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...two travellers in search of the world's wildlife
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23 June 2011

Incan Peru

Peru, Photos

In Cusco, Pisac, Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu we found the legacy of the Incas. Both in the ruins and remains of their splendid architecture and in the Quechua people who are their descendants. And if you’re wondering about the inclusion of any photos of colonial buildings – well of course the Spanish recycled Inca stones in their own walls!

Here we are in Incan Peru, home of the most astonishing masonry on the planet
Some of it is just astonishingly perfect
And some of it astonishing for the sheer size of the blocks they chose to use
At Ollantaytambo the Incan walls look down over a green valley - but they lugged these huge blocks from quarries on the other side of it
Naturally the Spanish tore down many Inca building and used the stone to build fine colonial towns like Cusco
The church of the Compania de Jesus, one of Cusco\'s grandest
The living remnants of the Inca empire are the Quechua people
...as well as the unforgettable baked guinea pig
As the day goes on, it does get pretty busy here
From this lofty precipice the ruins of Machu Picchu seem very far away
In areas like Colca they built churches with external balconies, so the priests could preach to the unwashed masses without
The \'traditional costumes\' have old Incan symbolism embroidered into them, but to me they look very Spanish
And of course the Incas and their antecedants domesticised many foodstuffs, like the myriad varieties of corn...
But you can\'t talk about Incas without coming to the cloud forest mountains of eastern Peru to see...
...Machu Picchu (and note the high peak behind it, Wayna Picchu - this is relevant later)
Camera at the ready, and the race is on to see whether the ruins are bathed in sunlight before being bathed in tourists
You can look down on their intricate layout like a model village
It\'s hard not to feel a little bit like Indiana Jones...
Like most things Incan, the truth about Machu Picchu remains a mystery
So it\'s time to climb even higher, perilously high, up endless stone steps to the eyrie of Wayna Picchu
Back up close, it\'s easy to spend hours poking around all the nooks and crannies of MP
There are so many finely built terraces here, it\'s hard to believe this was \'just\' a palace - some claim it was an agricultural laboratory of sorts

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