This morning, I woke up early and started walking up to Sacsayhuaman shortly after breakfast at the hotel. In front of San Cristobal, a local guide approached me and suggested I tour some archaeological remains via horseback for 50 soles rather than paying 130 soles for the Sacsayhuaman entry fee. He was making a lot of sense so I agreed and his cousin drove me to the horse ranch 5 minutes away. I was then guided on a private tour by a nice 23-year old local man for the next 90 minutes. We tried our best to communicate using amateur Spanish and we were able to have very surface level conversations but overall the vibe of the conversations was very positive and friendly.
I was then walking through Plaza de Armas and noticed that there was an English free walking tour leaving at that moment. I quickly joined and enjoyed learning some interesting information. Here are a few things I learned:
- Inca architecture/construction (especially the first floors of buildings) was very impressive and advanced (perfectly cut stones without mortar), so much so that the Spaniards decided to keep most of their first levels of buildings
- Inca used to be a royal Inca city with a population of 5,000. Today’s population is 500,000
- The catholic church in Plaza de Armas is the oldest Catholic Church in South America and was built in 1557
- The Incan statue in the center of Plaza De Armas is welcoming the Blanco Cristo into town, and Blanco Cristo is blessing the city and gesturing towards the Incan statue near Sacsayhuaman
- There used to be a river running through the center of Cuzco, but it was canalized and is now running underneath the city invisible to anyone
- Incan cultural music show was very entertaining and I loved the performer’s intensity
After the tour, I visited San Pedro Market and then had dinner at Tacomania, which in hindsight was the perfect last meal before San Pedro. It was an excessive, emotional, unnecessary meal that would give me a lot of fuel to work with tomorrow.
