The Monkey Temple
Your first glimpse
Walking up from San Blas, towards the Temple of the Moon, your first view of the Monkey Temple is through a grove of eucalyptus trees. There are many stray dogs in this area, like these three sleeping in the shade of an ancient stone wall. Most of the dogs are friendly, but it’s still good to give them space and not try to pet any of them.
On your way to the Temple of the Moon, you pass by a jumble of rocks that most people don’t even notice. This is a pre-Inca site, likely built by the Killke people, who lived in the Cusco Valley long before the Inca began their civilization and subsequent expansion that grew to include territory from Columbia down through most of Chile, and from the Pacific into the Amazon.
At the temple you can find a stone shaped like a human heart and carvings that look like a snake. However, you won’t find anything resembling a monkey. The name actually comes from nearby children, who have played here for centuries. Long before parkour existed, children bounced off the rocks here, running and jumping until their elders told them to stop monkeying around.
On your left, as you walk by the Monkey Temple, all you can see are a couple boulders that look like they have been carved into giant benches. Walk through them and you’ll be down inside and area that’s surrounded by carved stones. Follow the path down some more and to the left and you’ll see what looks like a little cave.
A little alcove
Walking down through the boulders you’ll come to the cave, with a damp mossy back and a stone, striped with red that’s been carved to look like a human heart.
The heart
The little shelf formed by the top of the heart often has flowers, coca leaves or other offerings on it. Though it doesn’t resemble a temple anymore, the place is still sacred and people still treat it as such. Like any huaca, the natural bedrock has been carved in some places and left in its natural form in others. This heart could have been carved, or the place may have been considered sacred because of this stone that naturally resembled a heart. Few rocks in this area are red and the color could be left from centuries of stain by blood. There is a small channel in the stone above the heart that leads to the stone above, carved with a snake that could also easily have served as blood channels.
Snake or blood channels?
Directly above the heart, this stone has been badly damaged by weather and perhaps by people, as well. It probably had a flat top at one point, a surface for animal sacrifices. The sinuous carving leads down to the small stone channel that drips directly onto the heart stone below.
Niches and walls
The bedrock all around the Monkey Temple has been carved into alcoves, the wall around them sanded into smooth walls. While the original shape and purpose of this temple have been lost over centuries of being conquered by the Inca, then by the Spanish, it is still clearly a sacred place. It’s worth a stop on the way to the Temple of the Moon, or its own visit. Bring some coca leaves as an offering for the heart and pause to try to imagine what this place could have looked like even before the Inca took control of the Cusco valley.
