Koricancha and the Church of Santo Domingo

 Read about our arrival in Cuzco here.

As promised, Angel, our driver, showed promptly at noon.  Since the hostel lacked parking, he stopped on the one-lane street long enough for us to pile into the van, but not long enough to avoid the horns of the four cars behind us.

A few minutes later, we arrived at our first stop, Koricancha, and while Angel parked the van, we were accosted by a group of three indigenous girls, dressed in bright native garb.  One carried a small llama lamb in a sling.  I knew what was coming.

“Photo?  Photo?”

Sure, okay.  It was going to cost me a few coins, but everyone has to make a living somehow.  The kids posed for a photo with the costumed children and their cute little llama lamb.  I handed the oldest one 3 coins.

“What about me?” “None for me, mister?” The emphasis was on all the wrong syllables.  Rehearsed lines of English.

Ok, terrific.  I know you three are working together, yet you hustle me separately.  I split another 3 coins between the other two to avoid argument.  They could curse me later, and probably would.

This population seems determined to get their gold back.  Since I don’t speak Quechua, there wasn’t much point in telling them I didn’t take it.  It’s only a matter of time before they build a casino, declare sovereignty, and start ignoring the laws of their local jurisdiction.

Oh, wait.  That’s North America.

I grumbled, but got over it quickly as we entered Koricancha proper.  It’s a temple inside a temple, sort of.  The original Inca structure was large enough to hold a few thousand people, but when the Spanish arrived, the gold bricks, panels, and idols were immediately looted, and a good portion of the stones were removed, broken into smaller stones, and hastily reassembled in the classic European style of construction, to build the ostentatious church of Santo Domingo atop the old Inca structures.

Here’s a lesson in engineering for all of us.  The Incas used mortar in some of their construction, but not for temples.  The stones were cut in trapezoidal shapes, and no corner was ever placed at a joint, so some stones are cut in the shape of a T, or in more complex variations.  In one part of the temple, a single stone has nine different sides.  In between these stones, a spherical section was hollowed out, with a round stone placed between, to prevent sliding, in the event of…well, earthquakes.  All walls angle inwards at exactly thirteen degrees, just like the windows.  Everywhere.  Exactly.

            At no point along these walls does a gap exist between the stones.  Not one-hundredth of an inch.  Nothing. 

            I imagined that a number of Incas were left alive to watch the disassembly of their sacred temple, and probably a good number of them were forced into slavery to create the resulting abomination.  But I could imagine the conversation that went on, as two Inca slaves carried stones to the wannabe mason priests:

            (Translated from Quechua)

            Good morning, Sam.

            Good morning, Ralph.  Any idea where we’re taking these stones today?

            To the idiot over there, who insists on building the wall the same width at the top and bottom.

            Stupid white people. It’s not like he doesn’t have our walls right here to use as an example.

            Nope, insists on doing it his way.  It won’t even stand by itself, he has to glue it.  Square windows, do you believe that?  With square stones used to make round arches at the tops, instead of one solid stone.

            Why doesn’t he cut them round if that's what he wants?

            Too lazy, I guess.  You know we’ll be back here fixing it the first time Mother Earth farts.

               

(The wall of darker stones in the middle of the photo was built by Inca, Inc.)

            Now all that notwithstanding, the Church of Santo Domingo is a pretty marvelous structure, even after they rebuilt it due to earthquake damage.  Three times.  The last time it crumbled, in the 1940s, it was decided to leave the four interior temples visible within the cloister. 

            During the summer solstice, there is one small trapezoidal window that the sunlight will enter, illuminating a small room where only the chief was allowed to go.  Parts of the Spanish structure are still adorned with oil paintings on canvas, hundreds of years old.

            The place opens out into a courtyard, whose stones once bore stones great gold idols on top of each, but now only the stones remain, and the fence holds back the street merchants.

Our adventure continues here, in the Cathedral of Cuzco.