The city shaped like a puma

Here's the Cusco fact that still gets me every time I picture it from above. The Inca emperor Pachacutec didn't just build a capital, he designed one in the shape of an animal. The fortress of Sacsayhuamán forms the puma's head, the rivers Tullumayo and Huatanay shape its body, and the point where the two rivers meet, a place called Pumaqchupan, forms its tail.

The puma wasn't chosen at random. In Inca cosmology it represented strength, intelligence and protection, part of the sacred Chakana or Inca cross alongside the condor and the serpent. What's remarkable is that you cannot actually see the shape from street level. It's a plan that only reveals itself from above, meaning generations of Cusqueños lived their whole lives inside a sacred animal shape they could never fully see themselves.

I painted Cusco in watercolour and ink, those steep cobbled streets and Inca stonework. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Cusco, Peru · Travel Poster