...AND BACK TO CUSCO In Cusco the mixture of cultural expressions that can be seen daily, the product of a history full of conflict and strife, is its most fascinating aspect for the traveller, who only discovers it by going back to the city again and again. The most important Spanish churches are built on top of what were splendid palaces or places of Inca worship, as a way of imposing the power of the Conquistadors upon the culture they had encountered. The convents of Trappist nuns were built over what were originally acllahuasi, or retreats for virgins dedicated to the cult of the sun. Almost all the streets in the historic center of the city have Spanish structures erected upon the asymmetric stonework of the Incas, perfectly amalgamated with each other so that it is impossible to say which technology has survived the passage of time best. The diversity and complexity of Cusco's people today are evidence of the same sense of apparently impossible combination. The wealthy Cusqueños stroll about the streets with their wives with that provincial pride that has always characterized them; side by side with indigenous folk in their traditional clothes, doing things that are far removed from their own culture, such as selling candy on the street or posing for photographs with tourists: "one dollar mister". A large sector of population consists of tourists who visit the city, especially in the high season (between May and October) bringing all the tongues of the planet to its streets and those whose tourism tends towards historical and cultural interest in what we have to offer. Tourism, which has been very large-scale since the nineteen sixties, has un turn created a section of the local population who are at once cosmopolitan and very Peruvian, made up of tour guide, small businessmen, etc. This amalgam of people and lifestyles gives the city an international charm of which very few American cities can boast. The night life in Cusco is the stuff of proverbs; folk groups who make tourists loose their inhibitions in unusual versions of the huayno dance in addition of pubs with a perfect mix of the local flavour with cosmopolitan trends. To visit the city, Paul Marcoy, a traveller who travel along Peru in the middle of XIX century wrote: "as in the literature, it is something that demands to get hurry slowly". The great Main Square containing the Cathedral (recently restored and ready to be rediscovered in all its magnificence) and the church of La Compañia, is an extraordinary public space which you should savor with no time limit. At any hour of the day or night its beautiful monuments frame with the Herat of the country with one of the greatest traditional cultures in the world. After entering the Cathedral and its side chapels and visiting La Compañia (perhaps the most splendid religious building in the southern Andes, which we should not forget was an exhibition of the power of the Jesuits), you can relax and take the sun in Regocijo Square before taking a short walk to Cusco, or the church of Santo Domingo. This building embodies the conflict between the Incas and the Spanish, which can be seen clearly by the way the Spanish church was built on top of the Inca stone walls with no attempt at continuity. Cusco is a full of living legends of the Inca cosmo-vision and its testimony to the drama of the conquest, whose wounds remain unhealed. Its immense annex which was, according to Inca Garcilazo de la Vega, full of life-size statues of men and animals in solid gold enables something of the grandeur of the past to be recalled. The neighborhood of san Blas is a joy, with its old Spanish urban architecture and twisting streets so narrow that cars can scarcely pass through them. San Blas is the home to a tradition of artists who occupy an important place in contemporary Peruvian culture and who will invite you into their workshops and demonstrate the techniques that give substance to their imagination. The many foreigners who have settled in San Blas have created their own version of cusqueño night life. It is pretentious and impossible to try to describe Cusco on a couple of pages; you have to go to Cusco, because it is more than a city, it is an experience. Go to Cusco, then, return to it as many times as your sense of beauty demands.