Day #6 - Cusco

Day six was one that no one wanted to get up early, so we didn't.  It was a long night, so it was good that our tour of the city didn't start until 2pm.  So we got ourselves out to take in a little of the city center and get some hot chocolate at Starbucks, because at this point the boys needed a little of the familiar.  We just enjoyed the time and took it all in.  Then we decided to head back to the hotel (only 2 blocks away) and drop Dallin off before lunch because Dallin began to feel a little under the weather.  After lunch the plan was that all of us would go on the official Cusco tour, but the family was dropping off like flies, so it ended up being three of us on the city tour.  Getting a bit sick is one of the things Peru often offers freely.

One of the local preschools was having a little parade around the square.  Easton was impressed.

It was a long, amazing week, but by this last day it was definitely showing.

Our beautiful hostel in Cusco.

The tour was very good and we got to see a lot of things.  Mason, Drew, and I all really enjoyed it and I was very happy to see that Mason and Drew were really into it (at least until the last 45 minutes, but by then even I was pretty tired and my thoughts were wandering too).  

The tour started at the cathedral, which we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside, but with it's three chapels and amazing art work was incredible.  Then we walked to an Inca ruin that the Spanish actually built a cathedral on top of, but in recent history much of it has been uncovered.

This is the second cathedral we went to, which was built over a whole complex of Inca temples called Qorikancha.  The Inca rooms were dedicated to different divinites -Sun, Moon, Stars, Lighteneing, Mother Earth, Rainbow, etc.

See how the Spanish just built right on top of the Inca temple?

The cathedral is built right over the Inca foundation, which you can see in this picture of the outside.

This is the next stop.  Our kids loved saying this national park.  It sounds like "Sexy Woman" when said, it cracked the boys up.  It was the place of the royal house of the sun.  It was built on two hills with a large flat plain in the middle which they used for festivals and most likely military parades.

The stones here weighed on average 80 tons (but many were over 120 tons).  And moved from 4-7 km away.

A lot of this ruin used the natural stones already there.

The view of Cusco from one of the hills.

Stop three was Tambomachay was a place of water.  It has clean water from underground.  Here they gathered the water for irrigation purposes.  They said they also used it as a religious place dedicated to water.

Along the way they had all these interesting trees.  And Drew took several pictures, so thought I would share a couple of his pics.

They talked about the differences in terrace building and temple building.  Though both were amazing architecture, the temples were build for looks, the terraces for function.

You can see the irrigation still in use today.

Stop four was actually a drive by as, it was getting very dark and not to mention cold. But it was Puka Pukara, meaning Red Fort.  It was a stop on the Inca Trail. 

Stop Five was Q'enqo which was really interesting.  It was at one time covered by landslides and then abandoned by the Incas, but an archaeologist searched and found it.  It had a cave with an alter in it for the priests to use.  And we got one picture and then at our very last stop on our very last night our battery went dead and we left it at that.

This semi-circle wall had seats in it for the priests and high officals to sit in surrounding an outdoor alter.  And our last photo!