Cuzco, Peru's often overlooked treasures
Many tourists on their way to Machu Picchu
blow right through Cuzco, Peru. But Cuzco's historic streets and museums
and its cuisine make it much more than a gateway.
By Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Cuzco, Peru — —
As many a Peruvian traveler can tell you,
climbing Machu Picchu is easy, especially if you take one of those
tourist buses that do most of the work. It's embracing Cuzco that can be
hard.
Cuzco (often spelled Cusco) usually is the Peruvian city
you fly into before catching the train through the Sacred Valley to
those famous mountaintop ruins at Machu Picchu. But Cuzco is much more
than a gateway.
In the 15th century, it was
the capital of the Incan empire, a wealthy city whose stone buildings,
which still form the skeleton of the city, were chiseled and placed with
astounding precision. Then in 1533, with the Incas weakened by civil
war, Spanish soldiers showed up with rifles and horses to grab the gold
and silver and slay those who resisted. They built a colonial capital
atop the Incan city, constructing Catholic churches over the most
revered Incan temples. Spain ruled until Peru won independence in the 1820s.
Nowadays,
the city's population is 300,000 to 400,000, a blend of Spanish and
native Quechua bloodlines, and Cuzco's stone skeleton is enveloped in
one of the most muscular tourist economies in all of South America.
Catering to jet-setters and backpackers alike, the city hums with swishy
restaurants, cheap hostels, upscale boutiques, tacky souvenir shops and
hundreds of posh hotel rooms, yet you still see campesinos bearing
sheaves of barley or peddling embroidery on street corners. When the
Southern Hemisphere's winter solstice arrives each June, revelers take to the streets for the Inti Raymi festival, a scene that looks like Mardi Gras with llamas.
Cuzco
is not for the faint of heart or lungs, nor for the traveler who wants
everything easy, tidy and genteel. Not only does it stand between you
and that beloved Incan mountaintop, but it also stands about 11,000 feet
above sea level — about 3,000 feet taller than Machu Picchu — because
of the tilt of the Sacred Valley.
"That causes a very interesting
situation in your body," guide Enrique Medina reminded me soon after my
arrival in May. "Take it easy, have a coca tea and drink a lot of
water."
And while you're at it, tune out the fast-talking touts
and peddlers who will otherwise mar your views of native Cuzco, colonial
Cuzco and even crossroads Cuzco.
This was my third visit to Cuzco in 24 years. I came home with these lessons in mind.
The streets and the museums deserve equal time.
History
is so alive in the city's streets, among the throngs at the San Pedro
Market and at the sprawling Sacsayhuaman ruins, it might seem a shame to
spend too many hours indoors. But especially when Cuzco gets cold, you
can't ignore Qorikancha (also spelled Coricancha), the former Incan
headquarters that was later converted into the Convento de Santo Domingo
de Cuzco or the Monastery of Santa Catalina, whose 13 remaining nuns
may be outnumbered by the mannequins on display.
The same goes for
the elegant Museo de Arte Precolumbino, or MAP, and the larger but
humbler Inka Museum. Also, authorities last year announced plans to
display hundreds of Machu Picchu artifacts, collected by explorer
Hiram Bingham, in the Casa Concha mansion on Santa Catalina Ancha Street, but the timetable remains unclear.
Eat your potatoes.
Nobody
knows more than the chefs of Cuzco about potatoes, corn, alpaca or cui
(a.k.a. cuy, a.k.a. guinea pig). On the courtyard of the Pacha Papa
restaurant, you listen to a harpist while digging into an alpaca
brochette.
At the MAP Café, the kitchen mixes traditional and
molecular cuisine, which in my case resulted in too-sweet gazpacho
followed by a tasty salmon main course. At Chicha, a pricey, busy
upstairs restaurant opened in 2009 by Peruvian celebrity chef Gaston
Acurio, great pork medallions await.
See Barrio San Blas, and think about sleeping there.
Stand
in the Plaza de Armas. Turn toward the nearest hill and march past the
cathedral and up the narrow, cobblestoned street. For a hearty breakfast
or lunch in the company of backpackers from around the planet, pause at
Jack's Café on Choquechaka Street.
Then continue, and in no time
you'll be in San Blas, a hillside barrio that spills down to the plaza
and where global visitors mingle with Cuzco's artistic types. Grab a
snack at the tiny, orange-walled Café de Mama Oli (199 Plazoleta
Nazarenas), and peek at the lobby of the Hotel Monasterio, where rates
routinely run $400 and up a night. This old monastery, built in the
1590s, was converted 47 years ago into a lodging with two courtyards and
museum-worthy art. (If you go in March, stay three nights and pay
upfront, you can get rooms here for as little as $235.) Then have a look
at the Amaru Hostal, a block away, with pleasant, modest rooms for
about $50 a night. (I wish I'd slept there instead of at the Andina
Classic Cuzco Plaza, where I paid about $140 for a tiny room.)
Beware the plaza, behold the cathedral.
In
pictures, the Plaza de Armas looks great — a big sun-splashed rectangle
with fountains and grass and strolling vendors and benches for weary
travelers. Up close, it's just as pretty, but it can be a sort of
battlefield. To cross it, you'll need to fend off the school-aged girls
selling woven goods and massages, school-aged boys shining shoes and
forcefully hawking little paintings that will never hang in the Hotel
Monasterio. If you don't want to buy, avoid eye contact and get into
that big, brooding building with the green doors, the cathedral.
Begun
in the 1550s and completed in the 1660s, it includes a 25-foot-high
"Last Supper" painting by Marcos Zapata behind the main altar. Look
closely and you'll see Christ and his disciples sitting before plates of
roasted vizcacha (comparable to chinchilla). You'll also see a chapel
dedicated to Our Lord of the Earthquakes, not a surprise, given that
major quakes struck the city in 1650 and 1950
1. ISLAS BALLESTAS
3. BARCO CINCO ESTRELLAS
4. AVISTAMIENTO DE BALLENAS
"The tour is designed for people who have an
extra day in the Colca valley and would like to spend it together with the
locals and actively share their daily life"
Desayuno.
The canyon is home to the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus), a
species that has seen worldwide effort to preserve it. The condors can be seen
at close range as they fly past the canyon walls, and are the region's most
popular attraction. 'Cruz del Condor' is a popular tourist stop to view the
condors, an overlook where condors soar gracefully on thermals of warm air
rising from the canyon. The condors are best seen in the early morning and late
afternoon when they are hunting. At this point the canyon floor is 3,960 feet
(1,200 m). Also Viscachas (burrowing rodents closely related to chinchillas)
are also common around the canyon rim, darting furtively among the rocks. Cacti
dot many slopes and, if they’re in flower, you may be lucky enough to see tiny
nectar-eating birds braving the spines to feed. In the depths of the canyon it
can be almost tropical, with palm trees, ferns and even orchids in some
isolated areas.
Festivals throughout the year, including the Wititi festival
in Chivay, December 8–11; the Wititi has been declared the dance most
representative of the Arequipa
region, and named as a "cultural heritage" of Peru.
The Colca is also well known for two forms of crafts: goods knitted from 100%
baby alpaca fiber (hats, gloves, etc.), and a unique form of embroidery that
adorns skirts (polleras), hats, vests, and other items of daily wear and use.
The ceremonies took place at the winter solstice, when the sun is
farthest from the earth. Fearing the lack of sun and ensuing famine, the
ancient Incas gathered in Cuzco to honor the Sun God and plead for his
return. Three days before the start of the celebrations the participants had to
go through a purification period in which they had to fast and the only
food allowed to eat was white maize and an herb called chucam.
As the sun begins to set, stacks of straw are set on fire and the
celebrants dance around them to honor Tawantinsuty or the Empire of the
Four Wind Directions. In ancient times, no fire was allowed that day
until the evening fires.
