Hostels Cusco Peru
All of us at Pirwa Hostels hope you’re enjoying the holiday season as much as we are! If you’re traveling through Peru or Bolivia during the holidays, we hope that you’ll be joining us for the festivities.
The four Pirwa hostels of Cusco will be getting together for our traditional Christmas Eve Dinner at Pirwa Colonial Hostel (Plaza San Francisco #360, two blocks from the Plaza de Armas of Cusco).
As iconic as Machu Picchu is, it has still managed to retain some mystery over the years, and quite a few little-known secrets as well. Here, we’ve chosen the four points that we wish everybody knew:
Christmas Eve in Cusco is marked by the familiar hustle and bustle of preparation and expectation that one experiences during the Christmas season in many countries, but with a unique local touch. Since the 16th century, during the time of the Spanish vice-regency, the Plaza de Armas of Cusco has hosted the popup Santurantikuy Market on December 24th. It’s one of the largest arts and crafts fairs in Peru, and a treasured cusqueño tradition.
If you visit only one site in Cusco, it should be the Qorikancha Sun Temple and Santo Domingo Church. Of the 300 Incan Temples which once stood in Cusco, Qorikancha was the most important. It was the religious center of Cusco, which itself was the center of the vast Incan Empire. Incan rulers considered themselves to be the children of the sun god Inti, the supreme deity. They drew their authority from this, and thus the temple they built for the sun god was both imposing and opulent. It awed the Spanish conquistadores, who in their chronicles described it as “fabulous beyond belief”.
As the most popular holiday destination in Peru for domestic and international travelers, Cusco explodes with people during New Year’s Eve. Bars and dance clubs raise their prices substantially, but there are outdoor concerts in the main square, where the majority of people gather, and alcohol is sold and consumed along the streets and plazas.