May 24, 2026
I still don’t really have a clear plan for how to spend my days in Cusco.
Today I decided to see some of the things I didn’t see last year because I didn’t know about them.
Started off with the colonial aqueduct. Sad thing is I literally walked right past it without knowing about it last year. It was built by the Spanish to divert water from the Inca aqueduct at sachsayhuman and bring it down to Cusco.
Then I went and saw the 12 angled stone, which was originally part of some Inca rulers palace, and was later incorporated into the foundation of the archbishops palace. The archbishops palace is now an art museum dedicated to 17th century “Cusco school” Christian art. Since I was there I looked through. Some beautiful art. Photography wasn’t allowed, so no pictures.
Then I walked down to see the remnants of the Inca sun temple.
The Spanish made the Inca demolish it and the built a convent on top of it. All that’s left are basically retaining walls. My understanding is there’s more viewable from the inside, but it’s Sunday, and mass was happening, and I don’t completely know the etiquette, but I’m pretty sure it would be frowned upon for me to just bust in all “hey guys, don’t mind me. I’m just gonna be taking pictures of stuff”
From there I went back to the Plaza de Armas. Ever wonder why every town has a central plaza named that? They were used as military parade grounds during the colonial period to enforce rule over the locals.
Peru still apparently honors that tradition.
Today is also apparently Virgen Maria Auxiliadora. So there were festivities in Cusco involving native dancers.
There were a lot more than that. It essentially became a non crowd controlled parade.
Eventually the crowds became too much more me so I decided to leave Cusco.
Last time I was here I went to Pisac at the south end of the sacred valley, and Ollantaytambo at the north end. Didn’t really explore between them, aside from ending up in Calca which didn’t count because it was an accident and I was stressed out trying to figure out how to get where I actually wanted to go. This time I’m pretty confident that I can navigate myself around Peru with minimal mishaps. So headed up to Urubamba, which is in the middle of the sacred valley.
That was a mistake. If my goal was to escape crowds I failed. Turns out any town with a church (ie. Pretty much all of them) was celebrating with the dancing and the crowds. Was trapped there for about an hour because the festivities ended up shutting down the roads. But eventually I was able to make my escape.
The ride to and from Urubamba was really pretty. Goes past the sites of Minas and Moray, which are sites that are included in most tour packages but didn’t interest me enough to go see them last time I was here. Might this time, we’ll see.
High altitude farms with very colorful crops.
By the time I got back to Cusco the celebration had died down. But the light was perfect to make everything pretty.
As an aside, the rainbow flag is the state flag of Cusco. So if anyone back home ever gets shit for a pride flag, just saying you’re flying the flag in solidarity for Cusco.
Also bought a painting for this trip. Was actually planning on not buying art after the expensive alpaca blanket debacle. But. It has become a tradition. Since the colors for last years were vibrant I opted for more muted colors this time. Got it for the same price as last years in Soles, tho when converting to USD it was actually about $6 more expensive than last year due to Donnie Dumpsterfire devaluing the US Dollar in relation to the Peruvian Sol.
Anywho. Tomorrow I may try to revisit Urubamba without the crowds and then bus hop my way down to Pisaq and visit all those towns. Or I may go to Minas and Moray. Or who knows. Kind of just making this us as I go along now
