A bright, crisp, clear day, it was perfect to catch a shot of some writing on the mountain side - Viva el Peru! Lots of towns have writing on the hills, but few as clear as in Cuzco!
En route to the ruins of Sacsaywaman, we crossed a grass field and a pack of 5 llamas playing... yes, playing! Three of them were chasing each other almost trampling the groups of families enjoying the sun. Two younger ones were attempting to keep up, with little luck. It was hilarious watching them run around the field, they came super close to us.
Sacsaywaman was a major Inca site, holding both military and religious significance. It was used as a base to lay siege to the Spanish conquistadors in Cuzco by Manco Inca, a powerful leader. He, and what was left of his army, were eventually forced to retreat to Ollantaytambo, then further to the jungle strong hold of Vilcabamba. This is also the site of the Inti Raymi, Festival of the Sun, held every June 24th, where the entire city celebrates and a re-enactment of the Inca winter solstice festival takes place. In the photo below, you can see the jagged wall, this was built as the teeth of a puma (Cuzco was the body, with Sacsaywaman as the head of the puma).These walls formed an extremely effective defensive mechanism that forced attackers to expose their flanks when attacking.
This is one of the main door ways into the strong hold.
Again with the amazing rock work, as you can see, some of these stones are enormous (one over 300 tons), and all of them fit together perfectly.
This was a centre ring where festivities would have taken place, with the towns people sitting all around the outside.
Perfect slices out of rocks, like they were made for someone to sit in - a very big someone!
And just as we were leaving, this super sweet little one came over for a visit with me! Just wondering around! Super cute and super soft!
No comments:
Post a Comment