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...so in some of their paintings they have Jesus in white, which is pure in the Catholic religion and the cross is black, which is pure in the Inca religion. The people didn´t really give up the Inca traditions in their religions, they just added Catholocism. Our tour guide is very pro Inca. She talks all the time about the Pachu Mama, yet I saw her make the sign of the cross when we left the church.
Anyways, the main church in Cuzco is huge, and all the altars inside are plated in gold. Its really sad because in their tradition, the people give all of their money to the church because they believe that all wealth comes from god, so they give it all back to the church. So here you have these infinitely poor people and this church all plated in gold. Sad. Then we toured many ancient ruins. The Incas had ingenious architechts, and they were able to build buildings that survived even the most destructive earthquakes. In some places they replicated their work, but there are original walls with their stones in them. The stones are very heavy and made of basalt, but are put together so that no wind gets through, and there was no grout in between. Its really amazing.
The people maul you to buy their stuff, worse than anything I have ever seen in Mexico.
The next day we got on the bus again, a different bus, still bumpy, but this time more stinky. We started up the mountains on our way to Tres Cruces. This is where we were to stay in the tent camp in the jungle. On the way our tour guide had us stop in this village of bakers to buy small loaves of bread to share with the children who live in the mountains. I bought two bags, with ten loaves each about the size of two fists. I ate one and they were really good.
We start driving and the towns get smaller and smaller and dirtier and dirtier and the people poorer and poorer. Every once in a while there would be a group of kids working in their fields, and they would run up to the bus, where we would hand them bread. They were supposed to get one each, but they would hide a piece and go up to different hands to try to get more bread. These kids broke my heart. There was a little girl Murphy´s age. And she couldn´t reach the hands, so one of the ladies on our tour dropped her a piece. It hit her in the face...