La Vida de Comida

Yes, we´re still in Cusco, waiting for our group to leave on the Inca Trail for Machu Picchu, but we´ve done plenty of enjoyable things in the afternoons after our Spanish classes. We still have yet to explore the true nightlife of the town due to the altitude and our relatively early mornings, but we´re not the most ardent clubgoers anyway.

On Thursday, we ate the fantastic inexpensive food of Cusco at its tourist-free Mercado Central. Starting off with, a trio of rings of fried dough (called Picarones) topped with a syrup of some sort, that cost us roughly 40 cents American. We followed that off with a slice of Chocolate cake at the same price. Another vendor enticed us with inexpensive and freshly squeezed strawberry-orange juice. We followed the juice with some 15 cent popcorn.

On Friday, after hiking to and from the ruins at Sacsayhuaman we took an entirely different route, eating our fanciest meal of the trip, a place called Fallen Angel, Fire and Ice, which has to be the coolest looking place I´ve ever eaten - it´s fantastical, but not too ostentatious. The restaurant/club has a long, labyrinthine interior and seduced Sarah with large fishtanks that also function as its largest tables. Flying pigs are suspended from the ceiling in front of the bar and the restaurant hangs paintings by local artists on its walls. When the final bill came, our waiter presented it inside the treasure chest. The food was pretty good as well - Sarah claimed that eating her sweet potato ravioli was like ¨eating heaven.¨ I had a small, but tasty steak topped with a thick, tangy Andean cheese that we´ve been eating the entire week. We kept on thinking about how much the meal would cost if the restaurant were in San Francisco or Vancouver, and that San Francisco or Vancouver could use a place of such whimsy and such good food.

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