Cuzco

It's a pleasure to be blogging again, this time from my first trip to South America (and only my second visit to the southern hemisphere). Cuzco is a charming city, though as you may have noticed there is some disagreement about how to properly transliterate its name into English. This charm, and the pleasant nature of our trip so far in general, has served as a useful counterpoint to our experience of the week leading up to our trip, during which it became clear that: a) LAN airlines canceled our flight from Mexico City to Lima, and felt no particular responsibility to help us make alternative arrangements; b) the LAN customer service line is staffed by sadistic weirdos who actively worked against our efforts to travel to South America; and c) spending several hours in a single day trying to "reason" with airline representatives and travel agents drives me to drink. In any case, an entirely new round-trip ticket later, Katherine and I find ourselves in the capital of the Incan Empire, ensconced in beautiful architecture and delicious food.

Katherine and I have spent much of our time in the Plaza de Armes, the main plaza of the city. This picture was taken from the hills above the city, and shows La Iglesia de la Compañia, one of several churches in and around the plaza. Most of our day today was spent exploring the amazing religious architecture of the city. When the Spanish arrived in 1533, they destroyed all of the Incan temples, and built Catholic churches in their place (in many cases, literally on top of the ruins of the temples). Since then, most of the churches have been partially or totally destroyed in major earthquakes, and then rebuilt. A fascinating aspect of the religious iconography in Cuzco is the extent to which Incan and Catholic traditions are merged: for example, the Virgin Mary is an even more important figure in Peruvian Catholicism as in the rest of the world, and her depiction in local Catholic art is strongly reminiscent of the Incan Mother Earth figure.

Katherine and I parted ways shortly after lunch today, as I hiked up the mountains above Cuzco to see the "Christo Blanco" up close. Obviously much smaller than the corresponding statue of Christ above Brazil, the figure is still quite commanding as he surveys the city. The views from the top of the hill were also quite spectacular, though at an altitude of over 11,000 feet, the climb up was rather strenuous! Too bad I'm not going to the family reunion in Rocky Mountain National Park this summer, since I'm way ahead in my high-altitude adaptation.