Yet another delayed flight from Arequipa to Cusco could not dampen the grandeur of this city known as the “Navel of the world”. Cusco is nothing if not grand, and in ways one would not expect. Open space abounds throughout countless hidden plazas and courtyards, often green with impressive landscaping and flowing with water features. Cobblestone streets, broad and narrow alike, never seem to intersect at clean corners, creating a labyrinthine cityscape for endless exploration. And, not least of all, are the towering relics of a time when religion was rich in pocket and mind. For me, however, it is the fathomless age that creeps from overlaid stones of unknown antiquity that leaves me enraptured and ensconced in another era altogether.
I arrived in Cusco around 4:30 PM yesterday afternoon instead of the 1:30 PM I had anticipated. I´m lucky to have made it at all as 4:00 is getting late for arrival into Cusco due to unfavorable flight conditions after dark – I´m still getting accustomed to the early hour of dusk here. However, after my first choice of lodging fell through, I was able to procure a bed and set upon the task of dining. Almost immediately I could feel the elevation. 3400 meters takes a toll on one due to lack of oxygen, not to mention the relative proximity of the sun. Needless to say, I ordered some coca tea to assuage my wooziness, only to find that in a few hours said wooziness had developed into a full-fledged headache which persisted into the early dawn. Sometime around 4:30 in the morning I had the good sense to take some of the Motrin that I had in my bag. This did the trick and I slept like a rock for the next 5 hours. I can already feel last night´s tossing and turning kicking in, though. I´m not long for this night.
Although I felt fine upon awakening this morning, I did have more coca tea with breakfast to insure my well being for the busy day of sight-seeing I had planned. A brief side note: coca tea is actually quite tasty, a fruitier green tea of sorts. If it were available in the states I would take a cup more often. However, due to the ridiculous powers-that-be in the United States who feel it appropriate – and possible – to outlaw a plant, I won´t be ordering coca tea at my favorite coffeeshop anytime soon. The coca leaf itself seems so innocuous. An ovoid leaf of a delightfully pale green, it only measures 3 to 4 inches long. Of course, this very leaf has held great sway over the lives of so many and as such,´on both occasions over my tea, I couldn´t help but ponder the power of a mere leaf to so strongly affect the human organism.
Pontifications upon the power of plants were not the only inspirations I was to glean from Cusco today. As intimated above, Cusco is an ancient city. Long before Spanish conquistadors discovered the riches of the land and the culture here, the Inca civilization had adopted Cusco as its religious and economic capital. Further, there is strong evidence that the Incans themselves were only building upon the sacred sites, in Cusco, Machu Picchu and elsewhere, of an older civilization about which we moderns know very little. Walking the streets of Cusco adds much weight to this hypothesis. You may have noticed even more photos that I have uploaded in the Peru 2006 gallery. You may have also wondered if I´ve finally lost my mind. What´s with all the pictures of walls? Upon closer examination you may seem some instances where two very different styles of stonework are apparent. The superior craftsmanship of the Inca masonry is frightfully obvious when compared to the shoddy work of later Spaniards. Furthermore, and this begs the question of the true age of Cusco, there is one compound in particular which has walls built of massive blocks hewn to amazing angles. This architecture stands apart even from the smooth lines and joints of Inca walls.
With all of this to take in, I´ve found myself teetering on the brink of the ages, pushing away the tourists and the entrepreneurial Cusequeñanos, favoring instead ruminations of another time in the same place. Also apparent in my photos is the proliferance of Catholicism, quite at the expense of the wondrous culture already extant in this valley. This has served as the other side of the fulcrum. And so I´ve been alternating between pure fascination of at least one culture of which we know so little and despair at the cruel, uncivilizing work of another that we know so well. Perched upon that fulcrum I´ve come to a realization about my fascination with ancient civilizations and disdain, even disinterest in Catholic sites. We certainly know what the Catholic Church was trying to do as it spread its´ reach throughout the new world, but so much of the motivation of the Incas – or the Mayans or Aztecs, for that matter – remain shrouded in the dark night of history unpreserved and unprotected. From what little we do know, these cultures so nearly exterminated were vibrant examples of humanity struggling to attain spiritual heights to which some still aspire today. It is such a shame that the perversion of Christ´s enlightenment could serve to extinguish the same quest in other cultures so far removed from his overzealous followers. With that I continue my own quest for spiritual heights, Machu Picchu high in the Andes.
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