Horses: Perhaps not so dangerous after all

So, after the week of festivals, Cusco has been pretty quiet. The only festival this week was a follow-up to the Corpus Christi saint-n-virgin parade. Where the images had been on display for the week, they are now returned to their resting places in the great variety of churches and other religious institutions in the city. I don't know if I mentioned earlier that this is an adaptation of a previous Inca custom. The Inca preserved the mummies of their kings, and treated them as though they were still alive, parading them about and feeding them the richest feasts. Indeed, according to Veronica's research, the Inca habit of feeding their dead was one of the reasons they were so vulnerable to the invasion led by Francisco Pizarro, an intriguing example of a maladaptive meme. A key point to the success of the Spanish conquest of much of the New World depended on taking advantage of the relationships of the native people. Pizarro only had 168 men, 27 horses, and a cannon with which he was given a charter to conquer the Inca in 1529. In 1532, they arrived at the Inca Empire in the midst of a struggle between the brothers Huascar and Atahualpa (sons of Huayna Capac), tenuous loyalty especially among newly conquered territories, and chaos resulting from a smallpox epidemic. The Spaniards were not only able to talk their way out of trouble, but acquired the help of tens of thousands of other natives in the process. Atahualpa succeeded in becoming the leader of the Inca, but was tricked into being captured by the Spanish, and executed in 1533. Huascar was also assasinated, and the conquistadores blamed it on Atahualpa. Manco Inca, another brother of Atahualpa, was installed by the Spanish as Inca. He cooperated with the Spanish until he realized he could take advantage of an internal feud among them, and recaptured Cusco in 1536. He was nearly successful, but a last ditch effort by Spanish cavalry led to his defeat at Sacsayhuaman. He retreated to Vilcabamba in the jungle, the famous last city of the Inca, where they waged a war of resistance until 1572, when the last Inca Tupac Amaru (whom with Tupac Shakur claimed ancestry...dunno about that) was captured and brutally executed in Plaza de Armas in Cusco. He said, "Mother Earth, witness how my enemies shed my blood," and that was that for the Inca Empire. The following years included brutal suppression of Inca culture, though many practices survive to today.

So, as noted, one of the slightly annoying things about Cusco is something called the "boleto turistico", which is a ticket that includes entry over a 10-day period to a variety of impressive to hole-in-the-wall destinations in and around Cusco. We purchased them during our tour of the Sacred Valley, but we were determined to make the most of them, so spent a few days looking in the museums that were listed. They weren't the most exciting, one of them had some archaeological artifacts of past cultures (probably the most interesting out of them), a popular art museum, and a native art museum that turned out to be more of a market for handicrafts. There was also a really cool dance presentation that we went to one evening in which traditional live music was played while dances from the surrounding area were performed.

Last Tuesday we checked out some of the ruins above Cusco on horseback. The horses were pretty chill, so there weren't any near death experiences. We clambered through the hills surrounding Cusco, with some really epic landscapes. Our guide followed us by foot, playing his flute periodically, which lent a sort of mystical quality to the venture. The first stop was near a couple of ruins, Pukapukara and Tambomachay. We had to leave the horses momentarily as it was down the major highway, hence not a good place for horses. Pukapukara is a really cool Inca station that reminds me of Amon Sul, where Frodo gets stabbed by the Witch King (+10 nerd points). But really, its a kind of ruined tower on a small hilltop overlooking the surrounding countryside, with all of the impressive Inca stonework intact. Tambomachay was interesting, being most notable for its fountains, although we had to quench our thirst with a bottle of water purchased from una mujer since the fountains were blocked off. Returning to our horses, we continued along the hills to the Temple of the Moon, which seemed to be carved straight out of a huge boulder. We finished our riding tour shortly thereafter near a field of potatoes, and continued on foot to the ruins of Q'enko. Also carved into a boulder, this was apparently the site of some manner of sacrifice. Our last stop was actually a return to Sacsayhuaman, to take a look at the grand Inca structure, which was the site of the battle that was the last significant chance the Inca had at resisting the Spanish invasion. The stonework there is incredible. Many of the stones were pillaged by the Spaniards for the construction of their own houses, but many were so large that they could not be moved.

Otherwise we have been continuing to practice our Spanish. I think the Spanish I do know is becoming more intuitive, but I've been having some trouble with vocab building. Poco a poco, I guess. It's been fun shopping at all the various markets, stores, blankets-at-the-side-of-the-road, etc. I even have been able to use enough Spanish to do some bartering. Of course, things probably still cost too much, but its a fun game with neat prizes. The souvenir-sellers in Cusco are the most aggressive element of Peru that I have encountered. Starving artists will follow you for several blocks, all the while trying their best to guilt trip you into purchasing one of their paintings. Overall though, the pace of Peru is so laidback that one really can't do anything but go with the flow, and mostly everything turns out all right.