The Plaza de Armas, the authentic key center of the city
19/06/2024
The Plaza de Armas, the authentic key center of the city, where you can set your coordinates; It's a matter of finding your way around the area, and the best way to do this is with a map of the city. There are good ones that you can buy in the stores at the Lima airport. So you should get one there before you fly.
In the Hispanic period, the area where the current plaza is located was a swamp, located on the elevation where two rivers met. Manco Capac, the founder of the Inca Empire, decided to set up his house in the surrounding area because it was undoubtedly a safe place if there was an invasion by ethnic rivals. The city flourished around this swamp. And the first Inca built his palace on what is now known as Colcampata, a platform located in the lower area of Saphy Street and was canalized and covered due to the expansion of the city. This river flows south until it reaches Piquillacta, and is the main wastewater collector in Cusco, a problem that has no immediate solution.
Sinchi Roca, son and successor of Manco Capac, decided to drain the swamp and cover it with earth brought from the mountains, creating a large central ceremonial space. It was Pachacutec, the ninth Inca, who finally decided to dry the place with sand brought from the coast. Known as Aucaypata (“the place of the warrior”), or Huacaypata (“the place of pain”), the square became the symbol of the Empire (it occupied twice the space of the current one). According to the chronicles, Aucaypata extended to Plaza Regocijo (originally known as Cusipata, which also means “rejoice”), where the Municipality is located. The square attracted the life of the city. The palaces of Pachacutec, Huayna Capac, Sinchi Roca, Wiracocha, Tupac Yupanqui and Wiracocha Inca were built around it, and the Spanish built their churches on top of these palaces. The plaza was the place where all Inca celebrations took place, including Inty Raymi or the Dance of Amaru, as well as fairs and exhibitions of the Inca army. The arrival of the Spanish conquistadors completely changed the square.
The Inca buildings were intervened and some of them completely destroyed. The Cathedral was built on the Wiracocha palace (construction lasted a century); Other religious buildings were also built on top of the Inca monuments around the plaza, on both sides of the Cathedral such as the Chapel of the Sagrada Familia (seat of the Inquisition) and the Chapel of Trumph, in addition to the impressive Church of the Company of Jesus. . The Plaza was also the scene of the executions of Tupac Amaru I, in 1572, and Tupac Amaru II and his wife Micaella Bastidas, in 1780 in retaliation for their rebellion against the Spanish Crown.
Today the square is surrounded by the buildings mentioned above and a group of shops and fast food chains. Its two-story colonial portals and balconies have been modified over time and have a different style, although they maintain a certain homogeneous character, even though they have been fractured by the number of stores that open their doors. An average income in this place can be almost the same as in Rome, without exaggeration.
You can spend the rest of the day visiting the archaeological circuit near the city, which includes Sacsayhuamán, Quenco, Puca Pucara and Tambomachay. I suggest you hire the services of a guide with more knowledge than the average guide: good professional guides are available at the entrance to Sacsayhuaman. Please note that according to Peruvian law, guides working in Cusco must have a university degree and be born in Cusco. Foreigners cannot guide, no matter how much they may know about the place. It is what it is. But a good way to know if the guide is really knowledgeable about this archaeological circuit is to ask (before hiring) if they know the chinkanas and where they are and about the Huaca Cárcel. If they say “yes,” they are undoubtedly good.
Construction began during the reign of Pachacutec, and Tupac Yupanqui continued the works (14th and 15th centuries). The most common theory says that it was a fortress, but more recent research maintains that it could have been a ceremonial center. Its construction required the work of 20,000 men for 70 years, which means that there was powerful and impeccable logistical engineering (huge boulders that were carved with precision, without using mortar).
Sacasayhuaman was a titanic compound, with sacred lagoons and dozens of ceremonial temples. On the walls there are carved images made by the Incas, and there are also chinkanas or underground entrances to the tunnels, amphitheaters and buildings reserved only for rituals (you can ask your guide the story of two school children who, during the 1950s, reached the basement of the church of Santo Domingo through a chinkana, and what happened to them.) The walls (only 20% of the original building can be seen) from three overlapping zigzag platforms that are connected through stairs. The rest of the building disappeared when the Spanish used the place as a quarry to extract construction material to build their temples, convents and stately homes in the city.
According to anthropologist Theo Paredes, you can only see the sector that has been worked on in Sacsayhuaman. This fortress would be the true wonder of Cusco, even more surprising than Machu Picchu, and more important within the historical context. Therefore, if the new airport is built in Chinchero, there is still hope that the crowded city can be cleared by sending the masses to the Sacred Valley. Cusco and its surroundings would become a two-day visit, like a kind of Lhasa or sacred city. “There is more beneath the city,” Theo says, “but they don't dare dig it up.” That would cause a lot of problems. Why do you think that when they remodeled the Plaza de Armas, they opened a well and closed it? There is a whole city underneath,” this archaeologist and anthropologist assures that he really knows the secrets of Cusco deeply, as well as those of life.
Only the privileged caste could enter Sacsayhuamán, and the Inca climbed the Muyucmarca Tower, again and again, to conduct a ceremony. From the top of the tower, Chauide jumped into the void (Battle of Sacsayhuaman, 1536) to avoid being captured by the enemy. Today you can see one tower, but there were two more: Sallacmarca and Paucarmarca, built with a rectangular base. Muyucmarca was 12 meters high with a base 22 meters wide. The Inca chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega describes it in his Royal Commentaries of the Incas as “a tower that was connected to the other two by underground tunnels.”
But there is more under Sacsayhuaman. If it was initially thought that the Chuquipampa esplanade was the original floor, a deeper one was discovered, five to six meters below. The place would then be more colossal than it is today, and most likely was a ceremonial center. Lately, remains of llama sacrifices have been found, as well as huacas carved in stone and wells where young people underwent some type of baptism ritual to become adults. “The stone slide was a temple. Many areas are still completely covered; We're digging right now. Latest excavations reveal that even during the time of battle, the entrance in the center was attempted to be blocked. In addition, there is the Temple of the Moon, where Pachacutec's mummy is located. There is a specific moment when the moon illuminates everything. It was then that the fertility ceremony took place, in which individuals entered Pachamama's womb through one entrance door and left through another to be reborn," explains Sabino Quispe, a resident archaeologist.
The stone slide is located north of the Chuquipampa esplanade and is a large geological formation that is currently used as a slide. At the top is the Inca Throne (k’usillup hink’inan, “the monkey jump”): a rock carved with two rows of steps. There are also terraces, tunnels, tombs, carved tunnels and steps and even a water spring.
Each year, the Inty Raymi celebration takes place in Sacsayhuaman (a custom that dates back to the Inca Empire and was banned by the Spanish, revived in 1947.) According to the weekly magazine Caretas, approximately one hundred thousand people attend the festival, and the majority They were located outside the ceremonial place in Sacsayhuaman. As a result, the place has fallen into disrepair and is left as a garbage dump after the celebrations.
You can get a magnificent panoramic view of the city if you walk from Sacsayhuaman towards the image of the White Christ that the Palestinian community donated to Cusco in 1945. It is still possible with the help of a guide to spot the original Inca trail of the city in the shape of a Cougar; This is not a legend. Academic Luis Nieto has investigated that this form corresponded to sophisticated water management by the Incas, basically using the course of the Huatanay River.
NEW LINES IN NAZCA WERE FOUND
THE INCA PEOPLE OF PERU
TOURISM IN CHECACUPE