Cusco, capital of the ancient Inca world, stands over 10,000 above sea level at the head of the Sacred Valley of the Incas, less than 100 miles from Machu Picchu.

Founded nearly a millenium ago, the city today is laid out much as it was originally: the Incas conceived the city in the shape of a giant puma when viewed from above. The Rio Tullumayo represents the spine. Sacsayhuaman the head, and the center of the city the body. Today the city is home to 275,000 inhabitants, most of them Quecha.

The beauty of Cusco can hardly be exaggerated. Surrounded by steep hills on three sides, the city is a sea of red tile roofs, narrow streets, steep steps, and impeccably fitted Inca stonework. It is a stunning mix of Inca and Spanish colonial architecture: colonial churches, monasteries, and convents built atop precise granite Inca foundations. The heart of the city, the Plaza de Armas, has always formed the great civic center of Cusco, dating back to Inca times when it was surrounded by palaces and temples.

Cusco today remains a living, breathing cultural anachronism--a strange mixture of remarkable physical remnants of the Incan empire fused with the jewels of Spanish colonialism. Together, almost inexplicably, they lend the city its beauty and life.