Bienvenidos a Cusco

Today we went to Cusco, leaving Ollanta for the first time since we arrived three weeks ago. Originally the plan was to buy our entrance tickets to Machu Pichu today at the ticket office in Cusco, but we discovered you can only buy them three days in advance. We´re going in July, so no luck there. But we decided to go anyway.

We left in the morning, taking a collectivo, or basically a taxi, to Cusco. It was about a beautiful 90 minute drive through the Urubumba valley and up through farmland and mountains to Cusco, which at 10,800 feet sits a good 1,000 feet higher than Ollanta.

We arrived around ten at the Plaza de Armas. The festival of Inti Raymi, which celebrates the winter solstice and the sun god Inti, is happening next Wednesday. It´s arguably one of Cusco´s biggest festivals of the year, and the partying had already started this weekend. We saw all sorts of crazy parades, and apparently there were fireworks tonight in the Plaza. Peruvians take their festivals seriously.

Parade through the streets, complete with llamas.

 

I deftly tore the map of Cusco in two right as we arrived. Nice.

Me and Kelsey in the Plaza.

Me and Jarrard in the Plaza.

We first headed to the Mercado deSan Pedro, which is a huge tented market a few blocks from the Plaza. It was awesome. Inside were stations selling fruits, vegetables, meat, trinkets, fabric, clothing, cooking utensils, and everything else it is possible to sell in a stall.

We saw some weird stuff. Several animals in the process of being cut up, the butchers wieldingsaws with impressive skill. A disembodied cow nose sitting on a platter. Crazy vegetables that none of us could identify, loaves of bread bigger than my face, piles of fish staring at you with their squiggly eyes, and more wheels of cheese than in the Bethesda Whole Foods. It was a foodie´s heaven.

Flower stall at the mercado.

 

Piles and piles of kalmata olives! Heaven!

 

Squash.

 

This not-so-little piggie went to market...

 

Checking out the crazy produce.

One thing I´ve discovered here is the art to bargaining. There are people all over the streets of the city and in the market trying to sell you things, and all of them are willing to make a deal. It makes buying things so much more fun when you get fifty percent knocked off the price. Then you convert the price from soles to dollars and realize you just purchased your new necklace, scarf, whatever, for the price of a soda in the U.S. Sweet.

 It´s really shocking how cheap everything. I paid for a 90 minute taxi ride to Cusco and back, a huge lunch in a nice restaurant, admission to a fifteenth century church, and a ton of gifts for myself and family members. It was maybe $70 for the entire day. I anticipate serious sticker shock upon returning to the U.S.

I can´t reveal too many of the cool things I bought, because some of our readers may be future beneficiaries of these gifts. But one thing I´m definitely keeping for myself are my ceramic chanchos, or pigs. For 9 soles, or about 3 dollars each, I got two ceramic pigs, ten inches high and twelve inches long. I am in love with them.

Me and the chanchos!

Every house in Ollanta and the surrounding area has a pair of these guys on their roof. I´m not sure what their significance is, but I´m going to find out. Kelsey and Jarrard thought I was nuts for buying them, and I probably am. I have no idea how I´m flying home with them. But the chanchos and I have now bonded, so there´s no turning back. Lily, hope you don´t mind some ceramic pigs in our room next year…

After making a bunch of purchases at the mercado, including a huge wheel of cheese for Jarrard, some earrings for Kelsey, and presents for various friends and family, we headed through the city to the Iglesia de San Blas, the oldest church in Cusco and site of one of the most beautiful wood-carvings in the Americas.

It was a long walk there, skirting around the parade route and heading up a steep hill to where the  Iglesia  sits on a hill at the edge of the city. But it was worth it. Not only was admission only 7.50 soles, or about $2.50, it was empty, refreshingly chilly, absent of tourists, and breathtakingly beautiful. The three of us had the sanctuary all to ourselves for an hour, and audio tours in English were free.

The church itself was a pretty plain, whitewashed building, but the alter at the front is a monolithic structure gilded entirely in gold and full of  statues of saints, angels, animals, and Peruvian foods and plants. But San Blas is famous for the pulpit, supposedly carved by a leper entirely out of a huge ceder tree trunk. It was the most intricate wood-carving I´ve ever seen, and looked to rival some of the similar European structures from my art history textbook this year. Jarrard snuck some prohibited pictures, and we spent way longer than we´d anticipated in San Blas. Best $2.50 I´ve ever spent.

We then headed for lunch at the outskirts of Cusco. Jarrard´s Spanish teacher, Christina, suggested this restaurant specifically, so we hopped in a taxi and hoped for the best. The guy took us to what seemed like a sketchy remote construction site, but once we walked down the street a little we found Las Machitas. And boy are we glad we did.

I finally got to taste ceviche, which I´ve been dying to try since the word appeared on my seventh grade Spanish vocabulary sheet. I also got paella, fried yucca, a mix of shellfish, and chicha morada, a popular non-alcoholic fruit juice made from black corn. Kelsey got trucha, or trout, and Jarrard had a tasty pile of fried shellfish. It was divine. And our total bill was only 75 soles, or $25.

We were the only gringos in the place and definitely got some strange looks, but the bathroom had toilet paper and it was the best seafood I´ve ever had. We made a pact to return before flying out of Cusco in July.

Jarrard and me at lunch.

 

Arguing over dollars to sols conversions.

After lunch we wandered around the mercado and the Plaza before rounding up a convi to take us home. As the car wound its way through the mountains, we watched the sun set over the Andes and had a dance party to Peruvian pop music in the backseat. Pretty much the perfect day.

Prehistoric museum in Cusco.

Tall people are not meant for Peruvian doors.

On one of the blocked-off streets in downtown.

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¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

I´ve been continually impressed by Peruvians in the time I´ve spent here, and tonight was no exception.

Kelsey and I were invited by our host mother to attend the birthday party of the family´s daughter-in-law´s father this evening. We left having no idea what to expect, although we had a clue when we were asked to carry a huge case of beer over to the fiesta.

We arrived to find at least fifteen adults drinking chicha, the questionable alcoholic beverage that Peruvians are so fond of. We recognized a lot of relatives, but there were also many extended family members we´d never met before.

Our host brother poured me some chicha in what looked to be the least-washed glass in the western hemisphere. Kelsey clearly thought she´d lucked out, before they handed her what was basically a large tupperware container of the foaming beverage.

We were a little sketched out, considering the family brewed it themselves and were serving the pinkish foamy liquid out of a huge trash bin using a gourd. But we were very polite and showed enthusiasm when asked if we liked the chicha.

We then moved on to dinner. Let´s just say I´ve never been served a piece of meat quite as large as the one that landed on my plate tonight. I swear I ate an entire leg of lamb. The bone was as big as my own forearm. Kelsey was given a rack of rib-like meat that took her a good hour to pull apart.

It was a traditional Peruvian meal in that we were each given a huge plate of food and only a fork to eat it with. People in Ollantaytambo don´t use knives, apparently, and eating with your fingers is the way to go. So we dug in. Turns out, eating a leg of lamb with your fingers is not the easiest thing to do.

After dinner? Time for the cerveza. The beer that they serve here comes in bottles about the size of large wine bottles in the United States. The birthday boy, whose age was indeterminable but who looked about 75 or 80 years old, downed at least four of these bottles, plus plenty of chicha and some hard liquor. He also polished off what had to have been half a sheep, a pound of potatoes, a pile of pasta pasta, and several stuffed chili peppers.

Kelsey and I headed home for bed, and this guy was just getting started. Feliz cumpeaños, señor. We salute you.

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