On Monday, we travelled from Trujillo to Cuzco. Thankfully our travelling was mostly uneventful. However, I was fascinated by the sights during our flight. We were flying parallel to and later into the Andes Mountains. The mountains are so tall, the tops stuck up over the clouds. It was amazing. The photos don't quite do it justice, but it was a crazy feeling to see something taller than the clouds!
When we got to Cuzco, one of the first sights we saw were llamas...in the airport parking lot! They were grazing on the little bit of grass on the edges of the lot. Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough to get a picture, but they were far from being the last llamas I saw during this trip.
Because we got to Cuzco in the mid-afternoon, we were able to do some sight-seeing. Cuzco was originally the capital of the Incan empire. Now it is an interesting architectural mix of Incan and Spanish colonial architecture. I lost count of the number of cathedrals and convents in the city. The basic Spanish order of operations was to tear down every Incan temple and build a cathedral on that spot. One cathedral was particularly interesting. It had been built on the site of the Sun Temple (I think), but the Spanish had only bothered to take down the parts of Incan
architecture that were directly in the path of their cathedral. As a result, rooms of the old Incan temple existed within the cathedral. It was quite an interesting mix. But, as I think about it, ironically appropriate. Instead of insisting on the purity of Christianity in the effort to convert the Incas, in many cases the Spanish created or allowed a mixture between indigenous and Christian beliefs. Like the cathedral, the result is neither Christian or the indigenous religion.We stayed in a really neat hostel while we were in Cuzco. Our room the first night was the smallest, coolest and coldest room I've ever slept in. Smallest: there was just enough room for the bed and about three feet on each side. Coolest: the back wall of the room was rock, curving into the room like a barrel on its side. Coldest: the nighttime temperatures got down into the 30s while we were there, and there was no heat. Brrr! Even with three blankets and flannels we were still shivering in our bed!
2 comments:
Austin says, "That's sad." I agree.
--Hannah
Lay Catholicism seems to thrive on ceremony and performance rather than a strict understanding and application of Scriptural doctrine.
Syncretism was also common in the U.S. when Spanish and French Catholics interacted with the Native American tribes. These tribes tended to get along better with these Catholics than British Protestants, partially because they were not required to read Scripture (as Protestants emphasized) and partly because they were allowed to incorporate their own traditions and ceremonies into the liturgy of the Catholic system.
It seems to be to be another reminder of how much the Roman Catholic Church is like syncretistic Ancient Israel.
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