21.09.09 Cusco, Hotel Calhuide

We found an excellent breakfast joint, 'Jack's'. Greg's having hot chocolate and I'm tucking into a lemon and ginger tea. Our huge breakfasts will arrive shortly!

Notice the bronze llama we have just purchased from a street vendor. It will be our companion on the Inca Trail!

Cusco was the capital city of the Inca empire and there is still evidence of it in the polygonal stone walls that are commonplace throughout. Polygonal masonry involves fitting stones together without any mortar, chipping away at the stones’ angles in a laborious task of trial and error. It must’ve taken a long time and much man power. The Spaniards utilised these polygonal stone walls as the basis for many of their buildings, adding to them to complete a very attractive colonial style, finely rendered with colourful wooden balconies and terracotta pan-tiled roofs. Cusco is a tourist magnet and we suffer continuously from hassling salespeople, artists offering poorly executed original watercolours for 20 soles (£4), ladies offering massages and little girls offering finger puppets for 1 sole.
Ooricancha is the main spiritual area of the city, incorporating an Inca sun and moon temple and city cemetery. The Spaniards unfortunately used the site and many of the temple stones to build their own church on top of the hill, which seems to be a recurring theme throughout our trip. They looted and pillaged all Inca temples and graves, using the materials for their own gain.
We come across several antique shops containing many replicas and some original pieces of Inca pottery and other artefacts, and of course we are tempted by the prospect of owning something so old. We settle on a replica of a Mochika pot, which is itself in excess of 250 years old, and an original Inca wooden cup, which could’ve been used for drinking chicha.