Museuming in Cusco

During our first full day in Cusco, we started by getting our train tickets and admission tickets to Machu Picchu. This took a surprisingly long time, especially the train tickets because Inca Rail was very slow. We didn't have it sorted out until lunch time. Since the Machu Picchu tickets were a little off the beaten path, we figured that we would try to go to a Ceviche place that the guidebook recommended. Unfortunately, it was closed and so we ended up at a terrible fixed price place.

More pictures are in the Peru Album.

After lunch, we focused on the museums. We started with Qorikancha, which is a church built on top of an Incan temple, which itself was built on top of a Wari temple. The Incan stonework was absolutely jaw dropping. Some places, it was so tight that you couldn't tell that it was two different stones put together. After that, we went to the Incan Museum, which provided a great overview of Incan culture and history and houses many indicative artifacts. I felt that the most useful part is that it explained all the different pre-Incan cultures that the Icans absorbed and in general, slowly walked the user through time.

After the Incan museum, we sat down at a cafe to have a drink and check our e-mail. We had tried to reserve a spot that evening for the Cusco Planetarium, but we weren't sure if it worked because we didn't get an e-mail confirmation. So, we had a drink and used the wifi. We made the mistake of sitting outside first and were accosted by people trying to sell us stuff. This ranged from paintings, to sweaters, to carved gourds, to massages. They'd just come right up to our table at the cafe and try to get us to buy their crap. Before our drinks came, there must have been a dozen people try and this is the unfortunate part of Cusco. They're everywehre.

We didn't get a confirmation about the planetarium, but we knew that they'd meet somewhere in a nearby square, so we decided to just go and try to get the show. It's a good thing we did because it was fastastically done. First, they bussed us out to the facility just up the hill and surrounded by eucalyptus trees to help block out some of the light. Then, we were taken inside for the planetarium part of the show. They provided an explanation of how some of the Incan sites acted as either calendars or weather predictors. For instance, there's a reflecting pond at one of the site and if, at the spring equinox, the southern cross is clear, it will be a good year, but if it's blurry, there will be floods and too much rain. It turns out that during an El Nino year, the warm pacific current throws high altitude clouds that will blur the stars. It also causes heavy rain in the area. Then, they showed us the European constellations, starting with the traditional zodiac and finishing with the southern hemisphere constellations that the exporers added once they started navigating in the south. Finally, we got an explanation of the Incan constellations, which are actually negative constellations. We normally think of constallations as patterns in the stars where the points of the drawing are made by a star. However, the Incans defined constellations in the dark part of the sky. In particular, the milky way, or celestial river. There are areas without stars and it is those black blobs that make up the Incan constellations. They have a llama, a hunter, a frog, a condor and more all chasing each other along the river. It's a fascinating, different way to look at things. For the last part of the show, they took us outside with some telescopes to look at the the stars. Frankly Cusco has a lot of light pollution, so it was impossible to see the Incan constellations, however, we did see Saturn, Jupiter, the Jewel box cluster and a few other clusters. It's always fun to see people's reactions the first time they see Saturn in a scope :-)

To cap off the night, we had dinner at the Pisco museum. They have a great format where you can order tapas, flights of pisco and cocktails. If you order a flight (or if you just want to know), they'll give you a presentation about pisco, the different kinds, how it's made etc. It was very well done. Definitely recommended.