The Inca Empire's former capital and the continent's oldest continuously inhabited city, Cusco bears the marks of its mixed Spanish-Inca heritage. Colonial and modem buildings incorporate Incan walls, arches, and doorways. Inca descendants speak Quechua, the indigenous tongue.

At the center of the Incan capital was a large plaza called Haukatpata — The Great Inca Square — a portion of which became the Plaza de Armas in colonial times. The Spanish built churches over the Incan temples and ceremonial sites.

Because most of Cusco’s population was still of Quechua Inca descent at the time of construction, the Spaniards used Inca labor to build the Cathedral, and artists were trained in European style. The Incans mapped their religion onto the Christian symbols, so, in essence, could secretly maintain a dual religious identity. for example, Jesus was the sun and Virgin Mary was Mother Earth.

The current arcaded plaza is a hub of significance to the people of Cusco, who proudly fly a rainbow flag (similar but different from the LGBTQ rainbow flags), adopted in 1978. The plaza is a lively area, surrounded by churches, and by colonial buildings with carved wood balconies, housing shops and restaurants.

We toured the Cusco Cathedral, the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese; the adjacent Church of Triumph; and the Church of Santo Domingo, southeast of the plaza about a 5-minute walk. Photography was not allowed inside any of the churches.

Although we entered the Catherdral first, it makes sense to talk about the Church of Triumph first. The Church of Triumph was the first church built, beginning in 1536, three years after the conquest. It was built over Suntar Wasi, an Inca ceremonial building.

The spectacular Cathedral was built over Viracocha Inca’s palace, using blocks taken from Sacsayhuamán, started in 1559 and taking almost a century to complete. It contains works by Cusco artists, incorporating Incan iconography. For example, the Virgin Mary is often portrayed with a mountain-shaped skirt, identifying her with Pachamama (Mother Earth). One of the most famous paintings is, The Last Supper, by Quechua artist Marcos Zapata, with a roasted guinea pig (cuy) — a classic Andean staple — lying on its back with its feet in the air.

We finished our tour at the Santo Domingo Church. The church was built on the foundation of the Templo del Sol (Temple of the Sun) and Koricancha, (golden enclosure). A section of the church contains part of the Inca structure, with its trapezoidal door and windows, with a window that was perhaps used to predict the solstice.

Following the tour, we said our goodbyes to Julian, as we split into two groups, Larry and Eileen with Ernesto, and headed for two families for (the same) home-cooked meals. We started with steamed vegetables, corn, cuy, and cheese. This was followed by a potato soup and chicken stew with rice. Both the drink and the dessert were made from boiled purple corn. The drink is called chincha and the dessert was similar to chincha but sweetened and thickened to a consistency of grape jelly.

On return, we relaxed and then met up with Ernesto and some of the group to head to a grocery to buy maras salt, chocolate, and coffee.

Thirteen of the group ate at nearby Incanto, everyone getting delicious pizza (and we had a Tacoma petit verdot/tannat blend that was very good). We walked back to the hotel for an early turn-in for a 4 am wake up call.