I have a nagging feeling that if there was one place on my Peruvian itinerary that I did not have enough time for, it was Cuzco. Due to the arrival and departure timings, in Cuzco I had less than the day-and-a-half allowance for exploring that I enjoyed at my other stops. Here, it was only one full day plus the preceding late evening and the following early morning. That was certainly enough to see the main sights in the historic center, but I could have done with a few more hours of just walking around.
The focal point of Cuzco is, as elsewhere, its main square, which is presided over by two grand churches. The one on the south-eastern side is the Iglesia de la Companía de Jesús. It will feature several times in this photoset.
The Cathedral of Cuzco is to the left of the above perspective. Here is its frontal view.
Unusually for cathedrals in general, the Cuzco Cathedral has three separate naves inside – as if being made up of three churches side by side. In a bit of further added interest, in the corner of the main nave, you can find a rendering of the Last Supper depicting Jesus and the Apostles dining on the Peruvian delicacy of guinea pig; Judas’s face in the painting is that of Francisco Pizarro’s, in a not-too-subtle reflection of how the descendants of Inkas perceive the conquistador. Photography inside the cathedral is not allowed – but there are plenty of shots of that painting online if you Google “cuzco cathedral last supper”.
Here are a couple of other angles of Plaza de Armas and its standout churches.
The fountain in the center of the square is topped by the statue of Pachacuteq, the most-revered ninth Inka Emperor who greatly expanded and reformed the empire in the middle of the 15th century. In this perspective, it looks like he is pointing towards the hillside church of San Cristobal or even the cross high up the hill, which I assume is entirely coincidental.
He is simply showing his subjects the way forward.
The tower in the background belongs to another grand church a couple of blocks off the main square, Basilica Menor de la Merced.
The rest of the perimeter of Plaza de Armas sports a variety of balconies.
In fact, balconies catch the eye throughout the historic center of Cuzco.
You may notice that I use Cuzco for the city name instead of the more frequently used Cusco. Both spellings are correct. While on maps you would normally see the “s” spelling, the World Heritage inscription uses the “z” variation and recognizes the exceptional blend of Inka city planning with the later Colonial redesign.
Although the fountain on the main square was dry during my visit, I found working fountains on other squares. Here is one on Plaza Regocijo and one on Plaza San Francisco.
Convento de San Francisco de Asís is an outwardly more somber place of worship than the Baroque churches we’ve seen before.
Arco de Santa Clara at the edge of Plaza San Francisco.
Behind it, fragments of two more churches are visible: Santa Clara (the tower on the left) and San Pedro (in the middle of the perspective). Lens compression makes it look like a single church but they are a few hundred meters apart.
One of the most important Inka landmarks in town is Qorikancha temple, whose remains have been built over by the Convent of Santo Domingo.
The cloisters of the convent are significantly more expansive than what you’d find elsewhere.
And you can still find a few intact Inka walls as well as loose examples of Inka masonry.
Here is another angle looking at Qorikancha from Avenida El Sol.
And the opposite view from the terrace of the temple. You may be forgiven for thinking that the roofline of Cuzco would be entirely unremarkable if not for the surrounding mountains.
Although central Cuzco is already over 3 kilometers above sea level, various outlying precincts climb even further up the mountains. One of them is the San Blas district, whose main square we are now looking at.
Mirador de San Blas is one of the places to go to for elevated perspectives of central Cuzco. As mentioned above, relatively not exceptional.
The prominent landmark in the middle of the view is La Companía on the main square, well seen in the opening shots of this essay.
San Blas is the place for love locks in Cuzco.
On the pedestrian ancient Calle Hatunrumiyoc, this 12-angle stone is one of the most famous examples of Inka stonemason technique of chiseling building blocks into differing shapes to fit together.
All through the central town, the inclines of the streets offer plenty of fetching perspectives.
There are a couple of interesting museums in the city center. Museo Inka was a specific target, but it was inexplicably closed for the day when I first stopped by. So instead I went to the nearby Museo de Arte Precolombino, which boasts a fairly compact and impressive collection of arts and crafts from the 13th-16th centuries.
The next morning, with about an hour to spare before my departure, I decided to make another attempt at Museo Inka. Its huge and varied collection certainly deserves more time than I could spend there. The few passable pictures from my brisk walk-through do not even begin to convey the breadth of the coverage of all aspects of Inka life and culture found at this museum.
The model of Machu Picchu occupies a dedicated space in the museum. The mountains are depicted somewhat incorrectly, IMHO, but otherwise the level of detail is pretty good.
Pachacuteq guards the entrance to the museum.
And that entrance sign by itself justifies my spelling of Inka with a “k” throughout these Peruvian retrospectives. It is a bit of a personal preference instead of an Inca with a “c”, which is certainly the more widely accepted spelling in English. The word “Inka” means “the ruler” in modern Quechua, so it could be used to refer to an emperor but is technically not the way to describe either the former empire itself or its people – the proper name for them is Tawantinsuyu. Inca with a “c” is the derivative spelling of the Quechua word that the English language adopted to describe the entire ancient civilization. However, Quechua and other native writers use Inka with a “k” when referring to local history and given a choice I’d rather use this faintly more native spelling.
You may have been wondering why the title of this post suggests that Cuzco is counted twice on my World Heritage visited sites roster. The city happens to be the nexus of the serial site called Qhapaq Ñan, the network of roads that connected the far-flung parts of the Inka Empire. There are nearly 300 individual components of this WH property, and one of them is the main plaza of Cuzco itself, with four roads leading away from it in four cardinal directions.
Standing in a geographic location that is identified in the WH nomination documents as part of the core area of just one single component of a serial site satisfies my loose definition of marking the site as visited. However, I always want to have some photographic evidence related to the inscription. So I spent probably close to an hour looking for the pavement marker of the road network’s starting point. It certainly exists somewhere in the vicinity of the main square – but I could not find it. I even asked a couple of policemen for help – they directed me to the small garden in front of the Companía church where you can find a number of commemorative stones, just not what I was looking for.
I gave up the search at some point. And then, walking around the town center, I stumbled across a couple of these markers.
The first of those points in the direction of the southwestern Inka province, and the second one in the broadly eastern direction. The puma represents Cuzco itself – the boundaries of the Inka capital were originally in the shape of the animal that represented the power of the earth. Google “cuzco puma shape” and you will find both the maps of the city with the animal outline and the picture of the central marker that I was unable to locate.
And so, with a couple of other markers found, I can now safely count Qhapaq Ñan as visited according to my criteria, even if it is among the loosest stretches on my register.
The guided tour that was part of my itinerary in Cuzco took me to a couple of Inka sights which are located just outside the city boundaries. The first one was Saqsaywaman, the fortress built by Pachacuteq. The name actually means “fortress” in Quechua. The guide will emphasize to you that it is not to be pronounced as “sexy woman” – but, of course, once that notion is planted in your brain, you will never be able to get rid of it.
While the rows of huge boulders neatly stacked to constitute walls is another amazing feat of Inka architectural prowess, Saqsaywaman left on balance less of an impression than the other Inka sights I’ve seen before.
While at Saqsaywaman, we stopped by the terrace under the cross that featured in the Pachacuteq photo earlier in this post. Here is the elevated view of the main square, with the cathedral on the left and La Companía front and center.
The San Francisco convent that we have also seen before in this set.
And this is the Qorikancha and the Convent of Santo Domingo.
La Companía deserves another close-up. The smaller – but still very ornate – portal to the right is the entrance to the University of Cuzco.
One other site that was part of the guided tour was Qenqo, one of the largest huacas (holy places) in the region, where a lot of sacrifice and mummification was presumably taking place. It is but a pile of stones with the ceremonial table in a cave as the centerpiece artifact.
Come to think of it, one benefit of these retrospectives for me is that I end up reconsidering some of my impressions as I write about them. The nagging feeling I referred to in the beginning is probably invalid – I surely explored Cuzco more than the average person would.
And with that, we arrived at the end of the series devoted to the still fairly recent trip to Peru. I definitely hit the main highlights, and just as definitely left some remarkable places off my itinerary. Peru is a brilliant place to visit – and future adventures there or elsewhere await!
This article is also featured on GPSmyCity. To download this article for offline reading or create a self-guided walking tour to visit the attractions highlighted in this article, go to Walking Tours and Articles in Cusco.