May 26, 2026
Today wasn’t a hugely adventurous day. Didn’t leave Cusco.
Started off the day going to the Santo Domingo convent, which is built on the ruins of the Incan sun temple in Cusco that was called Qorikancha. After the Spanish conquest of Cusco they made the Inca tear the temple down and build the convent on the site, but apparently the Spanish weren’t overly specific about just how much needed to be torn down first, so much of the temple was actually integrated into the convent.
An earthquake in 1950 largely destroyed the convent, but the Inca underpinnings survived intact. So when rebuilding it was decided to showcase the Inca history while building the convent around it.
That’s what the temple looked like before conquest, tho the buildings would’ve had thatched roofs.
The buildings were incorporated as rooms in the convent. When building the convent vaulted roofs were added to support a second floor. Those were removed by the 1950 earthquake and not replaced.
The windows in the rooms would’ve originally viewed outside, but weren’t sealed up in the conversion to convent.
The exterior wall of the temple complex was also likewise retained as a retaining wall. The difference in masonry techniques between the precisely fitted mortarless joining of the inca masonry and the heavily mortared Spanish era masonry is stark.
Took some arsty flower photos in the convents garden, then went up into the bell tower.
Narrow dark passage with steep stairs getting up there. But bells!
Also a pretty good view of Cusco from up there.
From the convent I went to the Inca museum. It’s actually a museum of pre columbian Peruvian history, so covers a lot more than just the Inca. Was pretty interesting, but photography wasn’t allowed. They did have a model of choquequirao at the hight of their excavations of the place, and I discreetly took pictures of that since it showed areas that had been reclaimed by jungle when I was there last year. Not attaching it because I’m at gmails attachment limit and it’s not interesting enough to make a part two.
Also went and wandered around the Mercado San Pedro for a while. Bought a clean shirt to wear on my flight tomorrow since I haven’t gotten around to taking my dirty clothes to a lavandería during my stay here and laundry service isn’t something my hotel does.
Other than that I’ve just been hanging out in the plaza.
Probably going to get dinner soon and turn in early. My flight leaves at 5am. Boarding begins at 4:10am. The airport doesn’t even open until 4am, but they still say be there two hours early. So I guess I’m checking out if my hotel at 3am to take a taxi down and stand in front of the terminal.
Also going to have a tight layover in Lima. 90 minutes, and I have to leave the secure side, clear immigration, and go back through security. As long as my flight from Cusco isn’t delayed I’m not worried. But Cusco is a vfr airport, so if there’s cloud cover we’re getting delayed.
If all goes to plan, 11:30am tomorrow I’ll land in Quito, Ecuador.
