Monday, September 22

After a long afternoon, night, and morning of travel through Atlanta and Lima, we arrived to our AirBnB in the Old City of Cusco at 10:00am today. (The other family we’re traveling with were unfortunately stuck (stranded?) at the Lima airport because of a canceled flight and did not arrive until after dinner. 😢) Mike and I wandered around, got some lunch and a few groceries before meeting our local guide, Ruben, for our tour of the city.

Our first of the Andes flying into Cusco:

Sacsayhuaman is one of the greatest stone monuments in Incan architecture. It was a ceremonial and sacred site dedicated to the sun god.

The Inca are known for their precision stone work on a large scale. They did not use any mortar to secure their walls and buildings. They maneuvered the stones into place on log rollers (they did NOT have/use the wheel), and would chip and shape them in place with stone tools.

Qenqo is another Inca Temple where they would mummify or embalm their dead so as to keep the bodies of their ancestors with them - in their homes and in their temples - to worship and honor them.

Passageway to the embalming room

The "embalming room"

Table where the body would be laid out

Niches where mummified royalty were displayed

San Pedro Market

Different types of corn

Potatoes

The “meat department”!

Cow's heart

Cow's nose

Cow's hooves

Cow's head

Selling a piece of cow’s stomach…

Temple of Qorikancha, located in the center of Cusco, was another Incan Temple until the Incan’s were defeated by the Spanish in the late 15th century. As they were being colonized their temples were destroyed and converted to Roman Catholic Churches. This one became the Church of Santo Domingo. It remains an active Dominican Convent to this day.