Cusco

As we had heard Jack's Cafe served a great breakfast, we decided to head to the San Blas neighborhood this morning. We had pancakes, eggs, and french toast. I'm still sad that I can't drink orange juice as the acidity doesn't go well with the altitude, but I had a mate de coca. After breakfast, we walked back to our hotel where our trusty and reliable driver from Cusco Transport, Jose Carlos met us at 9 am. We had arranged a Four Ruins tour of places near Cusco for half a day. All of these ruins were included in our boleto turistico. At this point, we had seen so many ruins, but were interested in seeing more. The UK has castles, Bali has temples, and Peru has Inca ruins!

The first one we saw was the largest and only 20% of it remains, called Sacsayhuaman. It was a fortress and was the site of one of the bloodiest battles against the Spaniards. The stones are quite large and we enjoyed beautiful views of Cusco city. After hiking up Wanya Picchu, we all definitely felt the soreness in our legs, but are so proud of what we have been able to accomplish. Here's a picture of Jamie and me and the people by the stones puts the size in perspective:

Afterwards, we headed to Tambomachay which is known as the Inca Baths. It's a small complex of terraces and a pool where they most likely worshipped and held ceremonies. A photo of Mary Ann, Caitlin, and me:

Right next to Tambomachay, is Puca Pucara, a small red fortress where it was most likely a storage facility and has nice views of the countryside. 

Our final ruin was Q'enko where there is a cavelike altar used for conducting sacrifices. Here's a picture of us in front of the cave:

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by an Alpaca store and bought a few items. We rested for a bit back at the hotel and enjoyed oranges that we bought from one of the peddlers at the ruins. 

As we were leaving our hotel, it started to rain. So instead of meandering the city, we decided to go right across the street to the Temple of the Sun - Qoricancha and Santo Domingo Church. According to my guidebook, it is a perfect example of Inca / Andean culture and Catholicism colliding. Due to celebrations of the Virgin Mary, there were children dancing in native costumes. Indeed, we had even seen a parade last night and there were fireworks to start off the celebrations. 

Then we walked up to the Plaza de Armas which is the main square to visit the Cusco Cathedral. The Cathedral has two churches - one on each side. One is the Church of the Holy Family (coincidentally, the name of my church in NY) and the other is the Church of Triumph. Inside the Cathedral is where the Last Supper painting with the guinea pig is located and the Apostles are drinking chicha which is a local fermented maize beer. The Cathedral and the churches had many paintings, incredible wood carvings, and several altars. 

As it was around 2 pm, we were hungry looking for a good restaurant. A restaurant peddler came up to us and kept putting her menu in front of Jamie. After saying "no gracias" a few times and as we whipped out our guidebooks, Mary Ann started looking at various menus in front of restaurants that lined the square. By the third one, she waved us over and this was actually the same restaurant that the original lady was pushing us to! The lady ran up to Mary Ann and started putting the menu in front of her. It was clearly the same menu, but Mary Ann refused to look at her menu and would only read the menu that was in front of the restaurant. Mary Ann waved us over saying we should eat there. We laughed as we watched Mary Ann add salt to the wound. The restaurant was called Maizitos, or little corn - they had corn inside the tabletops. We asked for the very same price fixe menu the lady had quoted us, so all in all, we ended up at the same place that we tried to avoid. We did end up having a nice view of the plaza as it had stopped raining. Included in our lunch was a drink, so Jamie and I had pisco sours and I claimed "when in Rome…" Yet ironically, instead of having Peruvian food, I ordered spaghetti as Caitlin aptly pointed out. Love you Caitlin for keeping me in check!

After our lunch, we headed back to the hotel to wash up and then to enjoy a round of our hotel's famous pisco sours. We ordered one that had passion fruit and Mary Ann had one that tasted like a mojito. We then went to the Museo Nativo where people line up an hour in advance to watch traditional local dancing. The dancing was also included in our boleto turistico ticket. 

After the show, it started to rain again so after a quick stop at our hotel, we headed to the Plaza and ended up eating at Incanto. We had a bottle of Malbec, shared a ceviche and a salad with fried chicken and palm hearts. For dinner, I had a "traditional Peruvian dish" according to the menu - black linguini with prawns. Not sure how it's Peruvian, but I love black linguini!

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to rest up and get ready for our luxury train to Puno tomorrow!