Once in a taxi and off toward a few hostels, to see if they had vacancies, we soon discover this is very different from Puno. In fact it's very different from most places we've been on this trip. In a good way.
The main square, the Plaza de Armas, is a picturesque affair with two large cathedrals and a central fountain. Wooden and and stone constructed buildings containing cafes, restaurants and shops line the other sides of the square. We've not seen soo many tourists in one place for a long time, well since Iquazu Falls.
The streets leading off the Plaza are narrow and cobbled. One car at a time mainly, I think a lot were one-way but sometimes you can't tell.
The street leading to our hostel is a steep cobbled affair. Not great at still a fairly high altitude. It doesn't get easier no matter how many times we climb it. At the top there's great views over the city and down onto the square.
Cusco is the old capital of the Inca empire and many Inca related things still remain, many have also been destroyed by the Spanish or built over which is why there's soo many churches here. It's a beautiful city either way. There are still many intact Inka walls and narrow streets lined with huge angled stones perfectly married together without the need for mortar. Some parts seem like they haven't changed for centuries.
We'd heard from a couple we'd met in Puno that there's an English cafe here that does classic English food. By this point I was missing some home fair and this place gave it to me. We ate a great Sunday roast, with vegatable bake, roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings(although these weren't up to my standard of course). Lovely stuff. I know it's not exactly getting into the flavours of the country but I didn't care.
Not all of Cusco is beautiful of course, Avenida del Sol is one example. A long commercial street that's constantly full of noisy traffic and people trying to get you to exchange dollars. Still, we've seen worse. Along with this there's an everyday hassle of saying, 'No, gracias' to about 20 people trying to get you in restaurants, give you massages, sell you paintings, sunglasses, jewellery, hats, clothes and marijuana. I can get past that just to be here. At night the place is lit up and looks just as good. It's also a safe place to walk around at any time. The tourist police prescense see to that. We decide to stay a while. Peru has suddenly got much better.
We gorge ourselves on great food almost every night too. There's soo many good looking places to choose from that you could eat at a different place every night for a year and it'll mainly be good. Many restaurants look rustic or arty and have gone to the effort to try and get the tourists more than any other place we've seen. We also watch a couple of live bands in a strange art bar that has weird masks coming out of the walls and crazy art scattered around. I'd be happy just to be here and eat and drink for a week or so but there's plenty of sights to see damn it!
First up was the central Inka Museum. Not a bad place, set in a Spanish Colonial mansion, with someinteresting stuff inside including a dark room filled with sacrificed mummies in frightening positions. I'm not that into looking at dead bodies tied up with their hands up to their face screaming. Well not much anyway.
We seem to round off most days here in some flash funky restaurant that's pretty cheap and has outstanding food, did I say I liked this place?
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