Cuzco
The people who sell good son Cuzco’s market speak Spanish with tourists and Quechua with one another. The buildings behind them are colonial style, built on Inca foundations. The elaborately carved facades on the city’s many churches have detailed scenes of angels, saints and biblical characters, but their facial features are Indian. Cuzco stands as a living testimony of the fact that the Inca civilization – one of the world’s most sophisticated could not be erased.
Of course, the Cuzco of today is dramatically different from the awesome city that Francisco Pizarro and his conquistadors found when they reached the capital of the Inca Empire, home to that kingdom’s noblemen, priests and their servants. Five hundred years ago, an estimated 15 000 people lived in the city which was linked to the rest of the empire by way of the chasquis – the long distance runners who carried news and messages from the four corners of Tawantinsuyo to its capital. It is now a fairly modern Andean community with a population of about 140 000 and daily rail, plane and bus services to Lima.
Top Sites and Attractions
– Architecture – trace of the past, The Valley of Ruins, Inca Trail Tours
Features
– Food of Cuzco, The People of Cuzco, Virgins of the sun