Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Guinea Pig and Elongated Skulls

Buenas tardes amigos!!

We had a long and exciting day, with visits to a couple of museums including Inca Museum and the Pre-Columbian Museum. Both were about a 15-20 minute walk up and down the many narrow white washed streets of Cusco. Both these museums were really good and each had a small shop that sold replicas of some of the Peruvian artifacts.

The Inca Museum had some elongated human skulls on display. The skulls are elongated because at an early age they would wrap ropes around the head to give them that form. It is like in the movie Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, except no crystal or Harrison Ford....so I guess not really like the movie at all!! lol

We also went to the biggest Inca site within the city of Cusco, which is called Qorikancha or the Temple of the Sun. It was first an Inca ruin, then when the Spaniards came, they built a church around it, called Igelsia del Santo Domingo. The Inca walls in the temple are amazing, they had no modern tools, but were still able to construct these walls and foundations... that have survived major earthquakes and many years of abuse. They fit perfectly, with no cement or anything holding them together, yet you can't even fit a piece of paper between each stone, they are that prefect. They also built them with larger bottoms and they get narrower as the height increases. This was to make them stronger and support each other.

We then hung out in the main square, Plaza de Armas, and we went to an early dinner, and yes I did have some guinea pig. Aneta stuck to more "normal" food. It was pretty good, kind of like game meat, with a lot of fat. The best is how they bring it to your table, it still has the full body, with the little feet with nails, and the head. The restaurant has wicked views over the plaza and the 2 main cathedrals and mountains.

Until tomorrow my friends, stay thirsty!!

P.S. Is there anything such as the guinea pig flu?

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