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"The Inca Trail is not for me"
Visiting Peru
Annette2005-08-29 23:19:47
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descendents. The country below me had been invaded by the Conquistadors of Spain. They had come from the Old World in the 1500s, sent abroad by their king to find glory and riches on behalf of crown and church. A mere couple dozen men and their horses, lead by Francisco Pizarro, traveled from Ecuador to the North deep into Inca territory, hoping to find treasures. It is a rather amazing thought when one sees the landscape. It appears so insurmountable, so forbidding. It occurs to me that these invaders must have been driven by something that is difficult to fathom. What is it that made this handful of people venture into such inhospitable territory? For sure, they must have been hard-core soldiers and adventurers, but what inticements lured them into this? Was it blind obedience, gold fever or the promise of land and higher status? Or was it the indoctrination of the church to "save the souls" of natives in foreign lands? Whatever their motivations may have been, I can safely make this observation: the task of crossing the mountains to reach the fabled city of Cusco was formidable. Quite possibly, they didn't know how treacherous the terrain was, but once on their way, they persevered. If I recall Peruvian history correctly, they didn't make it on their first attempt, but had to return a second time before they actually reached Cusco, the continent's oldest, continuously inhabited city, in the year 1533.
Cusco, finally! I had felt drawn to it by a dream I had had, in which I saw myself in a central square, flanked by ornate cathedrals, with rows of arcades in front of Spanish-style buildings. The scenery could have been found in any former Spanish colony, even Spain itself. But as I soon was to find out, my dream's images found their real-life counterpart in Cusco's main Plaza, the Plaza de Armas.
"The Inca built a network of four major roads
that connected their capitol Cusco with the
...
See photographs from:
Peru Gallery
