28th February 2015 – Cuzco

This morning our guide picks us up from our hotel at 9:00 am for a tour of Cuzco. We start by heading out of town to first visit the Water Temple at Tambomachay. This was first built in pre Incan times and then added to by the Inkas. We next visit Qienqo which is a place where the Winter and Summer Solstices were celebrated with an alter for sacrifices inside a cave.We next visit Saqsayhuaman which is a huge Inkan structure on the top of a hill overlooking Cuzco. This is the site where many Inkan people were slaughtered by the Spanish. We drive back into the main square of Cuzco and visit the incredibly ornate Cathedral with it’s gold and silver leaf and dozens of huge oil paintings including a “last supper”, as well as a black Christ on the cross. The reason the figure of Christ is black is because of discoloration due to burning candles near it. When it was first created it was a natural timber colour.We next visit the Sun and Moon temples at Qorikancha which are now housed inside the church of Santo Domingo which is a Colonial structure. The detail of how the stone walls were built by using keys between each piece of stone in these temples is displayed here.We return to the hotel by 1pm as 7 of the MG’s are going to a garage this afternoon for maintenance work and some are changing their oil.  A few of us girls browsed through a local market and bought a few gifts. The alpaca products and silver jewellery are a specialty of Cuzco.