Join Pirwa’s Weekly Free Walking Tours of Cusco
We’ve been having a lot of fun these last couple of weeks during one of our newer weekly activities- free walking tours of Cusco with our friends and guests at Pirwa Hostels. Announcements go up in the hostels and on our facebook page before each tour, which usually starts at 4pm and finishes around 8pm.
We like to begin with a visit to the vibrant San Pedro Market near Pirwa Colonial Backpackers. It’s always a popular stop with guests to Cusco not just because of its vibrant riot of color and activity but also for the insight it provides into local life. Aside from handicrafts and native Andean grains and produce, there are also products that surprise foreigners, from the live frogs for blending into a fortifying tonic to the bull’s mouths for broths.
From there, we continue on to Plaza San Francisco, where we stop to observe the home where Inca Garcilaso was born, one of Peru’s preeminent schools for boys (and alma mater for many notables including current president Ollanta Humala), a variety of native trees, and the colonial churches.
Just two blocks away, we then arrive to the
heart of modern Cusco, the Plaza the Armas, which was once known as Huacaypata, the place of tears, a fitting name for the site where Túpac Amaru II was quartered in the late 1700s after his unsuccessful Inca rebellion against the Spanish. Upon the bases of Inca palaces, the Spanish built arched passageways, churches and mansions. Of these, the most ornate are the 17th century Cathedraland the La Compañía de Jesús Church. The Cathedral took a century to complete, using the sand in the plaza, stones pillaged from Sacsayhuamán 
Fortress and other Inca sites. Aside from its gold and silver shrines, it also boasts an art collection including a Last Supper complete with Andean guinea pig entrée and the María Angola, the largest bell in South America. The La Compañía Church is believed by many to surpass the grandeur of the Cathedral- for this reason the Vatican tried to halt its construction, but luckily the mandate did not arrive in time.
There are a variety of times during the tour when we find ourselves focusing on the Inca walls of Cusco, searching for the seven snakes of Siete Culebras, admiring the famous 12-angled stone of Hatunrumiyoc, or for the shape of the puma at Inca Roca.
Ascending some narrow and twisting
cobblestone street, we’ll make a stop in the small central plaza of the bohemian neighborhood of San Blas, which has been the artistic district of Cusco since Inca times. Here’ll we learn about the well-known artist families, such as the mendivils with their long-necked saints, who have their studios here. The plaza also houses Cusco’s oldest, built upon an Inca shrine consecrated to the god of thunder and lightning. Its simple adobe exterior hides the most ornate pulpit in all of Latin America, carved from a single cedar trunk in the 17th century and with a human skull resting inside it which is rumored to have belonged to the unknown artist.
One of our final stops, and surely one of the 
most impressive, is Qorikancha, the Incan Temple of the Sun. This was once the most sacred spot in Cusco, dedicated to the supreme Inca deity, Inti, the sun. At the time of the arrival of the Spanish, it was completely covered in gold. Today the gold is long gone, and atop the Inca base you´ll find the colonial Santo Domingo Convent.
We like to end our walking tours with drinks on the house. Sometimes, it’s the sweetened purple corn drink known as chicha morada at Plus Café, our restaurant located inside Pirwa Posada del Corregidor in the Plaza de Armas. Other times, it’s chicha, a fermented corn drink, or frutillada, the same drink with the addition of fruit to make it a little sweeter. It’s a fun way to end the day and to learn a little about local drinks, some of which, like chicha, go all the way back to the Inca.
If you’re interested in joining us during one of our trips, just meet us at Pirwa Colonial Backpackers in Plaza San Francisco (two blocks from Cusco’s main square) at the announced time and place. If you’re staying at one of our hostels in Cusco, just sign up with reception and they’ll give you the details. We hope that you’ll join us for a fun few hours exploring the imperial city of the Incas!