San Cristóbal Church

Standing before you is San Cristóbal Church, beside one of the most spectacular viewpoints in Cusco. From this overlook, the entire city spreads out below you, and on a clear day you can even make out the snowcapped summit of Ausangate in the distance, rising to almost 6,400 meters (21,000 feet) above sea level. This is also the perfect place to look behind the scenes of the Spanish conquest.

You’re standing in the Qolqampata district, where, according to tradition, Manco Cápac—the legendary founder of the Inca Empire—had his very first residence. But the story of this church is most closely tied to another figure: the Inca prince Paullu Inca. Brother of the last Inca emperors, Paullu chose to ally himself with the Spanish.

In 1543, he took an even greater step by converting to Christianity and being baptized under the name Cristóbal. Devoted to his new patron saint, the prince paid for the construction of the first chapel here himself. That makes this one of the rare cases in which an Inca noble became both the builder and financial patron of a Catholic sanctuary.

Step inside and you’ll find a single nave beneath a traditional wooden roof structure. The Baroque main altar houses an enormous statue of Saint Christopher, whose name means “Christ-bearer,” referring to the legend of the giant who carried the Christ Child across a river on his shoulders. Every year, this imposing figure leaves the church to join the great Corpus Christi procession on the Plaza de Armas.