Peru is a country that
is extremely rich in culture, language and tradition. If you’re walking around
the chaotic city of Lima you will most likely hear Spanish, and even English. However,
if you walk through Cuzco the city that was considered to be the capital of the
Inca empire, you may hear Quechua an indigenous language still spoken today. When
I was studying abroad in Peru, I decided to take a theater class to continue
practicing my Spanish in a different setting other then a classroom. To my
surprise, the play that my classmates and I put together was based on the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. Garcilaso de la Vega was an Inca known for being a chronicler
and writer. His mother was Peruvian, and his father was Spanish. He was in other words a “mestizo” or child of mixed backgrounds.
Through my theater
class, learning about Garcilaso de la Vega, visiting Cuzco twice and hiking up
Machu Picchu my curiosity towards the Incas began to grow. They build such a
great empire in the middle of the Andes mountains, and managed to survive for
many years. As I walked through Machu Picchu, considered the “Lost city of the
Incas” question after question came up. How did they survive? How did they
manage to carry such massive rocks up to the mountains and build such mysterious
architecture? Why exactly did they leave Machu
Picchu before the Spanish conquered? Is this the reason why it still stands
today?
The Incas and the Inca
empire is such a mystery, but learning about their ways of living and beliefs
can lead us to potentially answering our own questions. This is a topic that I
will definitely teach my students one day. The Incas believed that their
god was the sun, and after all where would we be without the sun?
*Cuzco picture taken 11/15/16
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