Cusco
Peru
Atahualpa
Our group took off on an Aero-Peru flight out of Lima to Cusco and it became a bit rough going over the Andes. They started serving refreshments. The stewardess was handing Ralph his coffee when very strong turbulence hit, a yell rose up in the plane and the coffee dropped into Ralph's lap. The flight was full and there seemed to be too many people in the aisle, all hanging onto the backs of the seats. An extra crew being transported to Cusco maybe? Who knows. This was Peru. The rocking and rolling continued until we started our descent into Cusco. Maybe it was the spirit of Atahualpa giving the plane a good kick as we flew over the longest mountain range in the world. We started our descent, broke through the morning mist rising up out of the city, and landed.
We fly to Cusco
The Adventure had Begun
A Bit of History
Francisco Pizzaro, while on an exploratory expedition in Panama, had heard of a fabulously rich land to the south. Pizarro's determination, fired up by native tales of enormous amounts of gold, was set to conquer what is now Peru. After finding financial sponsors, he set sail down the Pacific coast with two priests, Hernando de Luque and Diago Almagro, and a band of less than 170 Spanish men.
Atahualpa, the last great Incan Emporer had just been victorious over his brother Huascar in a series of bloody civil wars and was now the ruler of the empire.
Pizzaro arrived and met with Atahualpa. Pizarro soon realized he ruled over a mighty empire. Days after the Spanish arrived, in what appeared to be an act of lunacy, they massacred thousands of Inca warriors and captured Atahualpa. Although the Spaniards were ridiculously outnumbered, they had the advantages of surprise, steel swords, cannons, and above all mounted cavalry. History tells us the Incan warriors upon seeing the mounted cavalry thought them to be gods, dropped their weapons, and kneeled for their slaughter. The battle was over in a matter of hours. With Atahualpa now a prisoner, Pizzaro was in control of the Incan Empire.
He promised his freedom if could fill the famous ransom room with gold. Caravans, laden with the precious metal, arrived from all over the land, and the room was filled within six months. However, Pizarro decided to keep the Incan leader as a hostage in case of Indian revolt and suspicions he was inciting his generals to attack the Spanish. He later brought Atahualpa to trial and in a mockery of justice, was given a free choice: To be burned alive as a pagan, or strangled as a Christian. They baptized him and then killed him.
It only took Pizarro a couple of years to replace the Inca Empire with a working colonial system and now that the Inca civil wars were over, the natives were happy to retire quietly into the hills and get back to the land. Within 25 years, the native population had dropped from 32 million to 5 million, due to new European ailments such as smallpox, measles, bubonic plague, whooping cough, and influenza.