San Pedro Market, Cusco

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This morning Gina took those of us who were interested on a walking tour of the San Pedro Produce Market. The market is arranged in sections so when we first entered we were in the clothing section of the market. Each stall holder had a classic old Singer sewing machine ready to undertake alterations and repairs on the spot. I think some of the machines may even have been good old-fashioned Singer treadle machines!

Behind the textile section Gina explained the juice bar section to us. There were about three rows of stall holders each in a tiny (maybe one square metre?) booth mixing up juices to order. Gina told us that many of Cuzco's residents stop each morning at their favourite juice stall on their way to work.

As we worked our way deeper into the market Gina pointed out sections selling dried meat (used to make soup stock), cheese, fruit and vegetables. Gina took us down the shaman's aisle where people can purchase all sorts of favours for the Patcha Mama to bring luck and good health to their households. Most of these favours were sweets and incense and the like, but there were also dried llama foetuses which were a bit yuck to our sanitised Western way of thinking. The other rather confronting stall was the one that had a pile of skinned frogs waiting to be made into frog soup - a delicacy in these parts.

As we started heading back to the hotel we stopped in at a shop so that Gina could get a new watch battery for Meredith's watch. Coincidentally the watchmaker's shop was above/behind a shop selling sunglasses so I looked for another pair of sunglasses; hopefully a pair that have slightly better optical quality than the US$7.00 Galápagos pair! Everyone got in on the act giving their opinion on the sunglasses I was trying on. I finally settled on a pair that were marked 60S/. but Gina asked for and got a 5 S/. discount for me. Bonus!

We let Gina continue onto the hotel for some free time of her own while we went to the ATM to withdraw a few more solis and some US dollars. Our next stop was at the Kuna alpaca shop to buy the beautiful alpaca/silk scarf that I saw there earlier in the week. Damn, I should have bought it when I saw it because it was no longer in the store! Most disappointing of all ... the store didn't really have anything else that took my fancy. Looks like that will be some money saved?!

Meredith, Bernie and I headed towards Jack's Cafe for lunch discovering another Kuna store on the way. They didn't have the scarf I'd set my heart on either, but they did at least have another one that I liked enough to buy if I if I can't track down the one that I saw on Sunday. I wonder how many Kuna stores there are in Cuzco? When we reached the cafe we were lucky enough to be seated straight away again. Now knowing just how BIG their big sandwiches are we ordered the ham, cheese and tomato sandwich that I ordered on Monday to share between the three of us with some fries on the side. And it was plenty for the three of us!

Meredith decided to head to the Cathedral while we headed back to the hotel to find the name of the massage place recommended on Trip Advisor. It was supposed to be on the street that runs alongside the Cathedral towards Jack's Cafe, but we didn't pass any massage places with a name that Bernie recognised. Aha, a quick check on Trip Advisor and we had the name of the massage place - Effleurage Spa Massages - and this time we wrote it down on a piece of paper!

With the name in hand we found the massage place easily even though it was tucked away in a corner of an upstairs verandah of an old colonial house converted to accommodate commercial activities. We checked out the massage menu and booked in for two full body therapeutic massages at 4.00pm.

To fill in the time until our massages we wandered around Cuzco a bit more taking photos. With some solis coins in my pockets I even paid a couple of women in traditional dress to be able to take their photos. As we wandered we discovered a third Kuna outlet on the Plaza de Armas which makes three stores on or very near the main square. At this third store I found a baby alpaca/silk scarf that was very, very close to being the same colours as the one I had seen earlier, but still not quite the same pattern that I remembered. I decided to buy it and with the scarf on the way to the register I spied yet another colour way that I felt showed off the Andean cross pattern to better effect. We had to wait while a group of Japanese tourists concluded their purchases. Each member of their group was buying multiple pieces of alpaca fashion and there was much negotiation going on about converting the value of their purchases from solis to US dollars.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped in at the Machu Picchu Museum which was just around the corner. The museum is housed in yet another converted colonial mansion. The colonial mansions are heritage protected so businesses that operate in them must conserve the traditional facade and courtyard aspects with any alterations/augmentations that they undertake to facilitate their new use of the premises. The museum did not hold a lot of artefacts, but had some interesting information about Hiram Bingham's 'scientific' discovery of the site in 1911.

We dropped our cameras off at the hotel, along with my new scarf and headed back to Effleurage where we enjoyed (?) having our hamstrings and quads worked on after the exertions of yesterday. Towards the end of our massage a thunderstorm started so it was lovely to be feeling nice and relaxed and warm cocooned in blankets on our massage couches. I tried not to let any concerns about returning to the hotel in a thunderstorm invade my mind!

The thunder had stopped and the rain had eased off to a light drizzle by the time our massages were finished. We were able to make the short walk back to the hotel mostly under the shelter of eaves. As soon as we returned to our room we had to jump into the shower to wash off the massage oil and make ourselves presentable to go out for a group dinner at Morena a popular restaurant in Cuzco featuring traditional Peruvian cuisine. As it was our last night in Peru Bernie ordered the Lomo Saltado which is a beef, onion and capsicum stir fry. I ordered a rice and seafood dish, that I can't remember the name of, but it was very similar to a paella.

We are heading back to Chile on Saturday so an early start was scheduled. Gina wanted us to meet her in the foyer ready to go at 7.00am. I don't like these early starts at all.



Steps 15,966 (11.66km)

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Comments

[Janet Morrison]

Welcome back
Nice to see your blog back online, no doubt we will see some more entries in quick succession. Love the photos as always!