Retail Therapy in Pisac

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O.K, so I'll be honest, I arranged this part of our trip to be able to see the famous market in Pisac, after all a girl has to get her retail therapy in sometime. Well, Pisac is a small town about 40 minutes by public bus from Cusco. (Yes, despite the horror of our hotel owner, we took the public bus.) Pisac is famous for it's market and who can resist that? Don't believe he hype. In the rating of markets I have seen it wouldn't crack the top 5! It might make the top ten. The problem is really the redundancy of the items. It becomes almost like how many Pachemama earrings can one person see, use, buy as gifts, etc! Anyway, there were a few interesting little stands one, a shop where they sold corn jewlery, yes, the vegetable. There are in Peru an amaing variety of I guess subspecies of corn and potatoe. The proceeds from sales go back into the communtiy where the craft is produced, thereby helping preserve some of the traditional artasania as well as providing some income for the community, specifically woman. This is similiar to the programs instituted under Queen Noor in Jordan and in my mind a really cool idea. Also really cool about the market, is the local section, where fruits, vegetables are bought and traded and locals gather for an afternoon meal. For me, this was the highlight of the market. Plus they seemed to have the Cuy tee shirts pretty much everywhere. These shirts have really interesting things on them, all involving guinea pigs or peru. They are really funny and unfortunately, I seem to own a few.

Pisac is also the site of another Inca ruin, which is fairly impressive in it's size, scale and scope. You can reach the ruin by a two hour hike up a long set of steps or you can cheat, like we did and take a car to the ruin itself. Trust me, unless you are a serious masochist, option two is for you, especially iof it is one of your first days in the Cusco area and you are not accostomed to the altitude. Pass on strenuous hikes, even in the sacred valley where the altitude is lower and give yourself time to acclimate. This made all the difference in the world when we eventually got to the Inca Trail and were one of the few people who were not doing oxygen shots with our dinner!

On our way back, we opted for a taxi, so we could stop ar Awanacancha, another interesting place that helps the locals. Here they raise, show lama, alpaca and vicuna weaving and dyeing to the public and have a shop that has high quality textiles for sale. Proceeds going back to the community. O.K, so I am going to admit it now, I have a farm animal problem. If it eats grass and either has cute lips or a snout, or long ears, I am done. This place was really fun for me, not because I got to see a ten year old boy grind up betels to make essentually FD & C red #5 but because I got to feed the animals. Eric hates going to these places because, I never want to leave. This was right up there on the highlight of my day due 100% in part to the cuteness factor of the animals. Plus, you are pretty sure you are buying the real thing when they say "baby alpaca", it isn't "maybe alpaca".

Lisa's top markets of the world:
1) Chachuchack Weekend Market , Bangkok, Thailand
2) Khan al-Khalali, Cairo, Egypt
3) Grand Bazaar, Istanbul, Turkey
4) Chaing Mai, Night market, Chaing Mai, Thailand (see a trend?)
5) Temple St. Market, Hong Kong, China
6) Souqs of Aleppo, Aleppo, Syria
7) Belen Market, Iquitos, Peru (only for the weirdness factor in the food section)

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Photos

Finger Puppets
I am still wondering about this. They were for sale everywhere!