First is we got to the bus terminal at 610am!
And our guide is Matthias and it's a really nice bus with free wifi, free coffee and bathroom!
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| The super nice bus in this tour! |
Matthias stop at a place along the way to get a super big bread for us to share by tearing off a piece. It's yummy but certainly not individual portion =)
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| The Andean bread Pan Chuta |
San Pedro Apostol de Andahuaylilas
Our first stop is reputed to be the Sistine chapel of South America!
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| The surprising church San Pedro Apostol in our tour |
Photos are not allowed so I can only paste the picture of the Youtube video capture of the link above.
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| The Sistine Chapel of South America! |
Officially we are leaving Cusco and MP and going to towns that's away from the Inca main powerhouse but still governed by locals/Incas. The little town where this church is located where silver are mined and transported to other towns, which is why it's so wealthy to justify a church of this complex design by the Jesuits. The Jesuits came and put gold over the local murals and there were not allowed to be removed and hence the church is preserved.
While MP never did human sacrifice nor do they have a God (other than the Sun, Moon and Pachamama Earth), the locals do have a god and a local language which they kept secret. The Spanish never understood the local God which is the superior secretive god. They kept thinking it's the sun that is getting worshipped and the church tried to incorporate the sun element.
But the Jesuits figured it out and documented the sacred God and language and preserved that information for discovery later.
Parque Arqueologico De Raqchi
We ended at a agricultural area call Raqchi and it's speculated to be storage of the products as it's in the crossroad of Cusco to Puno.
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| Storage ruins during Inca times |
And there's speculation of this temple ruins being the temple of the real God that people really worshipped but kept quiet
.
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| The secretive Wiracocha that is the real god |
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| Really colorful Andean wares in Raqchi |
After that we stopped for lunch with a typical Andean buffet again.
La Raya Pass
We got to the high plains at 5500 meters and got out of there quickly after a picture.
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| This is the Apu Chimboya pass at 5500 meters |
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| Glacier at the pass |
Museo Litica Pukara
Our next stop is a museum where he showed the time line of the history of the area where Inca is just a small part of the history.
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| The local timeline where Inca only has 100 years out of 1400! |
The Inca spoke the Pukara language. He also explained the Pre-Inca times where the locals are doing human sacrifices and war, and catfish significance to those times
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| The Pre Inca relics |
Also, the Puchara town is famous for bulls ceramics that protects the houses of the locals that you can find on top of all the houses in Peru.
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| Ceramic bulls designs |
Also, the museum has a coffee shop that has the equivalent of civet coffee for sale. We saw that in San Pedro church area but got to taste it here
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The equivalent of Civet coffee in Peru
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I also took some pics of this creature and finally had it explained by Diana in Arequipa that it's a guardian to protect against their souls being stolen in the mines. It can be a dragon, a cat etc etc. And has hands that's extended outwards!
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| The creature that we saw everywhere! |
We finally got to Puno around 7pm. Checked into hotel Casa Andina and went for dinner at a square that we could walk to. What surprised me was Puno is higher than Cusco! So we still have to deal with the high altitude for a while longer.
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| Casa Andina room in Puno |
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| Simple dinner at Puno at Tulipa |
Another thing I learned in this trip is the Andean cross. What it really represents is the high plains as they really go higher and higher before they go lower (just like us crossing the high plains before going lower to Puno)
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| Andean cross |
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