn to the painting depicting Christ and his apostles in the "Last Supper" by Marcos Zapata from Cusco. The painting is arguably the most famous of the cathedral since the middle of the table can see a tray containing a roast guinea pig, a speciality dish in the Andes, inherited from the Inkas and consumed only on special occasions; also the artist put on the table Andean products such as papayas and peppers, or elements of their ancestral world:

The next visit was to the Convent of Santo Domingo which is another important building dating from the sixteenth century.It was built on the old sanctuary of the Temple of the Sun Qorikancha

We were collected at 1:30pm to start which today was with a group of about 25 people.

The first stop was already in La Plaza de Armas of Qosqo where the Cathedral and its two smaller churches (the Church of the Sagrada Familia & the church of Triumph) are located.

The Qosqo Cathedral is without doubt one of the most remarkable monuments of America Colonial, it´s renaissance structure is 86.80 meters long and 46.20 meters wide and 20.70 meters high. It is shaped like a Latin cross, a central nave and two aisles, twenty arches, supported by stout columns that end in simple awned cornices. Inside the cathedral there are ten chapels, including the vestry, all barred doors guarded by gold.

The entrance ticket:

Today to visit the monument, you enter through the door of the "Church of Triumph" which is precisely the same place of the old cathedral made on "Sunturwasi," meaning that the place had been occupied in the Inca by Wirakocha Inca palace.

The Church of Triumph:

We had some free time until our excursión at 1:30pm.

This break suited us wonderfully and we relaxed a bit and then we walked to the main square, Plaza de Armas, about 300m from our hotel (in our excursion I´ll go into more detail about this Square).

We eat something light at an Italian restaurant in the square. I did like the bottles placed on the ceiling of the restaurant:

But not respecting the rules to avoid problems with the altitude we did not take any alcohol, but only the local mineral water of Cuzco or in this case Cusco (you find it written both ways with a “z” or an “s”):

We also ate more peaceful knowing we were in a safe place in case of an earthquake!:

Joking aside it is said that in Cuzco they have big earthquakes every 3 centuries.

More images of the typical streets on the way to the hotel:

And women dressed in their traditional clothing with llamas waiting for the tourists who pay to take a picture with her!

When we left the airport somebody was waiting for us with our name on their sign to transfer us to our hotel.

Cuzco in Quechua (indigenous language spoken by the Andes spoken by between 8 and 10 million people) means "navel or belly-button of the world because the 4 main Inca Trails to N. S. E & W of the great Inca Civilization great leave from of this city.

It is a city in southeast Peru, at 3300 meters above sea level right in the Andes, and was the capital of the Inca Empire and today is considered the archaeological capital of America.

These were our first impressions of Cuzco on the way from the airport to the hotel:

In the photo below the monument has the texto f the hymn of Cuzco:

The Hymn to Cusco is a composition of Musical cusqueños Luis Grandson Vantage point and Ojeda Robert Bell that the Provincial Municipality of the Cusco adopted in the years 1970s like hymn of the city. The letters of the hymn translated into English are the following:

to you as song and flag triunfal.

Tuesday, 3rd of August.

After having had some in the hotel before going to bed we slept very well until 3 o'clock in the morning when suddenly the hotel alarm went off. There was no reason for the alarm and I think it just went off by mistake but it took us a long time to get back to sleep and I think that just when we'd gone to sleep our alarm clock went off!

We were collected for transfer to the airport at 6:30 am

The airport of La Paz:

I enjoyed seeing the airport full of local people and not only with tourists:

The flight from La Paz to Cuzco only lasted 45 minutes and again we had a one tour difference in the local time so we left La Paz at 9:25am and we arrived in Cuzco at 9:20am!

First images taken from the plane landing at the airport of Cuzco:

Thanks Dan & Joe, yes the Galapagos part will be worth the wait!

Thanks so much for your nice comments. I´ll be back sooooooon with more! :)

The Dance of Toba is a figurative representation of the tribes of the Bolivian Chaco. From pre-colonial relationship between the Andean and Amazonian culture was of domination and resistance. In their raids, the army took prisoners silvicultural Quechua, called ch'unch'us. The arrival of these eastern to the western world in the Aymara inspired the creation of a dance named ch'unch'u precisely, it is not just a way of cultural appropriation.

We have seen that many of the dances mean something, such as the celebration in honor of a saint or a virgin or other naturopathic doctors were against evil beings and demonic character, and so are in many of their dance wear masks and disguise, etc.:

.

We returned to the hotel after the show and we connected to the oxygen machine for about 10 minutes before going to bed ……. which was a great help …….. we went early to bed as we had another early start …… we had to be at the reception at 6:30 am for the airport shuttle.

TO BE CONTINUED ………. in CUSCO, PERU. ……………..

We returned to the hotel and had one hour before going to the restaurant Dinner Show Peña Huari, a show with music and dinner from Bolivia.

The stage with the Zampona instruments:

For dinner there was a buffet of salads and cold meats, cheese etc, and for the main dish for something typical of the area I tasted the meat of the llama. However I had some pangs of conscience - but on the other hand it is like asking who has never ever tried as lamb, pork or beef? It was actually very nice.

Bolivian folklore, is one of the richest in the Americas. In Bolivia there are so many different customs, legends, rituals, rhythms, dances, instruments and textiles, that even the Bolivians don´t know it´s full richness totally.

They say that the llama fetus is used to search for welfare in the home, the pork to attract money and the sheep to curb lawsuits.

The deer fetus is to help that the miners will be safe from the mines and those of cats and dogs, always when they are together, can help an abandoned woman recover her husband.

Offers in La Paz are not as audacious as in El Alto because the city banned the sale of sacrificed animals slaughtered, with the exception of the llama.

August is the highest income for witches, as the earth opens to receive the offerings of their children. This seemed to be true as we went in August and they told us that it was the main time of the year for the ceremonies as “August is the month where a lot of things happen” and this blesses them and gives them luck for the next year (August to August).

Just as well I made no negative comment about the market like "who buys this rubbish" or something similar, as just when we were leaving our guide proudly showed us his purchase was one of the plates filled with various objects that he planned to use the following Saturday to celebrate with his wife, the ceremony of burning the contents of the plate.

Our last stop was the Witches Market, a traditional market, in the street “Calle de las Brujas” which offers us an encounter with the traditions, native products, herbs, amulets, gifts, herbs, coca as well as healers, yatiris, kallawayas.

Need a potion to succed in business, love, or good health? You´ll find them all in the Witches Market!

Sacrificing an animal fetus and dissect for offerings to the Pachamama is the best way to attract good luck and ward off curses, according to the customs of western Bolivia.

Pachamama is Mother Earth, also called virgin. A sparkling hearth consumes the fetus, while the home or business is imbued with the sacred smoke. Then, the remains are buried in a ceremony that is fed and watered the earth.

I think that the football stadium in the next photo could be perhaps the Olympic Stadium Hernando Siles La Paz which is the largest sports complex in Bolivia. It has a Capacity of 42.000 seated to 45.000 spectators if they are located in stands, and was named in honor of Hernando Siles Suazo, the 31st President of Bolivia 1926-1930.

The stadium is located in the Miraflores area of La Paz, at an altitude of 3.567 meters above sea level, making it one of the highest professional stadiums in the world.

When we were finished in the square, we went to the Killi Killi Mirador which is the best viewpoint of the city. It is located in the Villa Pabón, from here you can admire its topography and see the panoramic views, you can see areas like Chuquiaguillo, the Summit, Miraflores, the Southern area, the Centre and the slopes up to Pura Pura and with the privileged position of the Mirador, of nearly 360 degrees, allows the observer to know the city of La Paz with just a glance.

Here again you can see the beautiful mountain of Illimani in the background:

The Plaza Murillo is the heart of La Paz, named in honor of Pedro Domingo Murillo (1759-1810), a Bolivian patriot, mestizo and precursor of Bolivian independence.

Monument of Pedro Domingo Murillo:

The front of the Presidential Palace "Palacio Quemado" overlooks the square. Near the entrance of the "Palacio Quemado" the guard members of the Battalion Colorados stand on guard. The current occupant of the palace is Evo Morales.

The 1st Regiment of the Infantry Colorados of Bolivia is a Bolivian Army military unit that is the bodyguard of the President of the Republic and whose office is the custody of the Government Palace.

We also saw plenty of the Utopian Police (Police Tactical Unit Operations), so I assumed that with so much police activity and bodyguards at the door that Evo Morales was on this day at the Palace.

Junto al Palacio Presidencial se encuentra el Congreso Nacional de Bolivia y también la iglesia de Nuestra Señora de La Paz.

Next to the Presidential Palace is the National Congress of Bolivia and also the church of Our Lady of La Paz.

the National Congress:

The church of Our Lady of La Paz.

These two bridges are new and they will connect the house of Evo Morales to the city:

And this is supposedly the home of Evo Morales with the flag. The photo is not good as we were moving in the car:

Along the way we saw many who apparently are unemployed but offer their services to passers-by. If you need a plumber or an electrician you only have to go around this neighbourhood to look for one:

From there we went to the historic part of town and stopped at the main square, Plaza Murillo where today the national government´s headquarters are located and therefore it is the most important city in the country.

We left the Valley of the Moon and drove through some pretty good areas judging from the style of the houses which we saw:

But you can imagine the difficulty of building the houses perched on top of the rocks:

This house attracted my attention with its collection of bells of all kinds:

There was a local man playing both the flute and the charango instruments.

The charango is a stringed instrument used in the highlands of the Andes in South America. It has five pairs of double strings although there are variations with less or more strings but (almost) always orders or five games. The charango is a centenary tradition in Bolivia and Peru, 1 and also has significant presence in the music of Argentina, Chile and Ecuador.

The flute is a flute originally from South America, the Andean region (Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina), which was played in the Inca empire.

Naturally it was a "touristy attraction" because he wanted us to pay him a tip ... .... but we paid gladly …………….you can not imagine how wonderful it was to see him totally alone with nobody around and playing in such a special place where there was so silence, it was really a magical moment and I think I'll never forget it. He then stayed on one foot copying the condor bird!

When we left the luggage at the hotel we started our tour that lasted about 3 hours.

The first stop was the Valley of the Moon is about 10 kilometers from the centre of La Paz, towards the village of Mallasa.

The Valley of the Moon is a mysterious landscape adorned by a small maze of canyons, pinnacles and unusual stalagmites of clay, and is a section where erosion has eaten the top of a mountain.

Not being on solid ground, clay instead of stone, over the centuries, the elements have created a work of art of something different. It's like a desert of stalagmites.

I had not expected to see much in La Paz thinking that perhaps it would be one of the weaker stop-overs of the journey but when they reached the Valley of the Moon I was amazed as to how big and beautiful it was. We could not see all of it as there was not enough time but we saw the most important parts, the Ladys Hat, Mother Moon and the Devil´s look out place.

On the streets we saw many scenes of daily life and the nice thing was that the women were dressed in their traditional clothing and Bolivian hats:

We saw lots of street signs advertising for the boys trying to attract them to do military service:

"The military service lasts 1 year but your pride for being a soldier lasts a lifetime"

"Bolivia is the Patria,tricolour is the flag and camoflaged is the uniform"

"Thanks Bolivia for allowing me wear this glorious uniform"