Fabulous food and starry skies

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Geo: -13.52, -71.99

Our body clocks have now made sure that each morning, between 6 and 7, our eyes ping open and we are ready for the day. So, after an early breakfast, we headed out back onto the pretty streets of Cusco, the morning sunshine filtering through the clouds. After a short walk, we found ourselves in the main square - Plaza de Armas, an elegant open space with grassy areas, a colonnaded walkway around the outside, with bars and cafes, their balconies overlooking the scenes below. On two sides, the cathedral and a series of equally imposing churches cast the cobbles into shade, while mountains rise bending the owner level buildings on the other two sides. In the centre of the square, a statue of Tupac Amaru, a local man who ferociously fought off the conquistadors, glitters in golden glory, remembered for all time.

We ventured into the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus quite by accident, mistaking its grandeur for the cathedral, and it turned out to be a beautiful mistake to make. A vast dome let light flood down into the altar which was a huge golden wonder, around five metres tall, and wider still, it glistened in the early morning light. At the time of building, there had been a dispute between the church and what is now the cathedral about which could be the cathedral - a dispute that had to be settled by the intervention of the pope at the time, it wasn't until the church had eclipsed the grandeur of the cathedral that word came back that it was to be the current cathedral that had won. By this time, the church was already as beautiful as it currently is and still holds its own against its neighbour sitting perpendicular to it on the square. Inside, we visited the crypts, seeing the original frescoes that would have existed when it was an Inca temple (the many churches in the city owe their very existence to the fact that the Spanish built all of their churches on the site of former temples, and since Cusco was the very heart of the Inca world, there were literally hundreds for the Conquisadors to choose from). After our visit to the crypts, we climbed the vertiginous, rickety stairs (more of a ladder really) to a beautiful balcony that gave a stunning vantage point over the square and the buildings of the city beyond.

From here, we raced to join our free walking tour of the city, where we encountered tourism wars as I've never seen them before. The company we had booked through were the original tour company, and wearing vests with FWT LIMA in the back. Another company has set up as a rival, wearing the same jacket with a different slogan on the back. We had been warned about this when we booked - be sure to look for the FWT vest. As we approached the pretty square where we were due to meet, three representatives came rushing over, shouting over one another, pushing each other and demanding our attention quite angrily. I've heard of rival waking tours in cities, but never with such obvious animosity between them. Sadly, after half an hour of the promised three hours, the tour had not given us any extra information than we had received on our first day with our guide, and one of the local stray dogs had taken quite a shining to the group, so we snuck off after admiring the same Inca walls we had with our original guide and made our way to one of the pretty blue balconies overlooking the square for a cup of coffee and the chance to do some people watching with a beautiful backdrop. Unfortunately, the sun had all but disappeared by this point and we were beginning to feel the effects of the cold, so we decided to follow our own walking tour itinerary plucked from the Lonely Planet, and make our way back to the central market to indulge in some local food and shopping. En route, we passed colonial balconies hanging over the street, pretty churches and impressive arches. It was while we were passing under one such imposing arch that the heavens opened and we were treated to our first proper deluge in South America - unexpected in the dry winter season here. Fortunately, we were only out in the rain for around five minutes, our feet sliding around on the slippery, cobbles, before we reached the cacophony of the central market. Our destination was the fruit seller to find ip the incredible passion fruits from our first day, followed by an enjoyable chocolate tasting expedition to find the perfect presents to bring home. After a brief foray to the textiles section, we found ourselves in the hot food area, where locals perched on long benches, steaming cauldrons of soup, pans of sizzling meat and vegetables, frying fish and sweet juices sending plumes of sweet smelling smoke into the air. We perused several of the stalls before being enticed by one smiling proprietor who invited us to sit at her counter. We tucked into bubbling bowls of potato and vegetable soup, laced with spicy chillies and more lomo saltado, the crispy fries contrasting with the soft beef and fluffy rice. It was a feast fit for a king, and yet cost the princely sum of five soles. That's equivalent to one English pound.

Our belts straining, we made our way back to the textile sellers, where we bought hats, woollen headbands and scarves, ready for our evening excursion up the mountain to the planetarium of Cusco. There was a limitless array of patterns, colours, textures and sizes and, had our backpacks have not already been bursting at the seams, we could happily have bought throws and wall hangings for every room in the house, as well as hats, scarves and gloves enough to kit out a football team. We did manage to buy a beautiful ceramic bowl and intricately patterned gourd musical instrument to add to our lounge collection of travel artefacts before common sense took over and we recognised the limits of our luggage.

Emerging blinking into the daylight after a couple of hours in the market, we chanced upon another smaller market, this one selling only handicrafts. Here, we met the most adorable young boy we have every laid eyes on - Dominic, who could not have been more than 3 years old, and yet had the sales patter that would make Alan Sugar proud. Each time we showed interest in an item, he would show us its softness, and quality, before asking his father to fetch the mirror so we could see what we looked like wearing it. Whether his presence at the stall was a deliberate move on his father's part to increase trade, or just a childcare situation as unclear, but he certainly did the trick and we came away with another scarf to add to our collection. All dressed up in my purchases, I now looked like an intrepid explorer, albeit one who had just emerged from India's Holi festival - I am a rainbow adorned walking Peruvian textile advertisement.

Once we had been back to the hotel, had a couple of local beers and layered up, it was time to meet the rest of our group for our last excursion together. Eight of us headed back through Cusco's streets to the smaller square we had met our tour at earlier. Here, we chanced upon the chocolate museum, where we sampled fruit-based chocolate spreads, liquor shots and tiny pearls of organic chocolate in dark, milk and white. It was delicious, but the prices were clearly orientated to the tourists, and it was no better than the confectionary we had loaded up on at the market earlier in the day, so we took our leave and waited for our guide to the planetarium, the temperature beginning to dip rapidly, making us grateful for our purchases earlier, Dominic's scarf keeping me particularly toasty.

Our minibus wound along the roads snaking out of the city, high up towards the top of the mountains overlooking the city. The sun was setting behind us, casting the rooftops and surrounding hills in a golden glow. As dusk settled, we left the paved road, and bumped our way along a rough track before arriving at a rustic building, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. From here, we were led into a simple room, with benches facing a series of photographs of Inca sites and maps. Here, we were told more about the Inca religion and how they respected their environment, using the celestial markers in the sky above them to predict weather, crops, seismic activity and natural disasters and allow the, to store food, prepare for times of hardship and feed a growing population at times of extreme drought. From here, we were led into the next room, a vast, unexpected dome where, as temperatures plummeted, we were treated to an incredibly detailed and impressive lecture on the constellations in both the northern and Southern Hemisphere, which markers to use to locate them, and how they were used by land and sea-faring civilisation and explorers to navigate and guide. After a thorough explanation of traditional constellations and zodiac, the Stars connected with faint pictures representing the different symbols, while the dome rotated above our heads providing a dizzying viewpoint of the night sky over the course of the year. We learned about the Inca representations of the traditional constellations, both the stellar constellations, as well as the dark constellations created by dust and space in the galaxy and realised that the white smudge we had seen when looking skywards while walking through the streets of Ollantaytambo had been the Milky Way. Sadly, the next part of the evening, which would have been incredible, simply couldn't happen. We went outside to see what we could see through the telescopes, and to show what we had learned, but due to the cloud cover, we could only see one star. It didn't taint our evening, however, as the demonstration itself, run by an enthusiastic member of the celestial-obsessed family that run the planetarium, more as a research facility for themselves than for anything else, had been exceptional.

Our journey back to town took us down narrow streets, the incline of which rivalled any roller coaster I've been on, and we jolted and jiggled our way down to the main square, where we were fortunate enough to stumble upon a rehearsal by some of the local school children of their dance ready for performance later in the month. In the glow of the lights surrounding the plaza, they danced with ropes, skipping and jumping in time to a drum beaten by one of their teachers. It was an adorable sight and we stopped for a while to enjoy the performance. We then found a rotisserie chicken place that was warm, welcoming and full of locals, where we enjoyed bargainous juicy chicken quarters and mountains of chips, washed down with "sangria" (a heady mix of red wine with finely chopped apples), before finally admitting defeat as our eyes, stinging with exhaustion, treacherously closed as we sat at the table. We bade our group farewell, half of whom were leaving early to go to the jungle, and headed to bed, ready to fly back to Lima tomorrow and say goodbye to the land of the Incas.

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