Cusco is a really pretty city but it's so overrun with tourists it doesn't feel like a real place, we weren't mad about it. It's just full of craft stalls and tourist bars and restaurants. People are constantly hassling you to try sell you wooly hats and massages etc. Locals even dress up and pose with llamas and baby lambs for photos for a few soles.
View from our hostel...
Managed to find a cheap Peruvian restaurant with a 'menu del dia'...
Sopa de Moraya...
Estofado con pure- beef stew with rice and mashed potatoes...
Panza rebosada - Battered tripe with rice, salad, and potato. Tasted nice but a bit too chewy. Also got pineapple for dessert and warm diluted orange tasting drink.
Lots of the buildings in and around Cusco are made from adobe, outside the city you can see loads of the muddy bricks drying out in the sun...
Delicious little apple pastry...
We saw three different demonstrations on the main square while we were there, one for animal rights, one to promote energy conservation and another one we weren't sure about.
Inca masonry - this twelve angled stone is very famous in Cusco...
Outskirts of the city...
The Sacred Valley of the Incas is just outside Cusco and is a really scenic fertile plain formed by the Urubamba river. We decided to go on a two day retreat, where we would meet four shamans and learn about their beliefs. It was great. The two of us were the only ones there in a peaceful house in the valley, with three shamans and our translator. (They spoke Quechua except for one who spoke Spanish). We had to meet the first of the shamans in Cusco for our coca leaf reading, and to see if we were suitable to visit the house in the valley. Two of the shamans were women. An elderly husband and wife were the masters and the other two were younger and wore tracksuits when they were not performing a ceremony. The ceremonies required that we fast and observe 'the noble silence'. It was really interesting, there's too much to describe in each ceremony but they involved being patted down with bunches of herbs, 'cleansed' with condor feathers, perfume being sprayed at us from the master's mouth, chewing coca leaves, tobacco smoke being blown on our heads, throwing wine on the grass, amazing singing chants (listening to them), more whistle-whisper sounding songs, and a little purging...
The view beside our house...
Our room...
The final ceremony was an offering to Pachamama (mother earth). For this our shaman called on all the spirits of the mountains and lakes and created this offering piece by piece, each bit representing something different. She kept praying in Quechua while this was being carefully built up in many layers, the only thing we could make out was her repetition of the word, 'hampu, hampu, hampu.' The whole thing was done in the hope of bringing us and our friends and families good fortune and happiness. During the ceremony a donkey started braying and she said that was a sign of lots of money!
The two of us are represented by the yellow figures in the middle, the white stuff represents the clouds, every mountain and lake she could think of is represented by coca leaves underneath. Red and white flowers represent male and female. There is llama fat, biscuits, rice, sugar, wool, raisins, confetti and loads more things involved and every single bit was prayed on first and then carefully placed down in a particular pattern. In the end it was wrapped up, and we were patted down with the package, which was then burnt. Our shaman for this ceremony was a lovely little woman who was absolutely tiny and kept giving us big hugs. The offering was such a work of art she asked us if we'd like to take a photo, and then she let us take one of her too.
Brian's new handmade shaman hat...
Scenes from the Sacred Valley...
Lots of the houses have these little good luck charms on top that are put up when the building is finished. They can include different types of trinkets but most seem to have pigs and crosses.
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