Tonight for Family Home Evening we visited our last Inca ruin in the Cusco Tourist Ticket. We went to Sacsayhuaman. I'm glad we left a night just for Sacsayhuaman, it was such a beautiful place. One of the guides we spoke to, told us that the city of Cusco was originally made in the shape of a Puma, and that Sacsayhuaman was the head of the Puma. The original citadel was made by the Killke culture around 1100 AD, and later expanded and added to by the Incas. The size of the rocks here is REALLY impressive.
The kids can't get enough of the alpacas
Look at the size of those rocks!
My three favorites
Also we saw pictures of this archaeological site in the dry season, and it made me glad that we are here during the rainy season, everything is so much greener. I'm a bit tired from the afternoon of walking, so I will just share a few pictures. We saw a couple of European girls taking funny photos, and they offered to help us do a few.
We needed a good focal point for this picture to be interesting, Maija volunteered ;)
Another contender for this year's family photo
And speaking of funny pictures, something funny happened to Wyatt today. He is somewhat of a Peruvian celebrity. There were a few school groups visiting Sacsayhuaman today, and a few asked Wyatt if they could take their pictures with him. I have heard of this happening to Caucasians in Asia, I did not know it would happen to Wyatt in Peru. Maija tried to snap a picture of the craziness around Wyatt.
Peruvian youth asking Wyatt for a photo
Please tell me I am taller than this girl when I stand next to Wyatt
Here are a few more shots of Sacsayhuaman...good night dear friends, and sweet dreams.
For our last Saturday here in Arequipa we decided to visit the Santa Catalina Convent. The convent is located in the historic center of Arequipa and it is considered the most important and impressive colonial structure in the city. Constructed from Sillar, a white volcanic stone quarried locally, the convent was founded in 1579, and is truly a city within a city. The nuns constructed private cells within the convent where they could lead isolated lives, protected by high walls sheltering them from the surrounding city. Most museums, or tourist sites here in Peru encourage you to have a guide, normally we prefer to do it without one, but this structure was so large, and with so much history, that I am glad we opted to have a guide show us the place. One of the many alleys within the Convent. Each street within the convent is named after a Spanish city, I think this one might have been Malaga.
Well, it is almost December. Now you are probably thinking about Christmas, because it is only 26 days away today. To me it seems closer and at the same time further because it is 3 houses away. Close, but far. We went to see The Crimes Of Grindelwald in Spanish. It was really cool. I would not recommend going to that theatre in Cusco, it was small and stuffy. Also it was a mall. Chinook centre kind of. Not so big! I would suggest just turning on Spanish subtitles in you own home. If you know me, you know how much I love Harry Potter movies and books, so of course I am going to end up getting myself the play script when it doesn't cost $81.51 so I can see what happened because I didn't really understand very much in the Spanish movie... 😠It costs SO much! We went to some Catacombs yesterday. We were not able to take any pictures of the bones, but it was really cool. We saw he...
Another site on our Boleto Touristico is the Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo . This is a theater which performs traditional dances from various cultures around the Cusco area. They have a live band providing music, which play all sorts of traditional instruments, including flutes, violins, guitars, and mandolins. The dancers wear traditional outfits from the area in which the dance originated. The same dancers perform each song - I can only imagine how fast they need to change in between acts! I took a couple of videos during the performance... the quality is not great but it hopefully gives you a feel of what the experience is like.
You guys are adorable! And hilarious!
ReplyDeleteAww thanks!
DeleteThe Peruvians probably think Wyatt is the Inti!
ReplyDeleteLol