We returned to Cusco via train (you are only allowed to walk the Inca
Trail in one direction - otherwise I'm sure ...). Cusco is built in
a valley and the descent to the town is so steep it is done via
repeated switchbacks. The town twinkled enticingly below us,
promising hot showers, soft beds and traffic, as we approached it
backwards, forwards, backwards.
Cusco was the capital of the Inca empire and it is actively trying to
reclaim (in some cases, reinvent) its Inca past. It is officially
referred to as Qosqo which is the Quechua spelling - Quechua was the
language of the Inca and is still widely spoken in southern Peru
where Spanish is often a second language. The city is believed to
have been founded in 1100. Much of the town (Spanish and more modern
buildings) is built on foundations of Inca buildings. Not just
cellars and basements but often whole walls of perfectly dressed and
fitted stonework, arches and columns. The base of the law courts,
side walls of the cathedral, internal walls of restaurants and half
the walls of the Inca Museum literally build on the Inca legacy. The
monastery of Santo Domingo is entirely built on the foundations of
the Temple of the Sun. The monastery has now been gutted to better
display the architectural skill of the Incas. There is a dearth of
statues of men in puffy pants or 19th century military uniforms with
either swords or horses but there are resplendent Incas.
But the Spanish have been here too. The streets are narrow, steep
and cobbled. The fretwork enclosed balconies sometimes almost touch
across the streets. The town is littered with wrought iron fenced
gardens and plazas often no bigger than traffic islands in the middle
of the wider roads. And you cannot move for ornate churches,
monasteries, abbeys and other legacies of European architects.
There is a one-way system - the arcane secrets of which are known
only to taxi drivers. There are decorative traffic police on every
corner who blithely watch while pedestrians shamble across roads
creating havoc among the taxi drivers. People have no personal space
at all and jostle on the streets rather than take the extra half step
around. The town is a chaos of touts for restaurants, for travel
agents, for jewellers and tailors, with shoe shine boys, watercolour
sellers, finger puppet peddlers, gourd purveyors, cocoa leaf pushers
(1% cocaine and totally legal) and postcard vendors.
When you're dealing with the people of Peru chaos is of a theme -
they seem to function larger than life. Everything is a chaos of
people and sound and colour, especially colour. And all of that was
true before June 21st. Inti Raymi is the Inca celebration of the
Winter Solstice. 21 June (which is actually the Winter Solstice) is
when Qusqo begins the cycle of parades leading up to the Inti Raymi
pageant at Sacsayhuaman on 24 June.
So, Tuesday (our first day back in town) the parade was provided by
the faculties of the universities and technical institutes. They
started about 10:00am, paraded around the Plaza de Armas, often
paused in front of the dignitaries stand for a special offering; they
finished about 7:00pm. Some schools provided Inca or other
traditionally themed parades, dances or floats, some dressed up
smartly (or had tee-shirts made - entomology was pretty cool) and
marched behind a banner identifying themselves and some did a
combination thing.
* Architecture had a religious theme with an angel who had enormous
bamboo strutted wings - it's a bit of a pity that architecture
students weren't able to build a self-supporting structure and the
angel's wings had to be assisted around the square.
* Environmental Sciences was making a point about CFCs with several
perambulating buildings and a pol
lution blotched sky. One of the
buildings seemed a little confused and was still shuffling around the
square on three sets of trainer clad feet long after the sky and the
rest of the industrial complex had left.
* Travel and Tourism almost got the New Zealand flag right.
* Law and Accounting, like the boring farts they are, wore navy suits.
* Civil Enginering brought along an Inca king, lots of stones and constructed a
ziggurat in front of the dignitaries. They conducted a quick
sacrifice and then broke down their temple and carried on. And,
because, some things are the same the world over, finished with a
ziggy in international solidarity;
* Electrical Engineering had some fine young men in their best interview suits,
and a biomass power station ... and some representatives of good and
evil who battled it out in front of the stand. They also had a
completely unexplained "electrical" unit out of which popped a couple
of chicas waving satellite dishes;
* Mining really let the side down with hard hats, some silly
streamers in the rainbow continuity colours and a really silly
cardboard digger ... they did have explosives though;
* Mechanical Engineering brought along some giant rodents (probably guinea pigs)
(wearing hats of various professions!) and a biomass converter. At the
dignataries stand the rodents dropped some "biomass" which was
shovelled into the biomass converter which then caught fire;
* Geology invited a caveman, some Incas and a protester tied to a
cardboard oil rig;
* Chemical Engineering carried in some inscrutable blue boxes, a globe and a
condor. When they reached the stand they assembled a tableau of
inscruitable boxes, a world and a condor;
* Metallurgy cut straight to the chase by carrying on a stretcher of
gold bricks and an evil machine (purpose and evilness unexplained);
* Med picked some comely chicas, dressed them up in bark and bead
short skirts and bra tops and had them sort-of-dance, sort-of-sway up
the street waving baskets of coca leaves and other bounty from the
gods - of course, by 7:00pm it was pretty chilly so they were also
decked out in matching denim jackets. The faculty followed in suits.
Wednesday's parade was the secondary schools dance competition. This
started about 10:00am and finished about 2:30pm. It was a riot of
colour and sound, rainbow Andean flags (representing the continuity
of family), waving hankies and body paint, sequins, feathers,
petticoats, llama wool boas and tire tread sandals. This is a nation
of excellent hats. There were sunflower-like halos of dried grass,
simple flax and shell headbands, upturned plates covered with
decorated tablecloths, parakeet coloured mortarboards in round,
rectangular, octagonal - geometry gone wild. All the dance entries
were fairly similar, a sort of shuffling sway with some square
dancing thrown in, accompanied by music of pan pipes, drums and
skyrockets. We don't really know who won but whoever it was Pooh was
so excited his head fell off.
On Thursday the civil service and other civic institutions (like
banks) paraded. They didn't really go for the performance thing just
serious men and women in serious suits with a banner, perhaps
colourful, identifying them. Some of the more loose institutions
wore ponchos over their shoulders. They started at 10:00am and
finished at 2:00am!
Al the civil service groups were very serious except the police.
They turned out in masks of hellish grotesques, doublets and pantaloons in rainbow
stripes with fluttering ribbon accoutrements, white tights and
blindingly polished black number one shoes. They did the Peruvian
equivalent of morris dancing around the square and all the way back
to the police barracks. And my brother complains he doesn't get a
woolly hat for outdoor surveillance work issued because Tauranga's
not a cold weather station.
We have spent the last seven months travelling around South America
exactly one week (sometimes only one day) behind the major
festivals. We were bloody well determined that we would hold out in
Qosqo until the celebration of Inti Raymi. On the 24th we climbed
(in a taxi) to Sacsayhuaman for the pageant to celebrate the sun
rising for the Winter Solstice - this was somewhat surreal as we were
three days late and it was 3:00pm in the afternoon. It was quite the
spectacle (which it should have been at USD80.00 a head).
Sacsayhuaman is a major Inca temple ruin above Qosqo. All the
stonework is in the Imperial style. Frankly, it's so perfect it
looks like Disney does the Flintstones. The entire town had turned
out forthe event and there was quite a party atmosphere - although
obviously there weren't very many locals in the official enclosure
for the price. But they had turned out in force to party, drink corn
beer, eat weird stuff and yell at the gringos to sit down so they
could see.
As Michael Palin observes, although the Inca culture has been dead
for some 400 years, it's really very good that someone remembers
their dances and songs. And dance they did and sing (although the
loudest singer was just slightly off key). There were army platoons
representing the four quarters of the empire (they didn't dance but
kept pretty good time with their feet), dance troupes from the four
corners of the empire, the Inca was carried in on a golden throne
borne by beefy young representatives of the empire, as was his wife
(smaller throne and lads), there were a variety of advisers in cool
costumes who reported on the state of things generally and waved
smoke. The sacred fires were relit - piles of straw on tinder dry
grass (only we and some Australians seemed to think this might be a
tad foolhardy and, perhaps, the young man in the tire tread sandals
who had to stamp out the grass fires). There was a pregnant pause
while we all gave appropriate thanks to the sun for its bounty and
waited breathlessly to see whether it would make a liar of the Inca
this year and fail to rise - although, of course, it had been up for
nine hours already so he was pretty secure. They sacrificed a
llama. Well, actually, they carried a sedated llama up onto the
altar and mucked around with it. Then, while the llama was carried
away for a nice lie down, various advisers started waving a cows
heart around and reading auguries. It was jolly fun, and very
colourful.
PS I had a more successful cuy (guinea pig) experience on our last
night in Cusco ´- well the cuy was cooked properly and, therefore,
edible, but they'd cut off the head and little tortured feet which I
thought was a bit unsporting. It still tasted like a cross between
chicken and rabbit and there's still not much eating on one.
Apparently, though, you are supposed to eat the bones. This bulks up
the actually meal and reduces the hassle aspect. If I can't bring
myself to eat quail bones though....
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