Adventuring in Cuzco

One of the primary tourist destinations is the famous 12-sided stone along an alleyway in old town Cusco.


Outside of the beautiful Qoricancha museum and church. Pre-Colombian, this site was one of Inka's most sacred temples. Spiritual festivities that revolved around their accurate and unique calendar were held in the beautiful courtyard. The darker stones are the original mortarless and seamless foundation of the Inka temple. The church tore most of the structure down and used many of the same stones on site to build the enormous Santo Domingo church.




The garden outside of the church had the iconi Condor, Puma, and Snake, which represent the different levels of being. The snake is the underworld where all the ancestors are; the Puma represents the corporeal; and the Condor represents the sun, moon, and sky gods. Original Cuzco city was intentionally the shape of a giant puma.



A beautiful Virgin Mary siting....think we can auction it off on E-bay?!



The picturesque ruins of Tipon. Not only were these Inkan ruins incredible in their exactness and function, they are documented as the most sophisticated agricultural and irrigation systems on earth at that time in history. The terracing controlled the exact amounts of water down to the square foot, where the cultivation of different crops laid and a constant stream of water was always moving down the channelized aqeuducts from the top terrace to the lowest one down (12 levels!! And some very fertile soil!!). It was basically like seeing 15th century Ever-Bloom. :) Between each terrace were stone outcroppings that we were able to climb up. The archeological site was 3560 meters in elevation, or 11,680 feet, so there was a lot of huffing and puffing up the hill.




The next ruin we went to was Pikillaqta (say that 10 times fast! pee-kee-yak-ta) . It was from a Pre-Inkan civilization called the Wari. The Wari lived in the Sacred Valley, but sought to take of the Lucre in modern day Cuzco city. The Wari lost, and the Lucre became what are known as the Quechua of today. The site was phenomenal in that it was a perfect grid with city streets, designated living areas, and a walled 'highway' that wrapped around the entire 2km wide urban site. Most of the site is run-down and falling over, however, their was a crew of about 20 men digging up old walls and restoring some of the site's previous glory.