Peru - Cuzco - Qorikancha

Other than Machu Picchu itself, Qorikancha/Santo Domingo Convent was my favorite place to visit in Peru.  I suppose that was the case even before I saw it.  The guidebooks described a sacred Catholic place built on top of and around Inca ruins, inevitably intriguing.  It was amazing as advertised.

Qorikancha was, in the Incas' Cuzco, the Temple of the Sun, and apparently it was the largest and most important religious building in the city.  That's pretty impressive, because archaeologists say there were over 300 temples in Cuzco.  When the first Spaniards saw it, Qorikancha was lined with gold plates, which they immediately dismantled to bring back to Pizzarro as part of the ransom for Inca Emperor Atahualpa (see my note in the entry for Central Lima - Part 1).  Thus no other Europeans ever saw it as it was intended to be seen.

Immediately after Cuzco was conquered, the Spanish destroyed the temple and built a church, as they did in thirteen other locations in the city.  But in the case of Qorikancha, they decided that a few structures were worth salvaging to use as offices(!) for the priests.  So they built the church around the structures.  The result is that tourists can now visit a Roman Catholic church building containing Inca ruins. 

From the front of the building, one can see the old stone church on the left, built on top of a dark, curved stone wall that was part of the original wall of the Incas' Qorikancha.  There is a newer, wood extension of the church and convert on the right, which just adds to the architectural cacophony. 

A closer view of the original temple wall

The first thing one notices upon entering the foyer of Qorikancha is a classic crucifix. A turn to the right leads into a courtyard, apparently in a typical colonial style.

Courtyard of the Convent of Santo Domingo/Qorikancha

But take a closer look, and you'll see the unmistakable shape of trapezoidal Inca doorways.

View from inside one of the Inca temple spaces

Step outside and see the city of Cuzco beyond the terraced gardens of the church/temple/whatever-it-is.

The shapes in the center of the garden pay homage to the three Inca animal symbols for the levels of the universe:  the condor (the air/sky/heaven), the puma (the earth-bound human world), and the snake (the underground or underworld).

The condor, the puma, and the snake

The masonry involved in the Inca structures is astonishing.  The Spanish who first saw the structures marveled at the way the stones were airtight without mortar.  Inca structures that were not specifically destroyed by the Conquistadors have survived for 500 years because the blocks were cut to be interlocking, rather like legos. Earthquakes that destroyed other structures did not cause these walls to fail.

I actually wound up visiting Qorikancha twice, once by myself and once again later in the week with a tour group.  I recommend visiting this place either alone or with a personal guide.  Only when I was on my own did I have time to really take in the crazy contradictions.