Cusco - the final day

[Thanks for all of your comments - it´s really nice to feel like people are reading my ramblings.]

We returned from the Inca trail and Aguas Calientes by train and then bus and then had a nice long sleep before our last day in Cusco. Despite having been there for several days already we didn´t really feel like we´d seen anything, so planned a day of tourist activities.

First stop was the Pre-Columbian Art Museum. I was a bit annoyed to start off with as there was all of these artifacts and the descriptions was all about their artistic value and there wasn´t any information about what they were used for. Then I saw a quote on the wall from Claude Levi-Strauss (he was an anthropologist, not a jean maker) that basically said that we need appreciate the art of ancient civilisations and not just view them as artifacts. And some of the art was amazing. There were ceramic bottles made shapes of animals and mythology, ´cubist´ art which apparently inspired Picasso and some really nice jewelry. I´m not convinced that a plain silver bowl is art and I still would have like to know what the objects were used for, but I could appreciate the curators obstinate refusal to provide this information.

Our other major tourist stop for the day was Saint Domingo church. This was originally an Inca temple and after the Spanish conquest was given to some important blokes brother who bequeathed it to the church on his death. A church now stands there, but much of the Inca temple has been incorporated into the construction. I figure that they started to pull it down (the spanish destroyed most of the Inca constructions) but it got to hard so they figured, bugger it, we'll us this as the cloisters (or some such thing).

There is also a contemporary art exhibition in the church. As one person in our group said, the art could have been done anywhere in the world. But I think some of the art very much spoke of Peru. There was a sculpture of a body in a foetal postion which is how the Incas buried their dead - preparing them for birth again (they also buried them with the tools they would need in their next life, such as building tools if that was their profession). There were also a number of political statements in the pictures.

Last up was a night out on the town including Salso lessons. It looked a little like line dancing some of the time when they were teaching us. It was quite fun, but I like watching the professionals dance - really amazing, would probably take me forever to learn so I was content to just watch most of the time.