Saqsayhuaman

Saqsayhuaman and Quenqo, September 2011

	On our walk up the hill to Saqsayhuaman, we stopped to visit the remains an Inca palace on the site now occupied by San Cristobal church.
	We walked up a narrow valley, and entered Saqsayhuaman through this door before we could get an overall view of the site.
	Aligned doorways: pretty poor military planning, so was this site just ceremonial?
	The top of the ruins: there were once three towers up here, but the Spanish used the stones to build cathedrals.
	From the top, looking north across the plaza to a temple on the nearby hill.
	The triple wall of the main fort, seen from the plaza.
	View south across the plaza to the main fort, from the temple hill. A school group was sitting in formation for a photo.
	The west end of Saqsayhuaman, with the outskirts of Cusco in the distance below.
	Wildflower on the temple hill.
	Looks like Colchicum a.k.a false-crocus.
	Another false-crocus.
	Strange rounded rocks on the north side of the temple hill, and a view of another, circular plaza.
	More of the rounded rocks.
	These were really fun to photograph.
	The closer I got, the more I saw.
	The only word I have to summarize these is "waterslides"
	Waterslides from below.
	Reich on the waterslides.
	He's hanging on to a crack with his hands - they really are slippery, even when dry.
	One more view of the waterslides.
	The jumble of boulders near the circular plaza contained some carved caves.
	Humans included for scale.
	More carved overhangs.
	A circular sunken temple full of limestone boulders.
	Carved boulders.
	Looking from the edge of the circular plaza, over the "cave boulders", to the "waterslides."
	View of the circular plaza from atop a boulder.
	View looking a little further west, to the waterslides.
	Another carved boulder.
	This large boulder was just about covered in carved ledges.
	Detail of a larger alterpiece on one side of the big boulder.
	Same big boulder from above, with view including the circular plaza, the waterslides, the east end of the fort, and the southern outskirts of Cusco ("Viva Peru Hill").
	The moat and wall of the nearby fort at Quenqo. (Again, a fort on the valley side, guarding a water temple.)
	The fort wall incorporates both quarried stones and original bedrock.
	Main entrance to Quenqo's fort: clearly designed for a drawbridge.
	The fort at Quenqo.
	Caves in the temple hill at Quenqo.
	Phallic rock at Quenqo temple.
	Another view of the same rock.
	One more angle of the phallic rock.
	Overhanging water seeps and cave entrance at Quenqo temple.