Spring Break Day 3, Cusco Peru

I should have slept soundly last night, but I woke up a lot.  So I was able to drift off a few more times to catch a little extra sleep.  After the past few days of little sleep, I thought going to bed by 9:00 last night would help me catch up.  I got up in time to take a shower and go down for breakfast.  I went down expecting a standard hotel breakfast buffet, but I was seated and the server came and asked if I wanted fruit or (I wasn't sure what the other was), scrambled or fried eggs, and asked if a bread basket was fine and brought me hot water for tea.  I had coca tea to help with the altitude sickness, a fruit bowl (only fruits that had to be peeled--can't drink the water), scrambled eggs, and a bread basket.  Very good.  Went back to my room to grab my day pack and fill my water bottle from the big bottle of water I bought last night.  I also took an ibuprofin to help my headache. Then I was off.  

Dogs resting in front of the Palace of Justice

My plan was to walk to Plaza de Armas, get cash to pay the balance of my tour to Machu Picchu, and to go to the tour office to pay.  As I got to the Plaza, having stopped for cash on the way, there was a band playing and a parade of sorts.  I went over and the band (quite large) looked like high school students, all in school uniforms, and all female.  They had a pretty good sound and all of the marching people were dressed in suits the women in high heels.  Maybe they were the teachers?  There were more of the well-dressed adults on a stage talking (in Spanish).  Then the band marched to the center of the plaza playing more songs.  After they were done, they went to their families and took pictures, etc. 

parade of officials behind all of the people

band playing

parade

band marching through plaza

Looks like the drummers are getting into it

Church and the Plaza de Armas

Plaza de Armas

Finishing the music in the center of the plaza

Families watching.  Many are carrying woven crosses and bunches of 
 plants, some look like they are created to look like corn cobs (the yellow ones)

 I realized that the tour office would not open until 4:00, so I decided to go to the Coca Museum and began walking.  Many of the families from. the school group were around me as I walked--just like families everywhere!  It was mostly downhill which was good, but the last few blocks were very steep hills going up.  I had to stop halfway up to use my inhaler because my chest was so tight. The museum is not in the historic part of Cusco, so it was nice to walk in a new part of the city.   

A man selling the woven crosses

Troughs run down the streets outside of the historic center for rain runoff

A plaza I walked by

Another plaza I walked by with statues of children

Families walking

A church

a small garden

Down I walked

a picturesque area behind a gate

a steep street I walked up

One of the statues at the museum of the combining of the
Christian religion (the virgin) and the Andean (she is holding three coca
leaves that represent their beliefs in the world above, the world below, and
the world we live in.  Those three leaves are repeated in a lot of artwork.)

The museum is about the history of the Cusco area, with the importance of the coca leaf as part of that.  They found history of the coca plants being used even before the Incas.  There are a lot of statues of the area showing a coca bulge in the cheek (from chewing the leaves).  It was and is used in all  Incan and Andean ceremonies.  There is an origin story of a beautiful woman with green skin and hair appearing and all of the men were drawn to her and seduced by her.  Eventually, the church made a group of men chop her up and plant her in various parts of the area.  Every place where a part of her was buried, a coca plant grew.  The Incas and other groups of the area used the coca leaves and seeds for medicinal and ceremonial uses.  I believe it was a British person who developed cocaine from it.  One interesting thing was that there were a few pre-Incan surgeons who would use the coca leaves to remove brain tumors as well as bone and weapon fragments from the brain.  They leaves as a poultice worked as an anesthetic and anti-inflammatory.  They would use seashell or a sheet of gold or silver to close the hole in the skull and they also learned the use of bandages.  Most of the patients had a very high survival rate with evidence of bone regeneration.  The last room of the museum talked about how modern society developed the coca into other products and about the many famous people who died of cocaine addiction--the downside of the coca plant.

There was a plaza outside the museum where I went to plan my next stop.  While I was sitting, a woman came over and introduced herself, her name is Tiza, which is Flora in English.  She wanted me to buy some gourds that she and her grandfather had carved.  She showed me the symbols and their meanings as well as how she does it.  I agreed to buy one, then we hugged and went our separate ways.  There are SO many people everywhere trying to sell handcrafts to the tourists.  

At this point, the clouds had given way to sun.  I had already wrapped my sweatshirt around my waist and was worried about sunburn as well as feeling very rundown, so I decided to return to the hotel for a short rest.  I realized yesterday that I had forgotten my sun hat, so on my way back from the museum, I stopped in many shops to check out hats.  Didn't find any and took a fairly circuitous route back to the hotel.  I laid down and took a short nap, then put on sunscreen and left my sweatshirt in the room when I left.  I walked back to the Plaza de Armas, it is the central place of the historic part of the city.  The Inglesia de La Compañia de Jesús (a church) was there and open, so I headed over.  It had been mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook as worth a see.  So I did.  According to Lonely Planet, it was built by the Jesuits in 1571 and reconstructed after the 1650 earthquake.  They wanted to make it the most magificent of Cusco's churches.  The archbishop of Cusco, however, complained that its splendor should not rival that of the cathedral.  It became a very heated squabble and the pope was asked to arbitrate.  His decision favored the cathedral, but by the time the message got to Cusco, La Compañia was almost finished.  It has and increible baroque facade and Peru's biggest altar, all covered with a soaring dome.  There are two famous paintings of weddings near the entrance with great period detail.  There is no photography inside, though the person who came over to tell me the rules after I paid to enter, said that photographs could be taken from the balcony.  They have a route that you follow that takes you past all of the side altars and niches, as well as the crypt, and to the balcony.  Extremely steep rickety wooden steps lead up to the choir balcony.  There are great views of the plaza and signs that say no photography of the inside, but I was told I may, so I did snap a quick one.

On my way back to the hotel (the guy in the white
shirt was trying to photo bomb the picture, I got this
before he jumped out into a pose--I just laughed)

street scene

street scene

More people selling and weaving crosses

Then I had half an hour to wait until the tour office opened.  All tours of Machu Picchu must be done with a tour company.  I booked a tour of it and some sites in the Sacred Valley.   I wanted to hike part of the Inca Trail, but wasn't sure if my back was up to it, so I went with the tour that had no overnight hikes, just short day ones.  I met Manuel, a starving artist, and declined to give him money for a meal or to buy one of his paintings and "Pablo Picasso" who remembered seeing me in the morning and tried to sell me a painting again (and again I declined).  Finally I could go to the tour company.  Many people came at the same time so we had to take turns checking in and paying.  They had to take a photocopy of your passport and the immigration stamp for the Peruvian government who control access to the site.  The tickets were purchased previously by the company using my uploaded passport information.  I have to bring it with me when we arrive at the gates for the authorities to check again.  They will pick me up at my hotel, we will visit two historic sites and an historic village in the Sacred Valley, then take the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes which is the town that is closest to the site.  We stay overnight in a hotel and they pick us up at 5:00 to take the bus to Machu Picchu.  We have a guided tour, then time on our own, time for lunch in Aguas Calientas, then the train back where they will meet us to take us back to our hotels.  There are only two of us on our tour.  Most people do the short Incan Trail hike (that I would have loved to have done).   The guide recommended a sun hat.

Inglesia de La Compañia de Jesús

Plaza de Armas from the church

La Catedral (cathedral)

from the balcony of La Compañia--the altar is in the back

Inglesia de La Compañia de Jesús

More of the woven crosses and corn art

vegetable versions of the crosses

After that, I walked around looking for a hat and finally found one as I wandered around the historic area.  Eventually, I headed back towards my hotel, looking for a place to eat.  I finally found Varayoc Chicken and Grill nearby as darkness descended.  I had a Hamburguesa Varayoc, which had been mentioned in my Duolingo Spanish lessons.  It is a loaded hamburger.  And I had limonada--only a glass this time.  It was not on the menu, but she let me order it.  No where here has diet coke, I am quite bummed.  There are no sugar-free soda drinks.  And bottled water gets a bit boring after awhile.  While I was eating, it began pouring out!  I left my rain jacket at the hotel because the skies were sunny!  So I took a run for it, dodging cars and puddles, running under building overhangs when possible.  I had planned to stop at a market and pick up another big bottle of water, but everything was closed up tight (it was already dark out and raining).  Luckily, the hotel had a smaller bottle of water that I could add to my room tab to get me through until tomorrow.  Then back to my room to remove my wet clothes and empty my soaked day pack.  My pants were hiking pants, so they were only wet near the bottom and will dry quickly.  The shirt and daypack should dry by morning.  Hopefully the altitude sickness will lift tomorrow, leaving me more able to walk further and be more comfortable.  I was feeling better today than yesterday.