December 14
Happy birthday, MVB!
I don’t have a single picture on my camera from this day which could explain exactly how I was feeling. After a month and a half on the road, my stomach finally gave up on me last night. So I woke up feeling horribly drained. But I wanted to get out of the room and get some food/water, so we had breakfast and headed the few blocks to the city center.
I had a brief burst of energy, so we went to the Museo Inka. It was not that cool. Lots of pottery and some info about pre-Colombian tribes. Some of it was in broken English, some of it was in Spanish and some was in both languages. No real rhyme or reason why a language was chosen for a certain exhibit.
Afterwards, we grabbed lunch and then Michael hung out in the square while I checked out Compañia de Jesús, aka the Temple of the Society of Jesus, Cusco (Michael had visited earlier this week solo). Super beautiful church – beautiful art and altars. No pictures allowed, once again, so you’re just going to have to believe me. A few things that came up while I was in there. First, there was both a painting and a statue of St. Stanislaus of Koska mixed in with all the art of Francis of Borja, Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, etc. This seemed odd to me. Question to my religious scholars – what correlation is there between Stanislaus and the Jesuits?
Secondly, there were several mentions of Our Lady of the Earthquakes (or something similar). I couldn’t get close enough to the roped off art to see what it looks like and when I google it, it just gives me info about Pope Francis entrusting Mexico City to Our Lady of Guadalupe after the recent earthquake and a reference to Tori Amos.
The other cool thing is that you are able to climb the stairs to the choir loft which has a window that overlooks the square. Once again – no pic, so I can’t prove this one either.
Weird day – not that cool.