Cuzco

Cuzco is the archaeological capital of the Americas and the continent's oldest continuously inhabited city. Cuzco also used to be the capital of the Inca empire (the Inca called it Qosqo) and the "belly button of the world".

The Plaza de Armas in Cuzco. Image © Rien Bouw

Plaza de Armas

Historians see Cuzco as the archaeological capital of the Americas. Massive Inca-built stone walls line most of Cuzco's central streets and form the foundations of colonial and modern buildings. Since the Inca-architecture was too solid to destroy, the Spaniards simply put their own houses on top of the Inca buildings and robbed all the gold.

Women at the Plaza de Armas. Image © Eclipse Imports

Nowadays Cuzco is the capital of its department and has about 250,000 inhabitants. The city is situated in the southern Andes at 3326 metres above sea level, just south of the beautiful Valle Sagrado, the Sacred Valley of the Inca's.

Viva el Perú
Image © Eclipse Imports

At walking distance from Cuzco, in the surrounding mountains, lies the (probably religious) Inca site Sacsayhuáman, which means Falcon's Nest. This is a jewel of Inca architecture. The remaining buildings were made with massive stones. Some stones are as heavy as an entire jumbojet! It is a mystery how the Inca's managed to get those stones up here. It must have taken at least 20,000 people to pull stones like that from their place.