A full day in Cusco

Our second day in Peru dawned nice an sunny, which I have been told is highly unusual forCusco this time of year. In the morning we hiked down to Plaza De Armas. The view of the city from a school near our hostel was very nice.

We had a cup of coffee in a shop overlooking the main Plaza. While the plaza does seen to get a little bit of use by the locals it is almost entirely filled with tourists and people working thetourist trade. The hard selling reminded me a little of the vendors in Nogalas Mexico on theArizona border. All pushing hard on the tourists to buy their stuff.

Our next task was to find the train station and return our vouchers for tickets. One the way we discovered San Franciscan square less than 1/4 mile from Plaza de Armas. This is a similarcentral town square which gets used by the local population and seems to be left along bythe tourist crown. I was glad to see that Cusco was not the heartless city that I thoughtit might be. One of the catedrals has these decorations above the doors. I have not yet discovered what they are for.

Soon after we came across the central indoor market for Cusco and I was in travelers heaven. Thisis the main marketplace used by the locals and frequented by a handful of the more adventuroustourists. The marketplace is huge and arranged by isles. Vendors butchering and selling meattake up a few isles, Vendors selling fresh juices take up and isle. The is an isle for bread vendors an isle for flower vendors, etc..

At the far end of the marketplace are six or so isles of vendors selling cooked foods. Having watched too much Anthony Bordain and Andrew Zimmerman on TV I had to give it a try myself. Steering away from seafood in a mountain area seemed like a good idea so I had some chickenwith blanched vegetables as well as some excellent chicken soup with some kind of potatosor tubbers. Since I was not eating fried goat nostrils or something equally bizzar it turnedout that the most exciting part of the meal was the location and the company. (I wish my Spanish was better.)

At another stand our daughter purchased an Alpaca sweater for 24 sols (8 dollars). I amnow enjoying Cusco just in time to temporarly depart to Ollantana, Agua Calienties, and Machu Picchu.