There was an optional tour in the morning, however, most of us did not join it and we just did self guided tour of Cusco. Cusco is 11,000 feet above sea level, and some of us had high altitude issues and just stayed at hotel to rest.
After a relaxing breakfast, we walked out to Plaza de Armas which is the central plaza with many churches around it and it was where Francisco Pizarro proclaimed the conquest of Cusco.
Since it was the day before Peru’s Independence Day, there were still a lot of celebration activities with tourists in the plaza.
We wondered around for a while, and then some of us went to visit the Curco Cathedral which is the official worship place for Cusco. It has become a major repository of Cusco's colonial art. It also holds many archeological artifacts and relics. The cathedral was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site under the City of Cuzco listing in 1983.
The Incas built the temple known as Kiswarkancha on the main square in Cusco. It was the Inca palace of Viracocha, ruler of the Kingdom of Cusco around a century before the Spanish colonists arrived. When the Spanish conquistadores arrived in Cuzco, they decided to take down the temple and build their Christian cathedral in that prominent site.
The cathedral's construction began in 1559 on the foundations of Kiswarkancha. The location of Viracocha's palace was chosen for the purpose of removing the Inca religion from Cusco, and replacing it with Spanish Catholic Christianity. Because 1559 was only 26 years after the conquistadores entered Cusco in 1533, the vast majority of the population was still of Quechua Inca descent. The Spaniards used the Incas as a labour workforce to build the cathedral. When we visited, there is a local tour guide who provided interesting facts and pointed out art pieces in the cathedral to illustrate objections by some of artists when they painted these colonial art pieces. For example, in the imitated 'The Last Super' painting, it has a cooked guinea pig lying on a plate in the center of the table. Guinea pigs are native to Peru and can still be found today on many restaurant menus in Cusco.
In the afternoon, we had a guided tour to visit Sacsayhuaman fortress, an emblematic Inca construction built in the 15th century. The size of the fortress and its massive stones are remarkable, and the manner in which they were transported, cut, and laid is still a mystery.
Then, we visited Puka Pukara, also known as the "red fortress", which is thought to have been a military stronghold. It has many rooms, courtyards, bathrooms, aqueducts, and towers.
Later, our guide took us to visit a native alpaca factory where they rush out a herd of alpacas just to let us to see and to take photos. Then we did shopping at their local store where quite a few of us bought stuffed animals (alpaca) and alpaca outfits.
The final stop was the Church of Santo Domingo and Coricancha Temple. The Coricancha was the centerpiece of a vast astronomical observatory and calendrical device for precisely calculating precessional movement.
The cathedral's construction began in 1559 on the foundations of Kiswarkancha. The location of Viracocha's palace was chosen for the purpose of removing the Inca religion from Cusco, and replacing it with Spanish Catholic Christianity. Because 1559 was only 26 years after the conquistadores entered Cusco in 1533, the vast majority of the population was still of Quechua Inca descent. The Spaniards used the Incas as a labour workforce to build the cathedral. When we visited, there is a local tour guide who provided interesting facts and pointed out art pieces in the cathedral to illustrate objections by some of artists when they painted these colonial art pieces. For example, in the imitated 'The Last Super' painting, it has a cooked guinea pig lying on a plate in the center of the table. Guinea pigs are native to Peru and can still be found today on many restaurant menus in Cusco.
In the afternoon, we had a guided tour to visit Sacsayhuaman fortress, an emblematic Inca construction built in the 15th century. The size of the fortress and its massive stones are remarkable, and the manner in which they were transported, cut, and laid is still a mystery.
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