We've made it to Cusco!
Let me start by saying Foodiana has something wrong with her stomach. Literally gurgling all the time and every time I eat something, I immediately lose all appeal for that food. It’s bad. So no food pics right now bc it may make me nauseous.
Altitude is tough. Coca tea is everywhere. You think you’re fine until you run up the stairs to get something in the room and find you are panting, heart pounding, and can’t catch your breath.
We arrived in Cusco by plane, got a taxi to the hostel, and wandered around to find food. Cusco is a tourist trap. Every place is geared to tourists or looks like fast food or is somewhat seedy.
Lunch was simple. We ate at a small cafe called La Mariana. Salad, cream of asparagus soup, chicken and rice. Chocolate cake was the highlight. Simple but good. 20 soles each which is about $7. The girl serving us seemed very excited to have people there
A friend from work told me she did an ATV tour around Cusco and that it was the highlight of her trip. It has started raining after lunch so we bought some panchos and walked around to find an ATV rental place. We ended up signing up for a tour the next morning since it’s usually sunny during the mornings. Instead the guy gave us a driver to take us to the markets at Pisac which cost about $50.
The drive to Pisac is where we got the beautiful pictures of the mountains and the pic of Adam and me in front of them. We both tried to nap on the drive but it was too beautiful. The last picture is of the market: stall after stall of “authentic” Peruvian goods. Some of the stuff was being made in front of us or you could tell it was handmade but the majority of the places have the same items over and over again. We bought a lot of stuff anyway.
In the small town of Pisac, we stopped in to a tiny little place with a sign for Empanadas. There was a grandma and a girl sitting at a table. She took the empanadas from a basket and put them in the clay oven to heat them up.
Unfortunately, they were still cold inside so I didn’t eat them. Adam said they were “alright” but we were both excited by the authentic experience.
It’s always possible to haggle but I really don’t have the heart to many of the times. On the drive over, we also passed through many mountain towns and small cities and seeing how some of these people live…it made me more generous. The poverty is incredible. We wouldn’t even consider these humane living conditions. It’s hard to tell what is even considered a house/home. Some of the places I looked into the door and saw mud floors. Definitely no heat, hot water, or plumbing. It's wonderful to see the world, but sometimes it is sad too.
