Some well-deserved – and well-needed – R&R was in order, and Cusco is the perfect place in which to do it. It’s a largeish town, very pretty, with lots of beautiful old Spanish colonial-style buildings and town squares, and is surrounded by mountains. Its food, architecture, fashion and daily life is a good blend of traditional Peruvian and Western/European culture.
Cusco reminds me a little of Quito, with its architecture, landscapes and little cobbled back streets. Also like Quito, Cusco is quite high up altitude-wise, so you have to take it relatively easily walking around or you become puffed and dizzy. But it’s the kind of place you don’t want to rush around anyway.
We had a few days of free time away from our tour group, and could do whatever we wanted. We chose to:
- not wake up to alarms
- sleep a lot
- eat and drink a lot, mostly at Jack’s – it’s a local institution: we saw people from our tour and Lares trek there every time!
- sightsee a little (the usual churches, galleries, monuments, shops)
- shop a little (well, shop a lot)
- people watch in the main town square (while we ate and drank some more)
- drink delicious cocktails, beer and whisky, and eat tasty tapas, in a cosy Australian-owned bar (Los Perreros?) that reminded us of one we’d find in Brunswick – chilled lounge music, couches and all
- eat chocolate and drink whisky in the comfort of our bed
- watch US crime and spy dramas, the only English language shows on telly (while we ate chocolate and drank whisky in bed)
- visit markets
- post our (my) shopping home (which was surprisingly easy!) – and say a prayer that it would make it (it did – about two months after we got home!)
- get massages (good ones this time!)
- watch military and uniformed groups, and kids in fancy dress, parade around the main square for the Corpus Christi festival
- play Connect Four in a Mexican restaurant/bar, with fires burning, music playing and red Chilean wine flowing (and me kicking Chris’ butt)
- make friends with local cats
- recover from our respective colds.
Our days started with a mid to late morning breakfast at Jack’s – usually an egg and veggie combination; sometimes porridge or burritos and salad; and always fresh juices, delicious lime/lemon, honey and ginger tea, and what Chris tells me was very good coffee. We’d chat with people from our tour and trek who were always there at the same time, read the paper or a book, and maybe write a little. (Hot tip: get there late morning and you probably won’t have to queue.)
After breakfast, we’d walk around to settle our food and explore, before eating and drinking some more.
There are four churches in the main square, Plaza de Armas. Three of the churches are connected, one of these being the quite impressive cathedral. Due to the Corpus Christi carnival (a big, religious shindig that goes for a week), there were a lot of religious effigies being carted around and displayed in Cusco. The cathedral was full of them. Around the effigies, the locals had put mountains of flowers and other decorations. If you could ignore the statues’ odd sizes, slightly creepy facial expressions and beady eyes that followed you (us heathens) around the cathedral, it was almost festive.
The churches were built on top of Incan ceremonial sites/temples and monuments (of course), to blend Incan and Spanish religion. The architecture was meant to be a blend of Inca and Spanish design as well, but we couldn’t see anything about them that looked Incan. They looked very similar to the other South American churches we’d visited: with more than one scary-looking Jesus bleeding left, right and centre; blingy Marys looking down at us angelically; weird cherubic heads being stood on by old men in robes; and lots of antique artwork, gold leaf and wood carvings. I guess it’s the same in Europe – the churches (as pretty as they are) start to blend into one after you’ve seen, well, more than one.
Steven, the older man from our tour, told us there was a surprisingly unassuming wooden cross in one of the churches that Pizarro carried with him on all of his travels. We think we saw it in the Company of Jesus church, but weren’t sure. (We couldn’t get an audio guide because of the festival, or closing times or something.)
We visited the Inca Museum and Museum of Pre-Columbian Art. They were both quite good, and featured historical art and artefacts dating from around 1500 BC to 1500 AD. The Inca Museum has a much broader and more general display than the art museum, and was more interesting than the art museum, even though the quality of its displays isn’t as good. The art museum has high-quality, well-preserved displays of pottery, silver, gold and woodwork in a nice environment, but terribly cheesy and pompous descriptions that we stopped reading after a few minutes.
We visited the Inca Museum and Museum of Pre-Columbian Art. They were both quite good, and featured historical art and artefacts dating from around 1500 BC to 1500 AD. The Inca Museum has a much broader and more general display than the art museum, and was more interesting than the art museum, even though the quality of its displays isn’t as good. The art museum has high-quality, well-preserved displays of pottery, silver, gold and woodwork in a nice environment, but terribly cheesy and pompous descriptions that we stopped reading after a few minutes.
Shopping in Cusco is very good – with a range of proper silver and goldsmiths and their (expensive) shops, wool mills and their (expensive) shops, pottery makers and their (expensive) shops, and (relatively inexpensive) markets. There are also general clothing, shoe and souvenir shops. We bought some locally made jumpers, boots, sandals, herbal medicine and tshirts – and posted a big box of stuff home, because there was no way everything was going to fit in our backpacks!
While we were out shopping, I befriended some of the more furry of the locals (as I tend to do). At the market, I met a particularly affectionate tabby with a very large, cartoon-like angular head. He pushed his way up onto my lap when I bent down to pat him, then gave me head butt kisses and snuggled into my arm pit, where he drooled away happily as I scratched his ear. I stood up and this little guy held on to me, paws stretched around my arm and nuzzled in in a big hug. He didn’t want to let go of me. So very cute.
I also became attached to a rather gorgeous, chilled out, calico cat called Senorita, who lives in a dark and dingy rug/poncho/blanket shop among all the posh restaurants and clothing stores in the main square. We went back several times to pat her. The owners, who proudly display behind the counter a picture of their elderly mother with Mick Jagger, invited us in to pat Senorita each time, without trying to sell us anything (quite refreshing really!). Said elderly mother sat quietly in a chair next to door, a blanket over her knees and white Maltese terrier on top. Of course, because they were so lovely, we felt like we should buy something, but couldn’t see anything we wanted (other than the cat of course, but she wasn’t for sale). Incidentally, Senorita’s fur seemed to coat all of the rugs/ponchos/blankets for sale, probably because she lounged wherever she liked.
We could have done more sightseeing in Cusco, and there was more to see, but what we did was perfect. We felt much better for these few days’ rest, getting on top of our colds, catching up on sleep, and being well fed and watered. We felt a little more human, back to our relatively normal selves and ready to tackle the final leg of our Peruvian tour.
While we were out shopping, I befriended some of the more furry of the locals (as I tend to do). At the market, I met a particularly affectionate tabby with a very large, cartoon-like angular head. He pushed his way up onto my lap when I bent down to pat him, then gave me head butt kisses and snuggled into my arm pit, where he drooled away happily as I scratched his ear. I stood up and this little guy held on to me, paws stretched around my arm and nuzzled in in a big hug. He didn’t want to let go of me. So very cute.
I also became attached to a rather gorgeous, chilled out, calico cat called Senorita, who lives in a dark and dingy rug/poncho/blanket shop among all the posh restaurants and clothing stores in the main square. We went back several times to pat her. The owners, who proudly display behind the counter a picture of their elderly mother with Mick Jagger, invited us in to pat Senorita each time, without trying to sell us anything (quite refreshing really!). Said elderly mother sat quietly in a chair next to door, a blanket over her knees and white Maltese terrier on top. Of course, because they were so lovely, we felt like we should buy something, but couldn’t see anything we wanted (other than the cat of course, but she wasn’t for sale). Incidentally, Senorita’s fur seemed to coat all of the rugs/ponchos/blankets for sale, probably because she lounged wherever she liked.
We could have done more sightseeing in Cusco, and there was more to see, but what we did was perfect. We felt much better for these few days’ rest, getting on top of our colds, catching up on sleep, and being well fed and watered. We felt a little more human, back to our relatively normal selves and ready to tackle the final leg of our Peruvian tour.
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