Cusco

Throughout the week in the Sacred Valley we had also been heading into Cusco to delight in some of the city's sites of interest.

As with the whole of Peru, you have to be choosy in Cusco as to what you are going to realistically see in the time available.

The most important building of all in the area is Quri kancha (Quechua quri gold, kancha enclosure, hispanicised spelling Coricancha). A bold statement maybe, but here is why I think that to be the case.

When I arrived in Cusco for my 3 month stint last year, on day 2 I asked a local chap in the school where I should visit first expecting to be told the main square or the cathedral or Sacsayhuamán or Machu Picchu.... But without hesitation or deviation he pointed straight at Coricancha.

I raised an eyebrow but followed his guidance and now, having visited all of the above, stayed in Cusco for a good length of time and read loads on all things Incan, I explained exactly the same to Mum, this is where one should begin, it was the centre of the Inca universe after all.

Coricancha was the most important temple in the Inca Empire, dedicated to Inti, the sun god. The walls and floors were covered in gold, literally, and the central courtyard filled with gold statues. It is difficult to imagine today what an incredible sight the south facing exterior wall must have been in the bright Andean sunlight, 'bejazzled' doesn't quite do it...

And inside in the middle of the main courtyard there was the eight-sided sacrificial font (still there today) covered in 55 kilograms of gold (no longer there). The rooms that surround it may once have been covered with silver and dedicated to the moon, stars, and thunder.

Then the conquistadors arrived. The gold and silver were removed from every surface (revealing incredible stonework) and everything melted down in under a month. What busy little bees they must have been.

Then the Dominicans took over and dismantled most of the temple using the polished stone to build their church and convent atop the sun temple's walls. And there it stood, the original Incan stonework concealed until 1950 when a severe earthquake struck causing large sections of the convent to crumble revealing the Inca walls beneath.

The wall running along the temple’s eastern side is 60 meters long and 5 meters high, and each block is perfectly interlocked with its neighbor. But the highlight is the curved retaining wall beneath the facade of the church, which has not budged an inch in all of Cusco's earthquakes.

So you see Coricancha represents everything that has gone down in Cusco, both physically and symbolically, for the past 800 years or so, since the beginning of Inca imperialism, followed by the conquistadorean then Catholic church and now the touristic versions. What better place to begin?

And that historical mix is the key to understanding Cusco and its people. Everywhere you go there is evidence of the melange of ancient and modern cultural practices, dress and architecture.

The cathedral, for example, a slightly odd building with bits here and additional naves there (built as luck would have it on top of an Inca Emperor's palace) contains many intricate carvings as one would expect in a catholic cathedral, except that every now and then you can make out jungle fruits among the leaves and palms.

There are also paintings that include oddities such as Christ eating a guinea pig at the Last Supper and a rather pregnant Virgin Mary.

Looming over Cusco sit the incredible ruins of Sacsayhuamán, a hilltop fortress with walls running for 300 metres of perfectly cut stones where the largest are 8 metres high and reputed to weigh over 350 tons.

Despite the huge workforce that would have been available - every citizen had to work a few months of the year on public works - with only the use of levers and log sleds engineers still find it hard to imagine how such enormous stones were fitted so perfectly together.

Unfortunately until the 1930's Sacsayhuamán was used as limitless quarry of precut stone, builders just carting away wagon loads of the stuff, so it is hard to imagine today just how impregnable the fort must have been, but it is still an imposing sight and with great views over the city below.

Back down to the city and one place that must be visited is the permanent exhibition of the photographer Martin Chambi (on the second floor of Scotiabank on Maruri).

Chambi took incredibly beautiful photographs of Cusco, its people and the surrounding landscapes in the 1920's to 50's.

And along with the markets, coffee shops, restaurants, chocolate museum, more churches if you want them and always something going on in the main square Cusco is a fabulous place to visit, eat in at all times of day, party (not this time but rumour has it) and people watch.

We were sad to leave but on we must go, so we filled the car with decent fuel (the last until Arequipa) and set off across the altiplano to Puno...