As 16th century ruins go Saqsaywaman (various spellings are encouraged) is a pile of rocks in a field at the top of a very steep hill overlooking the city of Cusco.
The thing about this place, translated approximately from the Quechua as Falcon’s Fort, is that it was built by the Incas and when the Spaniards arrived in their capital of Cusco they resisted from their fort high atop the hill. 
After the Spanish subjugated the Incas they disassembled their buildings and used the masonry to build their own city. It’s said the Spanish architecture of old Cusco is built on Inca masonry pillaged from these locations.
If you ever wondered why the Coliseum in Rome looks half built it’s the same sort of theft. After the fall of Rome the residents figured there was no good reason to let that splendid masonry go to waste so they too used it. But the Inca walls that remain appear indestructible:
They are set at a slight inward angle and it is their most famous feature that most puzzles people. How did they get these giant rocks, up to 200 tons apiece into place and so tight you can’t even slide a blade between them? And there has never been an earthquake strong enough to knock them down.
If you’ve belong to the flat earth school of thought by all means attribute this construction to aliens. There are similar ruins at Zimbabwe in Southern Africa and in the days of apartheid white politicians in Rhodesia refused to countenance the idea that black savages could have built the Great Zimbabwe so aliens have always had their appeal as culprits. However the truth is blacks in Zimbabwe and browns in Egypt and Peru had the capacity to build like this.
I found this article persuasive but be aware it is full of advertising so you need patience:
According to a builder who has done his own experiments one way to build like this without mortar is to create a frame with wood and put the frame on a suitable boulder then chip away until it matches the wooden frame. I’m cutting to the chase here but read the article for the full details.
Then slowly haul it in place and plop it where you want it. The Incas had time and man power so the fact that the method is painfully slow is no reason for it not to have worked.
The point being that by the time the Spaniards in their armor had clanked up the hill, a half mile straight up from Cusco in the valley, they faced an impenetrable rock wall.
Possibly built by bored aliens. Perhaps the same aliens that didn’t scribe the Nasca lines near the coast.
You can hire a guide but I just wanted peace and quiet.
I have read about this place and I enjoyed the opportunity to wander round, make some photos and be alone for a while.
Just about every heathen landmark in Latin America has a Catholic symbol planted on top as though to show who is now boss.
This is a wall on the approach road where the modern lack of patience and care shows:
The walk up from the square is about half a mile and the elevation is 500 feet roughly which doesn’t sound too bad. But for all that I was guilty of slowly puffing my way up, lots of young people headed to the ruins were pausing every bit as much as I was. I am no longer used to 11,500 feet altitude. They were having a parade as I started my plot uphill. They do that a lot in Cusco, celebrating history and stuff.
There were thank god toilets half way up. At 25 cents a total bargain and beautifully clean.
You keep thinking you’ve got to the top but you haven’t.
If I looked down that (below) from the driver’s seat I’d refuse to take the plunge with GANNET2! But the walk up was satisfying.
I confess after I toured the ruins I took a cab back down the hill to the square at the center of town.
Cusco is conventionally beautiful and well preserved but it feels like Disney with the addition of dust catcher sales people in your face all the time. They’re like gnats and overwhelming.
I know this is a tourist town and people need to earn a living but I can’t stand it when I politely say no thanks and they keep coming, ignoring my polite no.
They were celebrating in the square talking loudly about the founding of a women’s college in Cusco. Then they trundled around a papier maché likeness of Simon Bolivar negotiating Peru’s post colonial status.
My evening flight back to Arequipa was at 6 pm getting me back to GANNET2 around 7:30 including the cab ride. As always LATAM airline screwed up the one hour flight to Arequipa with numerous delays and I got home at 10:30.
The tour ended with shepherd’s pie at Paddy’s Irish pub on the square. It about finished me off.
Oh and the reason for the day trip by myself?
Good for ten years with 50 pages so lots of traveling to do. My thanks to the consulate in Cusco. Oh and I got my sneakers cleaned:
Home sweet home:
3 comments:
As I traveled in my younger years, I always had to stop and look at old structures. My wife got tired of old Spanish Forts, etc. I still wonder how they built them. I also like old houses that were built for a certain person. Now we build them by the mass and then try to sell them to someone. No personality.
Very impressive fort!
It looks like you made the most of your trip to Cusco with an interesting side trip and a new passport! As always thanks for sharing, I look forward to seeing your next destination.
Wilson
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