First activity in Cusco is the city tour in the afternoon. I’m glad my energy is back and my altitude sickness is also gone. In the morning, I feel dizzy and weak, now I’m ready to explore Cusco.
My tour guide picks me up at my hotel at 1pm. I immediately asks her how many of us will be doing the tour; she says only me and a family of 6. So after my pick-up, we drive to the hotel of the other tourists and then to Koricancha.
The weather is not good, it’s still gloomy. As per my guide, it has been in that situation in the last three days and today is a bit better with lesser rains yet cloudy skies. Oh well, rain or shine, our tour will push through.
First, our van drives us to the Convent of Santo Domingo, which is the location of the Koricancha. Several tourists are also there and several vendors too. I buy a poncho at one of the vendors in case it will rain during our tour.
Koricancha in Quechua (the second language of Peru) means gold enclosure. The meaning of the place literally describes the Koricancha. It is a place covered with gold sheets. It is also the most important temple of the Incan Empire because it houses the temple of the Sun God. As per my guide, when Pachacuti rebuilds Cusco and the Temple of the Sun, all the structures are covered in solid gold sheets. That’s why they named it Koricancha.
The temples are also build with stones that fits precisely that you can’t even paper-thin objects in between. It says that during the Spanish conquest, they take all the golds from the temples. And it also says that Spanish are destroying the temples built by the Incas.
What they are doing with Koricancha, they remove all the gold covers and replaces it with mural paintings. They use the Koricancha as a foundation of the Church and build Church of Santo Domingo. As per my guide, several earthquakes destroys the Church yet Koricancha are still intact.
At the Koricancha, I really amazes on how they build their temples. Imagine how huge boulders fit together and interlocking each other. You can see how these stones are being fitted. The temple of Koricancha is a very nice introduction for the Inca structures due to its sophisticated masonry and engineering that they apply in building other Incan temples as well. More of the Inca creations build on the same way.
With much fascination by the stone works, we move to the Cathedral of Cusco for our next city tour destination.
Been here: August 12, 2015
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