With little time left in the Sacred Valley, we couldn’t appreciate the overdone, overpriced feel of Pisac and quickly moved along to the markets and architecture of Cusco. I’d say the cold and altitude added to the charm of this bustling city that was once a trade capital of the Inca Empire.

 

Day Six (cont.)

A very bumpy bus took us from Urubamba to Pisac in an hour, $.86. It was a disappointing town, with market tents pitched in the heat offering items for twice the price of the same souvenirs in Chinchero. The hike to the ruins above town required the package tourist ticket. We sampled flavors  of artisan chocolate like coca at choco museo.

Horno San Francisco is a wood-fired oven from the 1830s that is now more of an overpriced emapanada stand. It seems half the food in Pisac was from such ovens. The spinach empanadas were essentially a cold dried roll with some cheese and a hint of oregano, $1. In the sitting area there was a Guinea pig castle displaying the animals as pets. Quentin dropped his phone and yelped as he got bitten trying to take their photo.

The highlight of my whole time in Pisac was talking to the lady collecting money in the bathroom and trying the roasted Haba bean she gave me.

Not wanting to miss out on optimal lighting for photos of Cusco, we left Quentin to hike on his own and grabbed another bus. $.86 and one hour later, we found ourselves walking uphill, disoriented. Finally a desk boy at some hostel looked up Backpacker La’BoM on a map and we made it to the land of crêpes. Upstairs is a French crêperie, downstairs a hostel. The lounge area was perfect for chatting over tea or enjoying breakfast, and printed hammocks swung in the courtyard. Dorm bed with hot showers, tea and coffee, crêpe and French bread with small smoothie for breakfast, $8.60.

The historic buildings of Cusco are neatly integrated into modern city life. We found all the points of interest on the city walking tour from Lonely Planet, which included Plaza de Armas, Plaza San Francisco, El Palacio, and a 12-sided Incan stone in Hatunrunmiyoc, one of many alleys that were lined with colonial style architecture built on top of stone ruins. Armas is grossly catered to American and European tourists with night clubs, McDonald’s, and Starbucks dominating the corners.

Mercado San Pedro sits in the middle of the tour right after the Santa Clara Arch, timed well to the growling of our stomachs. Just beyond the entrance are rows of smoothie stands blended up on the spot, with counters overflowing with whole papayas, mangoes, carrots, strawberries… $2 a pitcher, plenty for two. Textiles and solid hunks of chocolate for making hot cocoa intermingle in the central area. In the colorful produce section, I picked a chirimoya fruit and a plum.

Towards the back of the building are endless eateries serving set menus, next to some rows of variety of exotic animal parts. Strings of caviar were displayed in piles labeled huevos de pescado. A woman was skinning live toads. Then I caught sight of what looked like the front halves of the faces of horses. I believe we were in the natural medicine section, reminding me of Chinese traditions, and after asking some vendors, I confirmed that they were alpaca snouts: jaws, teeth, muzzles and all.

We shared a seaweed, bean, and carrot salad. Boiled potatoes seems to accompany every dish without exception. As we ate outside, locals were having fried fish or veggie curry with rice, and slurping giant bowls of noodle soup. We found trucha frita con choclo, fried trout with Peruvian corn cob, in the stall way in the back, served with salad, rice, and veggie stew, $1.40.

We ended with a tropical smoothie for six soles, but it turns out the “combinado” flavor is the best and is always $1 or less. Each serving gets you three or four glasses worth. Some Peruvians next to us let us try theirs, as well as the regional bread which comes in a circular loaf the size of a small table, and we gifted them Clif bars in return.

Back on the city streets we quickly caved to more cheap ice cream before finishing the tour.

We rested at La Bo’M. Later Quentin joined Will and I to see Plaza De Armas and the rest of the city at night. The hills were dotted with small yellow lights.

Quentin and I explored the different floors of Mama Africa, the dominating nightclub for gringos. Some had live local bands, some were full of intense salsa, and in the section playing American pop music I instantaneously ran into pre-meds from my school volunteering with MEDLIFE. I hate watching Americans party, so we left and treated ourselves (seriously, an entire $2 were lost) to a cookies n’ cream McFlurry.

 

 

Day Seven

Breakfast makes this stay at La Bo’M as long as you don’t order the cheese crêpe, like me. It’s some scraggly shreds of rubbery dairy that I ended up removing and instead just spread strawberry jam on the crêpe. Instead, opt for the lime-sugar, like Will. We also get a large loaf of white bread, a small smoothie, and plenty of butter and jam. Coffee and tea are always available.

Quentin, Catherine, and Cody were off making the most of their $35 package ticket they purchased at the beginning of the trip. The only option for us seemed to be hiking to Cristo Blanco, a large mimic of the statue in Rio overlooking the city. Our goal seemed moderately strenuous, with potential for adventure, and was completely free.

We walked uphill from our hostel, cutting through a residential sector, and turned left along at the main highway before we found ourselves staring into the stone eyes of a giant Jesus. Cusco was spread beneath us. A colorfully dressed man was singing and playing his charango, a lute native to the Andes with more chords than a guitar.

The next hill over were the Sacsaywaman ruins that require the tourist ticket for entry. As we walked closer to check it out, a guy was calling at us and waving.

Idos, whom we met at the salt pans days ago, was camping out here! We caught up, and he filled us in on how he snuck into Machu Picchu by trying different bridges, slipping by snoozing security guards, and finding his way onto the Inca Trail. He also confused three sets of workers this morning as they attempted to stop him from walking through Sacsaywaman by insisting he understood no Spanish, and by sitting down at their feet to eat his mango as they yelled at him, eventually becoming too frustrated to care. I love Idos.

Back down in Plaza De Armas we learned the cathedrals weren’t free (we believe Quentin had wandered in during mass). Instead we went by the fountains and crafts of Plaza De San Blas and into the Mercado for chicken curry and our final smoothie.

The pedestrians kept saying there was no busses and we had to taxi to the airport, but somehow we got pointed in the direction of bus stops and suddenly there was a bus in my face with “aeropuerto” written on the windshield. Instead of paying $6 for a taxi it came out to $.20 for a 25-minute commute.

After meeting up with the rest of our group, we waited for our gate info. Hours dragged on before they finally told us it was cancelled and we would be given no compensation. Our flight was now at 5:45am. Thanks LCPeru.

Quentin and I returned to La Bo’M, stored our bags, and decided now was the best time to fulfill our cuy dining dreams. We walked to San Pedro and asked everyone for where to find the fried Guinea pig. They all said it was only cooked as street food during the day. Any shop sign with cuy written on it was only selling display cases full of raw, dead animals. Passing local produce stands, women selling kebabs and potatoes as always, we entered the the first gringo restaurant that waved us in.

$8 was a lot, but it went a long way, and we weren’t paying for lodging that night. I got the salad bar three times, piling beetroot, cauliflower, tomatoes into my vegetable (and sleep) deprived body. Our roasted Guinea pig was served whole with crispy golden potatoes. They told us to eat it with our hands, but it was more like barbaric ripping through layers of lean meat and tough skin. Water is always extra, so we shared a Sawyer filter and squeeze bag, sat in our dirty clothes and shower shoes, next to socially acceptable couples and families and aged bottles of wine on the wall.

 

Title image- Will

Each post from this trip includes this map that I intensively labored to create from how I saw the trip in my mind: