Inti Raymi - June

Arriving in Cusco at the end of June, you will find the city in a strange state of excitement as the biggest festival of the Inca calendar, the Inti Raymi, is about to be celebrated - just as it was 500 years ago.

The Incas have the sun as their supreme deity and the most powerful god. Source of heat and light, it was the creator of life. The winter solstice (the time at which the festival is commemorated) is the beginning of harvest in the Andes and the moment in which the sun is furthest from the earth. For these reasons the Inti Raymi was a date of immense religious significance, which was prepared for well in advance.

Chicha, made from the maize collected from sacred places, was produced only by royal virgin princesses who were zealously chosen. A black llama was selected from the many flocks designated to be sacrificed to the sun and in its viscera was read the fortune of the coming year.

At dawn, on the day indicated by the priests (always around 24th June), the powerful pututos and large shells were blown to call the people to Huaycapta Square (today the Main Square) and from there, the Inca, carried in a sedan chair, was accompanied to Coricancha ('Temple of the Sun') where the ceremonies dictated by the cult were carried out.

Today it is the tourists that accompany the Inca and his hosts to the Church of Santo Domingo, which was built on the foundations and walls of the old Coricancha. From there, after making invocations to the sun and following the Inca rites, they all set off for Sacsayhuamán, the imposing monolithic fortress which dominates the imperial city.

The culminating moment, awaited by the 20,000 tourists who attend each year, is when the villac humo (high priest) sacrifices the black llama and takes out the heart to read the auguries and communicate them to the Inca.

When night falls and the sun disappears the festival is over, then the night becomes noisier and more intimate, nowadays, not in the fortress, but in some of the fantastic and original discotheques of the city of Cusco.