From Cusco the Incas ruled an empire thousands of kilometers long without the wheel, without iron and without writing. A handful of Spaniards brought it down in less than two years and built their city on top of the Inca walls. Twelve stops through the square where two Túpac Amarus were executed, the cathedral of the guinea pig, the twelve-angled stone, San Blas, the fortress of Sacsayhuamán, the shrine of the mummies, the baths of the Inca, the temple of gold, the house of the chosen women, the wedding that sealed a capture, the San Pedro market and the house of the Inca Garcilaso. Approximate audio duration: 23 minutes.
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Cusco: el ombligo del mundo, los incas y la conquista
Desde Cusco los incas gobernaron un imperio de miles de kilómetros sin rueda, sin hierro y sin escritura. Un puñado de españoles lo hizo caer en menos de dos años, y construyó su ciudad sobre los muros incas. Doce paradas por la plaza donde ejecutaron a dos Túpac Amaru, la catedral del cuy, la piedra de los doce ángulos, San Blas, la fortaleza de Sacsayhuamán, el santuario de las momias, los baños del Inca, el templo de oro, la casa de las mujeres escogidas, la boda que selló una captura, el mercado de San Pedro y la casa del Inca Garcilaso. Duración aproximada de audio: 23 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~23 min of audio · 6.5 km on foot (~1 h 40 min walking) · about 2 h 15 min in total
You are in the Plaza de Armas of Cusco. Look at the colonial arcades, the cathedral, the church of La Compañía, and around them the green mountains. Before starting, a warning: you are at about three thousand four hundred meters above sea level. Walk slowly and drink water.
For the Incas this was the great Huacaypata square, the center of their empire. They called it Tawantinsuyu, the four regions united, and it stretched from the south of present-day Colombia to central Chile and northwestern Argentina. Millions of people, dozens of peoples, ruled from here.
They built it without the wheel,…
2
The Last Supper with Guinea Pig
You are in front of Cusco Cathedral. Look at the solid reddish-grey stone facade and the short towers. It looks built to withstand earthquakes, and it is.
It was built on the palace of the Inca Viracocha, and many of its stones were taken from the fortress of Sacsayhuamán, which you will see later. The work took almost a century, from the mid sixteenth to the mid seventeenth century.
Inside there are hundreds of paintings of the so-called Cusco school: indigenous and mestizo artists who learned to paint in the European style and put their world into the sacred pictures.
Look for the Last Su…
3
The Walls That Did Not Fall
You are on Hatun Rumiyoc street. Look at the wall on the left: huge greenish stones of irregular shapes, fitted together without a drop of mortar. Not even a knife blade will fit between them.
Look for the most famous one: a stone with twelve sides and twelve angles, each perfectly fitted to the neighboring stone. You will probably find people taking pictures of it.
This wall was part of the palace of the Inca Roca, one of the first rulers. Today a colonial building stands on top, the former archbishop's palace. That is what you will see all over Cusco: Inca walls below, Spanish buildings ab…
4
The Skull on the Pulpit
You are in the little square of San Blas. Look at the small white adobe church, the steep cobbled streets, the workshops with blue doors where craftsmen work. From here you can see all of Cusco.
This has been the artisans' quarter since colonial times. Sculptors, carvers, painters, potters. Many families have been in the same trade for generations.
Inside the church, which looks so plain from outside, is one of the most astonishing objects in the city: a huge carved wooden pulpit, full of figures, columns, angels, saints and fruit. It is attributed to a seventeenth-century indigenous sculpto…
5
The Eight Condors
You are at Sacsayhuamán. Look at the three tiers of zigzag walls running along the hill, built of gigantic stones, some taller than a person and weighing more than a hundred tons, fitted with the same precision you saw in the city.
Construction began in the fifteenth century, under the Inca Pachacutec, and took decades of work by thousands of people. How they moved those stones from the quarries without the wheel or draft animals is still debated.
It is said that Cusco was shaped like a puma, and Sacsayhuamán was its head. The zigzag walls would be its teeth.
In 1536 the Inca Manco, whom th…
6
The Kings Who Did Not Die
You are at Qenqo. Look at the large carved limestone rock, with steps, zigzag channels and passageways. Go into the cave below: there is an altar carved out of the same rock, cold and in half-light.
Qenqo means labyrinth or zigzag in Quechua. It was a huaca, a sacred place. The zigzag channels probably served to let chicha or the blood of sacrificed animals flow during ceremonies.
Many researchers believe that important dead people were prepared in this cave. And in the Inca world, dead rulers did not disappear.
When an Inca died, his body was mummified. The mummy went on living in his pala…
7
The Water Still Flowing
You are at Tambomachay. Look at the stepped stone terraces, the trapezoid niches, and below them the fountains: two jets of water falling side by side into a basin and running on along a channel.
It is called the Baths of the Inca. It was probably a place of water worship and rest for the rulers, beside the road that led from Cusco toward the jungle.
What is astonishing is that the water still flows as it did more than five hundred years ago. The Incas brought water from a spring through underground channels and distributed it with a precision engineers still study. They say the flow hardly …
8
The Temple of Gold
You are in front of the Qorikancha. Look at the curved, perfect Inca wall of dark stone that supports the church and convent of Santo Domingo. It is the clearest image of Cusco: an Inca temple below, a Catholic church above.
Qorikancha means the golden enclosure. It was the most important temple of the empire, dedicated to the Sun, Inti, from whom the Incas claimed descent.
Spanish chroniclers described what they saw: walls covered in sheets of gold, and a garden with life-size maize plants, llamas and shepherds made of gold and silver.
When Atahualpa was captured at Cajamarca, he offered t…
9
The Chosen Women
You are in front of the convent of Santa Catalina. Look at the walls below, of Inca stone, and on top the colonial building. Behind these walls cloistered nuns still live.
Before it was a convent, this was the Acllawasi, the house of the chosen women. The acllas were young women selected throughout the empire for their beauty or skill and brought to Cusco.
They lived in seclusion. They wove cumbi, the finest cloth in the Andean world, worth more than gold and used as a political gift and offering. They prepared the chicha for ceremonies. Some were given as wives to nobles or distinguished wa…
10
The Captor's Wedding
You are in front of the church of the Compañía de Jesús. Look at the baroque stone facade, more ornate than that of the Cathedral next door, with its two tall towers.
It was raised on the palace of Huayna Capac, the last great Inca before the conquest, Atahualpa's father. The Jesuits built it so sumptuously that the bishop protested: it could not be more beautiful than the Cathedral. It is said that when the pope's reply arrived, the church was already finished.
Inside, near the entrance, look for a large painting showing a wedding. It is one of the most revealing paintings of the whole colo…
11
The Thousand Potatoes
You are in the San Pedro market. Look at the aisles of stalls: fruits you may never have seen, mountains of potatoes of every color, huge maize kernels, herbs, round loaves, juices, and at the back the food counters where soup costs very little.
Listen: among the vendors you will hear Quechua, the language of the Incas. Millions of people in the Andes still speak it. Many of the women wear layered skirts, woven shawls and hats that vary depending on the village they come from.
Look at the potatoes. The potato is Andean: it was domesticated in this region thousands of years ago. Thousands of …
12
The Inca Who Wrote in Spanish
You are in front of the house of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, on the Plaza Regocijo. Look at the colonial mansion with its balcony and stone doorway. Today it is a regional history museum.
Here, in 1539, a boy was born who was two things at once. His father was a Spanish captain, Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega. His mother, Isabel Chimpu Ocllo, was an Inca princess, a granddaughter of the emperor Túpac Yupanqui.
The boy grew up between two worlds. From his mother's relatives he heard, in Quechua, the stories of the Incas, of their kings, of their fall. And he learned Latin and Spanish from …
How long does the "Cusco: The Navel of the World, the Incas and the Conquest" audio tour take?
It has about 23 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 6.5 km walking route (~1 h 40 min on foot). Plan roughly 2 h 15 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Square of the Two Túpac Amarus" (coordinates -13.5167, -71.9785). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Cusco and pick "Cusco: The Navel of the World, the Incas and the Conquest". No account required to start.
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No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian
