Inti Raymi and Big Rocks

TUESDAY:

Inti Raymi Celebration (Tuesday June 23, 2015)

It was the day before Inti Raymi, a ceremony celebrated across all of South America to honor the Sun God. The streets of Cusco were crowded with all sorts of vendors selling various items from Peruvian food to alpaca sweaters to USB cords, along with mass amounts of citizens and tourists. It's impossible for all of these things to fit on the small sidewalks of the city, and overflow into traffic happened quite often. We left our hotel at around 9:30am to visit the Museo de sitio Qoricancha, and there were already young Cusco residents dressed up in their native attire parading down the streets.

The Museo de sitio Qoricancha is situated underground, and explains how the civilization of Cusco evolved using various rooms as time periods. Much like the previous museums we've visited, there were examples of pre-Incan and Incan pottery, metallurgy, and textiles that went along with the era being explained. Afterwards, we toured the Qoricancha--once a Temple of the Sun until the Spaniards came and built a church on top of it--and it contained models of Incan-style architecture along with Spanish-influenced paintings of the Catholic belief with Inca culture twists. For example, a painting may have depicted Jesus on the cross but have a woman wearing a traditional Inca tupu in the corner. My personal favorite was a painting of the Last Supper, in which guinea pig was being served as the main course.

The Last Supper Peruvian Style (Tuesday June 23, 2015)

Above Museo de sitio Qoricancha (Tuesday June 23, 2015) 

WEDNESDAY:

We woke up early and tried to catch a bus to Saqsaywaman, but ended up taking a taxi instead. The stone structures at this ancient site are an incredible sight to see, not only because of their alignment but because of how massive they are. To the Incas, Saqsaywaman was an important religious complex rightly named House of the Sun. When the Spanish invaded, they used the stones to construct buildings in the city below. However, many of the stones remained unmoved due to their excessive weight. The site now serves as a destination to celebrate Inti Raymi and impress all those who view the incredible stonework (here's an aerial view).

Oh Saqsaywaman, what big rocks you have! (Wednesday June 24, 2015)