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Published: March 25th 2007
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La Catedral
The cathedral and another beautifully detailed church line two sides of the lovely Plaza de Armas in the city centre. Well, when they say that no news is good news, in our case it's certainly true. I'm sorry I've not blogged for over a week but we've simply been having too much fun here in Cusco!
We arrived last Friday really early in the morning - in fact the bus got us in at 4.45am instead of 6am as expected. Luckily we found an honest taxi driver to take us to the hostel and we had to ring the doorbell for a while to get someone to let us in. Thankfully they had a room ready for us so we dumped our bags and went to sleep for a few hours. We're staying in the Hospedaje Turistico Recoleta, a small family-run guesthouse just outside of the city centre.
After our morning nap, we went out and about to see what Cusco has to offer and the first thing that struck us was just how beautiful this city is and how friendly the people are. Nestled in a valley with terracotta tiled roofs stretching far and wide, it has an almost Mediterranean feel to it. It's noticeably cooler here than elsewhere in Peru; a real contrast to Nasca, for
City Limits
The city stretched right across the surrounding hills and at night it looks just like Christmas with hundreds of lights twinkling in the distance. sure so it's been trousers and fleeces for us, especially at night. The centre of the city is the stunning Plaza de Armas (as it is in every town and city in Peru) which is flanked by gorgeous colonial churches and stone archways to hide the glitzy shop and restaurant facades just behind.
In the middle of the square is a big fountain and plenty of benches though you can't hang around for more than 2 minutes before being approached by someone trying to sell you something. They soon run off when the Tourist Police come along but it can be annoying. We've spotted t-shirts sporting the slogan 'No Gracias' (no thank you) which is probably the thing you're going to say the most in a place like Cuzco but somehow the touts seem to bother us less here. Maybe that's just because the city really is so picturesque that for once we can take the down-side of mass tourism in our stride.
On our way along some of the main streets, one thing that really amazed us was the sheer number of indiginous people walking around in their traditional style clothing. Many of the Peruvian women here
Bedtime
An indigenous woman catches 40 winks. really do have long black hair which they tie back in a couple of plaits and they all seem to wear at least 10 skirts, woolly socks or leggings (it's like an ethnic version of Fame) and cardigans seem to be the big thing here too. Not to be outdone by the women though, some of the men here still wear knitted alapaca wool hats with ear flaps and pom poms on them, so I guess they aren't just a tourist gimmick! As well as the everyday Cusquenos (people from Cusco), there are some ethnic folks on the main tourist drags with a fluffy alpaca in tow who have quite clearly dressed up in their finest in order to get you to pay for a photo of them (usually only 1 Sole, about 15p).
We spent the first couple of days here just browsing the many, many souvenir shops which are incredibly cheap and get cheaper the further away you go from the main square. At one stand we got chatting to a nice lady who kindly offered to make a Peruvian style hat for our Jish for just a few Soles. Meanwhile Glynn bought a pair of llama
Little Inca
One of the colourfully dressed ethnic kids around town. patterned kiddie gloves and transformed them into a chunky jumper and trousers to keep Jish warm on these cold evenings.
Down one avenue, we nipped into what we thought was a souvenir shop but were delighted to find a little musical instrument museum instead. There were loads of bizarre looking bits of noise-making equipment including giant curly horns like you might expect to find in the Alps rather than the Andes, plus all manner of drums, flutes, panpies and even a guitar made out of a real armadillo, complete with head! We picked up a small okarina for Jish in the shape of an owl while we were there but resisted the tempation to buy ourselves a small ochestra's worth of instruments to take home even though there was some really cool stuff there.
The piece de resistance for me here in Cusco has to be the most wonderful vegetarian restaurant we stumbled on completely by accident. It's called 'El Encuentro' and has two branches that serve wonderfully tasty and very cheap meals. We stopped for lunch on our first day where I enjoyed my first ever double decker veggie burger and even Glynn was impressed by the
Back Passage
There's lots of old cobbled alleyways all over the city, like this back passage that Glynn discovered ;-) tastiness of his non-meaty meal. We went back for dinner and tried out the Cena, a set menu that costs only 3 Soles at one branch (on Choquechaca) and 4 Soles at the other (we think the rent might be higher for the restaurant on Santa Catalina as all the dishes are identical but it costs a few Soles more there). The Cena consists of a big bowl of soup, a set main course - usually something like a stir-fry with salad and rice -, and a cup of tea for afters. It's a filling meal and the cena is different every day - great value for just 50p per person! No wonder it's always busy in there :-))
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