A Peru Adventure

by Gale Randall

Photos by Howard Randall and Carole Christopher 

Gale Randall, from Palo Alto, California, frequently contributes book reviews to Mexico File. We take a departure from our regular format and provide an article on her visit to Peru, an alternate destination for many Mexicophiles.  

Peru has long held a kind of fascination for me. The time to visit had never seemed quite right, though, until an old Peru hand and friend of my husband’s suggested a mini high school reunion in the country. So, we jumped at the opportunity. After some deliberation, our group of seven agreed to gather in late August in Cusco, the ancient and modern-day capital of the Incas. Flying into Cusco from Los Angeles and Lima, on a clear Friday morning we checked into the wonderful colonial-style Hotel Picoaga, met up with our friends over coca tea – a local antidote to altitude problems – and headed out to explore the city. 

Often called the Florence of the Americas and nestled in a valley at 11,000 feet in the eastern Andes, Cusco is a fascinating multifaceted city, and, most probably, could take weeks to explore. As in all Spanish colonial towns, Cusqueno life seems to revolve around the plaza, Huacayata in ancient Incan times. Anchoring the plaza’s northeastern corner is the enormous cathedral featured in Walter Salles’ gorgeous recent movie “Motorcycle Diaries.” And all around are arcades fronting chic restaurants, money changing tiendas and smart shops selling the fine woolen goods Peru is noted for. Here you no doubt will be approached by kids selling postcards, art, gum, whatever, as we were, but they understand “No gracias” and will soon leave you alone – they also pick up English fast in this town! Every now and then we’d spot an adorable little kid carrying a baby lamb about, no doubt for money-making photo ops. 

From the plaza we wandered up the hill to Palacios to view the much touted Hotel Monasterios, considered by some to be Latin America’s finest digs. A 16^th century monastery built on the foundations of an Incan palace, the Monasterios is now a beautiful inn with its own chapel and an enormous colonnaded courtyard where we noted guests enjoying lunch in the sun. We peeked into the gilt chapel which sports quite a collection of paintings from the Cusqueno school of colonial art, then stepped out onto Plazoleta de Los Nazarenes, thinking the smaller scale and less pricey Picoaga just fine for our needs. Around the pretty little plaza – more shops and a Pre-Columbian art museum housed in a former palace and showcasing several hundred archaeological pieces recently moved here from Lima. In the lovely courtyard weavers were working away at their backstrap looms, and the odd Cusqueno could be seen knitting in the sun. Back down the hill we passed another small plaza and the Inka museum – purportedly Cusco’s best museum devoted to the Inca. 

Having heard La Merced was the church to see in Cusco, we later trekked over to reconnoiter. In a former monastery, the church’s cloistered museum showcases more enormous Cusqueno school murals depicting the life of the Merced order’s 13^th century Barcelona founder, San Pedro Nolasco. Off the cloister we peeked into a room housing  paintings attributed to Rubens and Zurburan, and a solid gold monstrance set with thousands of precious stones and an enormous pearl from Panama. Stopping for a spell for a well-attended Friday night mass in the ornate sanctuary, we departed feeling we’d done our church duty for a time. 

Evenings in Cusco get really lively and there are plenty of cafes and restaurants to distract the visitor. Stopping for tea at a café near our hotel we easily could have been in a Berkeley or Palo Alto in the U.S. – and Cusco is a student town, having four separate universities and several language schools. Our favorite restaurant was the cozy Emperador on the Plaza San Francisco. We also enjoyed El Truco, which offers nightly entertainment with native dances and a student panpipe band dressed as medieval troubadours.

After “doing” the city for a few days it was time to trek out to the villages and pre-Columbian ruins of Cusco’s Sacred Valley. Over a period of several days our driver took us to Pisac, Ollantaytambo and the smaller Moray ruin, the Maras salt pans, Urubamba and Chinchero. Pisac, with its famous market and ruins, was great fun. En route we stopped at Awana Kancha, a kind of Andean Sturbridge Village with penned llamas, alpacas and vicunas one can pet and feed, and a good woolen goods store. The Pisac ruins, with fortifications set high on terraced hills, are a bit of a trek in from the parking lot, but quite interesting. Here, as at other ancient Incan sites, enormous stones, some weighing several tons, were fitted together in structures without mortar. How did the Incas do it, and without horses or use of the wheel?

You can buy almost anything at the Pisac Sunday market: woolen hats, backpacks, ponchos, wall hangings, silver jewelry, Andean CD’s, produce, and even fancy chess sets with Spaniards and Incans as pawns. The traditional thing to do on Sunday, as we did, is observe mass in the pretty village church, then follow a festive procession of church floats through the colorful market. Bargaining is expected at Pisac, and prices here seemed a littler lower than in Cusco. 

Exploring terraced Ollantaytambo was an almost vertical climb up, but worth it. At the summit our guide, Yury, pointed out an enormous stone the Incas hadn’t quite fitted into place when the Spanish Conquest of the 1500s interrupted their endeavors. Ollantaytambo was abandoned after the last Inca, Manco Inca, and his men were routed here in a final battle with the Spaniards. 

Visiting Chinchero was special, for that particular day we met up with Soledad, the twenty-something adopted daughter of George and Liz, our friends who had organized the trip. Soledad met us at the village church then took us to see the ancient terraced ruins behind church and village. Later we were treated to a family gathering and hair cutting ceremony for Soledad’s baby brother, Jose Angel, at their compound in town, and feted with wool cleaning, dying and weaving demonstrations and a typical Peruvian meal –  soup, baked potatoes, roasted cuy (guinea pig), cheese and veggies. Quite tasty. The family, who speak Quechua, were all dressed in their traditional Chinchero outfits, but Soledad and her pals typically run around in jeans, the universal uniform of youth. 

Sacsayhuaman, just outside Cusco, was our last major ruin before Machu Picchu.  A kind of neolithic-looking fortress/parade ground with more enormous stones fitted together in its walls without mortar, Sacsayhuaman was the location of one of the last bloody battles of the Conquest. Today the site hosts the colorful and well-attended Inti Rami festival, Cusco’s Festival of the Sun, every June 24.