Cusco, Coca, And The Conquest Of Peru.

From Arequipa, we took the night bus to Cusco. It's a ten-hour drive that we would rather have done by day so we could see the scenery, but that's not an option. Several bus companies make the run, but they all leave around 8 pm and arrive in Cusco about 6 am. Luckily, Cruz del Sur, the most reliable bus company in Peru, has a very nice first class area with reclining seats. We were able to sleep for part of the trip.

Cusco, at over 11,000 feet, sits in a bowl , surrounded by the Andean foothills.

As the capital of the Inkan empire, Cusco was a large and wealthy city by the time the Spaniards arrived in the early 1500s. It remained a large and wealthy city under Spanish rule as the capital of Spain's Andean colonies for many years.

The main cathedral on the Plaza de Armas is one of the most impressive I've ever seen. It's a replica of the cathedral in Toledo, but with paintings and hand-carved altars produced by indigenous artisans. The result is both disturbing and spectacular: two massive altars, one covered in 18-carat gold, the other in pure silver, and a huge wooden choir dominate the interior. The clothes on the effigies of the Virgin, Christ, and the various saints are elaborately decorated and renewed once a year.

The local artists added a great deal of native imagery to the paintings and carvings: for example, the large canvas depicting an otherwise typical rendering of the last supper shows Jesus and the disciples eating roast guinea pig, and while everyone else is clearly white, Judas is distinctly indigenous. A bit more subversive are the carvings on the pews of the choir. The arm rests are female figures thought to represent Pachamama, the earth mother who was the Inkas' principal deity.

Unfortunately, no photos are allowed inside the churches in Cusco.

We'd heard a lot about the Inkas' remarkable engineering skills, but there was more to them than just their amazing ability to fit rocks together without mortar. The interior of these walls are also precisely engineered with interlocking pieces that make them virtually earthquake-proof.

Cusco is a charming town, with winding, hilly streets. We got lots of climbing practice in advance of our Inka trail trek. Our week in Arequipa kept the acclimatization to the altitude to a minimum.

Over 2 million tourists visit Cusco each year, so the town is definitely geared for tourism. There are people here from all over the world. On one of our excursions we met an Korean couple a few years older than we are. We had dinner with them at the one Korean restaurant in town, which they pronounced very authentic. This kind of chance encounter is one of my favorite parts of traveling.

Here's the other way to speed altitude acclimatization: coca leaves for breakfast. You stick 7 or 8 into a cup of hot water, let them steep. then drink. O did not find them particularly helpful. I thought the effect was subtle, but effective. I didn't get a buzz typical of coffee or tea, but I found that after a few minutes I felt exceptionally clearheaded and filled with a mellow feeling of well-being and energy.

So  of course we visited the Museo Coca.

And it turns out that the history of the drug is fascinating. It comes from a small bush found only in the Amazonian jungle. Once they discovered its properties, the Inka fought wars to acquire territories where it grows.



Look at the cheeks of these figures. They're sucking on a bundle of coca leaves like MLB players with their big league chew. Coca leaves are loaded with calcium and other vitamins. Historians think this is why the Inkas had few cavities.

Of course, when the Spanish took over, they immediately banned the use of coca leaves as a satanic practice. That ban lasted until the famous mountain of silver, the richest silver vein ever discovered, was found in Potosi in Bolivia. Once the Spaniards realized that dosing their slaves with coca almost doubled the mine's daily output, all religious objections ceased. After that, coca gradually made its way into the western pharmacopeia.

In the mid-1800s it was first processed into cocaine, and the rest is history. Coca-Cola is the only US company currently authorized to import coca.

It was quite startling to come around the corner and discover this creepy diorama of the victim of a cocaine overdose.

We stocked up on coca leaves and the "Coca Helper" catalyst that helps you absorb the drug more effectively.

As usual, the Spanish built their main church right on top of the Inka's primary temple of the sun. You can still see the precision-built Inka foundations under the church. Ironically, the church has been heavily damaged by earthquakes twice since it was built, while the Inka walls remain in nearly pristine condition.

This is not a reconstruction. These are the original walls, looking much as they did the day the were built.

In this cutaway you can see some of the intricate engineering that went into the design of these sacred spaces.

This is a replica of one of hundreds of massive gold and silver plates depicting the Inka cosmology. All were melted down after the conquest and the resulting bullion shipped to Spain. No record of what may have been shown on them survives.

Next we bused up to the top of the hills surrounding Cusco to visit some of the Inkan sites. The first was Saqsayhuaman, a large ceremonial space. Cusco, like all Inka cities was laid out in an animal shape--in Cusco's case, a puma. Saqsayhuaman was the head of the puma. It was almost completely destroyed by the Spanish, and most of its stones were used to build the cathedrals and churches of the conquerors.

Those that remain were in many cases too big to move, the largest stone weighing about 300 tons.

Many locals set up shop along the paths to the ruins, selling photo ops with cute children and animals.

The water temple. This spring still delivers the same unchanging flow of pure water in wet season and dry as it did over 500 years ago.

P.