The first place I went to after leaving Bolivia was the famed city of Cusco in the middle-range Andes. Usually known as the gateway to Macchu Picchu, Cusco is more important than any single Inca ruin in its own right. Capitol of an empire which stretched from Columbia to northern Chile. This empire was an aggressive collector of taxes for public works projects and believed in a greater spiritual and Public Relations significance of the Capitol as the center of the Imperial universe – Cusco is an amazing collection of mind-blowing Inca architectural “Native American modern art”, cool museums, and beautiful winding Spanish colonial streets. I spent almost three weeks there visiting local ruin complexes that were more impressive than Macchu Picchu (like Pisaq), soaking up the strong local Quechua culture (modern-day Incas), and dipping my big toe into the sketchy all-night party scene. Just near the downtown, only a half hour up some beautifully steep walking-only streets (practically cobblestone stairs) I could reach the glorious Inca ruins of Sacsayhuaman. This mysterious building at the top of Cusco city most likely served as the main Imperial Inca spiritual university. The whole city of Cusco is laid out like a giant Puma when looked at from the air. The Sacsayhuaman structure is the Puma's head. The first level is made of stones standing on end which are for the most part the size of giant Semi trucks (also known as 18 wheelers). And get this - the stones are fitted together using everything but a straight line or a 90-degree angle. There are even some stones that boast 15+ surfaces in contact with their neighboring stones. Most amazingly each of these joins use no mortar and are so exact that a knife blade cannot be inserted between the stones (even after 500 years of settling that included several major earthquakes). Each level of the building as you go up uses smaller stones. At the forth level there is a building that is at the eye of the Puma. It is thought that this evidently round tower (at least evidently round at the base which is restored) was either a water reservoir or was a room used for astral projection (out-of-body travel). Many New-Agers believe that it was this use of astral projection that allowed the Incas to construct these large animal-like city plans that could only be appreciated from a sky-high view over the city the human body could never know.

Who knows?

In any case this was a great place to try meditating at sundown (which usually resulted in me taking a mental-knot-loosening nap) with a spectacular view of Cusco. Two times I was awakened from my nap by a pleasant surprise that resulted in meeting new friends.

In the city itself many buildings were an amalgam of Inca architecture and subsequent Spanish Conquistador construction. Amusingly, just at the turn of the 19th century a huge earthquake rocked the city and most everything built after Inca times was destroyed. That means many buildings (like one big Church over the "Navel of the Inca Empire" Building ) that were Inca underneath with a completely Spanish exterior were exposed for what they were in this one moment of the earthquake. What happened is that most parts built by the Spanish collapsed and revealed the majestic and wonderous Inca stonework underneath. This stonework withstood the earthquake's destructive force because it was intentionally made by the Inca's to withstand earthquakes. Professional guides in Cusco like to make the following joke as they show you around the city and come across one of the many half-Inca half-Spanish walls: they say, pointing first to the Inca stonework then to the crude Spanish stonework above it "this is the work of Incas and THIS is the work of INCompetents."