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Raqchi 2-story wall |
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Raqchi west wall |
It was the largest roofed building built by the Incas, being 92 m/302 feet long, 25.5 m/84 feet wide, and 15 m/49 feet high. The walls have since eroded due to weather and are only 12 m/40 feet tall. They are now covered with protective tile roofs. (A pair of young kestrels were sitting on these roofs.)
Originally there were eleven walls with a golden
ichu grass thatched roof. Here also was the only example of round columns (there were 22) being used to support the roof.
The walls were finely dressed for the base 3-4 m/10-13 feet, and on top of that was an adobe wall strengthened by llama fibers and grasses. The upper portion appeared to be adobe brick with a plaster overlay.
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Upper portion of wall |
Juan pointed out where Andean crosses may have been painted on the central wall.
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Juan points out Andean cross |
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Window in the thick wall |
Apparently the doors were double-hinged and could be locked from the inside. We saw the cylindrical door-hold like that in Machu Picchu. There were four doors, two at each end to represent the four cardinal points. The doors were double-jambed, and Jan and Kirby realized what Edward meant when he talked about “double-jumped” doors in Ollantaytambo.
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Double-jambed doorway |
Juan showed us drawings of Inca surveying equipment which helped them keep things straight. Behind the temple was a shallow lagoon, which was part of the temple complex, as it was built to represent Lake Titicaca. There were several birds to be seen; Common Gallinules, Andean Goose.
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Lagoon |
We moved on to an area of
kancha-style housing, arranged around a courtyard.
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Housing |
We could see tall gable walls of twelve pairs of houses along a straight avenue. Priests lived here. Acllahuasi were houses of the acilas, the chosen women who were the most beautiful and hardest working women from Inca nobility, who lived here and were responsible for spinning and weaving the finest cloth for use by the Inca, or for religious ceremonies.
We then climbed over a wall to the ccolcas, circular storehouses, each 8 m/26 feet in diameter. There were 156 of these buildings to house the offerings of foods and other goods. In hard times, these foods were distributed to those in need.
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View towards ccolcas |
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Circular ccolca wall |
On a ridge behind the temple, you could see the remains of a 7 km/4.3 mile-wall that once circled the entire complex. The wall was only 3 m/10 feet high, because the people were short.
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Wall on the ridge |
The roughly built walls with stones piled together with mud mortar are called
pirka walls. Juan also tried to point out the volcano, barely seen peaks beyond the closer mountains.
As we left the complex, a herd of sheep passed through.
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Sheep herd |
Out in the square, a costumed man greeted us as I headed to the restrooms requiring a 1
Sol admission fee. By the time I was finished, we had to get back on the bus.We didn’t have far to go for our lunch stop - a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Brynne was smart and used the restroom here for free. It was another buffet in a new establishment with the wall painted to look like an Inca wall, with plastic plants.
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Restaurant interior |
When we arrived they turned on the waterfall behind the buffet tables. There were a couple men outside who were putting in a fence post, and for some reason a pair wires came in through an open window, and the ends were stuck into the two holes of an electric outlet! The soup was very popular with our group. The
aji de gallina was not the best we’ve had, and nothing was hot except the soup.
We came to think of our guide as “Billy Bob” because of his habit of saying “umm-hmm” after nearly every sentence!
In the Sacred Valley we had noticed large numbers etched on the mountain sides, and were told that usually these were school numbers. On special occasions, students burn clearings in the shapes of their school number. We saw more of these numbers on the way to Puno.
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School numbers on the hillsides |
Noticed people were doing their laundry in the stream along the road, and laying things out to dry on the banks. Every once in a while there was a cross up on a ridge, especially above a town. Saw some areas on the mountains that looked like glacial moraine, and other areas looked like landslides. The mountains were looking craggier, and began to show some leftover snow.
We made a stop at
Abra La Raya, the highest point of our bus tour, at 4,313 m/14,150 feet above sea level.
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Abra La Raya |
Now this was the highest we had been in our lives (except in airplanes). The
Rio Vilcanota, which becomes the
Rio Urubamba, begins here. We could see the snow-capped mountain of
Chimboya, at 5,489 m/18,008 feet in elevation.
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Chimboya mountain with snow |
Jan walked forward along the road to observe birds on a lagoon, I took photos, Kirby shopped, and Brynne rested.
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Puno-Cusco train |
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Vendor at Abra La Raya |
As the bus tour continued, there were patches of burned areas, where the locals burn off the dried grass in order to stimulate growth of new grass. At this elevation, the locals are cattle and sheep “ranchers,” or keepers of alpacas and llamas.
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"Ranch" |
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Cattle |
There are also
vicuñas and guanacos. Here in the high plateau or
altiplano, there is no source of firewood, so they use
ichu grass, or dried llama dung. Young shoots of
ichu grass is for grazing, the old for fuel, although Juan made it sound like they burned
iru grass... There are no tiles on the roofs, because it is too windy.
The road was generally straight and there was not much traffic.
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Straight road |
The bus driver drove on the left side of the road if needed to avoid potholes and rough stretches. We were on the Pan-American Highway, which apparently has two branches in Peru, one here in the mountains and one along the coast. We passed through at least 4 toll booths. The railroad tracks also followed our route and we saw several trains. The rail route from Cusco to Puno is 351 km/218 miles and the road route is 380 km/236 miles. The train takes 10 hours with a scenic stop at
La Raya. The bus takes 9½ hours with four tour stops and a lunch stop.
Our next stop was to be Pucara, the town famous for its ceramics, especially the little bulls that are found on rooftops. Kirby was interested in purchasing a couple
toritos de Pucara, and the Pucara museum sounded interesting. But on this particular day, the town was celebrating the festival of
Virgen de Carmen, by having a huge market. We would see why we could not make a stop in this small town. As it was, we did not go straight through town, but took a road half-circling it. But even that road was jammed with people, carts, moto-taxis, buses, vans, trucks, animals, children, bikes, and more people. There were all sorts of
taxi-chollos, a bicycle rickshaw, except that often cargo is carried on an extension in front of the bicycler.
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Bicycle cargo rcikshaw |
Close to the sides of the road were all the wares, animal skins, whole skinned animals, textiles, rugs, fruits and vegetables, corrugated tin for roofing, eucalyptus poles and lumber, etc. Many people were resting up on a ridge of a hill at the edge of town. Some bicycle carts had a speaker attached to a tall pole. Our bus had to stop many times, back up some times, and move forward slowly, although we passengers feared for the pedestrians in our way. Side mirrors of trucks and buses passed mere inches from our windows.
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Resting with their wares |
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Wool |
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Fruit |
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Corrugated metal |
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Locals with bundles |
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Foodstuffs |
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Weighing an animal carcass |
Later we passed through the city of Juliaca, on a wide road of concrete that had huge excavations at many points along the way. We had our first glimpse of Lake Titicaca, which is shrinking away from the railroad tracks that once ran along its edge.
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First glimpse of Lake Titicaca |
Lake Titicaca is situated at 3,812 m/12,507 feet above sea level. It once was at sea level, but was pushed up between the Andes Mountains when tectonic plates collided. Because it was once the sea, it is partly a salt lake. But now it is fed by five rivers created by rainfall and meltwater from mountain glaciers. It is the largest commercially navigable lake in the world, and South America’s biggest lake by volume. It is roughly 176 x 50 km/109 x 31 miles in area, and covers about 58,000 sq. km/22,400 sq. miles. Maximum depth is 284 m/932 feet. The intense sun at this altitude causes 21,000 cubic feet of water to evaporate per second! As we got closer to the water, we could see the masses of totora reeds growing in the shallower parts of the lake, especially along the shore.
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Yellowed totora reeds in the lake |
Because of the legend that Manco Capac and his sister consort, Mama Occlo, emerged from the icy depths of Lake Titicaca, the lake is considered the birthplace of the world, or at least of civilization. We rounded some mountains and saw the city of Puno below on the shores of the lake.
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City of Puno |
Puno was founded in the late 17th century to work the silver mines of Laykakota. Now it appears geared for tourists.
The tour bus backed into a parking lot, and it seemed everyone was met by someone with a tourist van. Lo and behold, we were met by Hugo! That man is everywhere, and this time he was accompanied by Maricela. We were driven to our hotel,
Sonesta Posada del Inca, which was on the outskirts of town. Filled out the forms and handed over our passports. We were offered drinks of tea or juice. We discussed the schedule for the next day and settled on a 7:30 AM departure time.
We also discussed dinner plans. It seemed the best idea would be to let the driver take us to town. Maricela and Hugo could point out a bank and recommend places to eat. We took our bags to the room and came back to the lobby to meet the others. We drove into Puno, and were let off in a small square,
Parque Pino. We were surprised to then learn that because this was an extra trip, we would have to pay the driver 15
Soles. We decided we did not need for him to pick us up later; we would take a taxi!
The main shopping street,
Jr. Lima, is a pedestrian-only street, and Maricela and Hugo accompanied us, but we could have done it on our own.
Kirby used an ATM, and then we went to the
Pizzeria de la Buhe. Brynne had the olive pizza and water, and I had a vegetarian pizza and Coca Cola Light. A large group of musicians came to play, and Kirby bought a CD from them. After dinner we walked farther along the
Avenida de Lima until we came to the main plaza with the cathedral off to the right.
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Avenida de Lima |
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Main plaza |
A line of taxis waited along the curb, and Jan picked one. Only 5
Soles to return to our hotel! At the desk we retrieved our keys and passports, and I was given a message! It was a copy of an e-mail from Kent. I asked about the internet, and I could get the first 15 minutes free. So I responded to Kent with our decision to go ahead home if he could get the seats on an earlier flight.
The
Sonesta Posada del Inca Hotel is right on the shore of Lake Titicaca, and has 62 rooms with private bath and cable TV.
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Our hotel room |
The bathroom had a glass bowl sink.
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Hotel room bathroom |
The walls were decorated with ceramic bowls, and a huge ceramic pot sat in a niche. They have a private dock and a private train stop (the train tracks ran in front of the hotel). Jan and Kirby took advantage of the laundry service and had to leave a deposit to get a hair dryer. This hotel also had both 110 and 220 volt electrical outlets. Peru uses the 200 volt system. We had been able to use our camera battery chargers (which accepted voltage up to 220) with their outlets.
While Brynne showered, I went out behind the hotel, to see a sign for the Yavari Museum. That little ship docked behind the hotel must be the Yavari.
2 comments:
Raqchi temple is neither the only example of a 2-story building on the Inca Empire nor the largest roofed building built by the Incas.
Although one story buildings were the most common, 2-story buildings were fairly built also, there's a bunch of them on the very well preserved Inca site of Machu Picchu and several on the Inca trail to it, there are traces of 2-story Inca buildings on many Inca places like Ollantaytambo or Cusco (there was a bunch of 3-story building on pre-colonial Cusco even).
The largest roofed building built by the Incas is the "kallanka" building located on Inkallajta, Bolivia, is not only the largest roofed building on the Inca Empire but also the largest on the Pre-Columbian Americas.
Thank you! I appreciate corrections and I have removed the erroneous statement that Raqchi is the only example of a two-story tall building of Incan architecture. Duh!
However, my research shows that La Kallanka was ONE of the largest roofed buildings of the Incans, and the largest roofed building when it was built in 1463-1472. Measurements for La Kallanka are given as 78 m x 22 (or 25, or 26) m, with an area of 2026 sq m.
The measurements for the Raqchi temple are 92 m x 25.5 m, with an area of 2346 sq m. and it was built in 1472-1493, after La Kallanka. The Raqchi temple is known to have been two stories tall, but there is no indication that La Kallanka was more than one story, so I assume the volume of Raqchi was also larger than La Kallanka.
For now I will maintain that the Raqchi temple was the largest roofed building built by the Incans.
Thank you again.
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