Cuzco - the ruins

There are several ruins outside of Cuzco, and one day I bused out to the farthest one and walked back into Cuzco. 

A ceremonial stone bath

Awkward llama

Graceful llama

I assume that the chalk marks are for restoration purposes

The last ruin is the largest. Sacsaywaman was a fortress that was recaptured by the Inca two years after Pizarro took Cuzco, and used it as a base to lay siege to the city. The spaniards were nearly defeated, but 50 spanish calvary were able to re-take the fortress and killed thousands of native solders. 

Big rocks! The largest weighs 300 tons. 

This one's for Grandma

Three-tiers of zigzag fortifications

Cuzco

I have arrived in Cuzco in Southern Peru. The city is very beautiful, with alleyways lined with precise Inca foundations, and colonial cathedrals surrounding large, green plazas. It was once the capital of the Incan empire and the oldest continuously inhabited city in South America. It was designed to form the shape of a puma, with a large, jagged-walled fortress as the head. Of course the city has grown over the past several hundred years, filling the valley and it appears to be more of an elongated amoeba shape than a puma at this point. When the spanish conquered the city, they tore down most of the imperial buildings and used the stone for their own structures. However, they often left the foundations and built on top of them, recognizing their strength in this earthquake-prone region. As a result, there are buildings where precise inca foundations are topped by a comparatively messy pile of rocks held together with mud that the spaniards built. 

I saw some very interesting cathedrals there, but you weren't allowed to take pictures of the interiors. In one the interior was entirely covered in mirrors, while still keeping the traditional shapes of the carved wooden interiors I had seen all over the country. They were placed there to entice the native population into the church to worship. Another church had a pulpit carved from a single tree trunk, with several heretics, including John Calvin and Martin Luther, holding up the weight of the pulpit and grimacing.  

I spent several days walking around town before and after my trek to Macchu Pichu, and I took hundreds of pictures, but here are the highlights:

Every church has a statue of the Virgin or Christ that gets paraded around town on an annual basis. They are incredibly heavy, as you can see by how much the men are struggling to maneuver it around the city streets.

The Jesuit church on the main plaza.

New cat, old stone

The famous 12-sided stone

Spanish stone

The Archbishop's residence

Museo del Convento da la Merced is the best museum of religious art that I visited. Most of the religious art that I saw wasn't executed particularly well, and while a picture of Mary squirting her breast milk into a grown man's mouth is certainly interesting the first few times you see it, as a whole, these types of paintings are pretty boring. However, this museum had detailed explanations of the iconography of the paintings which was quite interesting, and was in a stunning building. 

There is a silver busker in Portland.
I found his brother!

Lake Churup

I woke up early one morning not really knowing what I would be doing that day. I had two options: Lake Wilcacocha was an easy hike that I could do alone, and Lake Churup was more strenuous and slightly dangerous and would need to find people to go with. Both trailheads could be reached via ´´combi,´´ the small town public transportation method of packing 15 people into a minivan. At seven in the morning I went to the corner where I had been told the combis gathered. I saw vans, but all the drivers were sleeping, and there were no gringos - and no local passengers for that matter. I flagged down a taxi driver and asked him how to get to Lake Wilcacocha  and he said combis left from a corner three blocks away. I walked there, and since there were still no gringos, I decided to go to Lake Wilcacocha, only to have the drivers there tell me that I needed a different corner, about a 15 minute walk away, to get there. I started walking, and by lucky coincidence saw a group of Israelies that had been on the hike to Laguna 69 two days earlier. I shouted across the street ´´Where are you going?´´ They responded ´´Lake Churup!´´ So I joined their group for the day. 

The hike to Churup was very strenuous. Steep portions of the trail were covered in loose rocks that slipped out from under your feet during the descent, and some places were so steep that there were cables attached to the rocks to aid the ascent. By the time I got back to the hostal at 5 that afternoon, I was barely able to haul my tired body up the steps to my room, where I managed to stay awake only until 7:30.

It was windy.

For a sense of scale, check out the people on the bottom left.
This it the portion of the trail that had cables.

Made it!

We started at the base of this valley.

Laguna 69

I had planned to do a 4-day trek outside of Huaraz, but due to an illness in the group and a late-night ER visit, I wasn't able to go. I couldn't have gone later, but they wouldn't refund any of my money, and I didn't feel like paying for it twice. Instead, I went on a couple of day hikes. The first was Laguna 69, a stunning blue glacial lake at 4650 meters elevation. The hike travels by two other large lakes, glaciated peaks, and lots of bovines. I felt the effects of the altitude. I was a little light-headed, sleepy, and out of breath, but I made it safely. The sight of the glowing blue lake made the trek well worth it. 

So let the photo bomb begin:

The first of many lakes

Bashful donkey

I could have sat here and looked at this view for hours. 

Made it!