Cusco!

Now, let's see.....we left for Dallas on Tuesday, we flew to Fort Lauderdale and on to Lima on Wednesday, got on a bus headed to Cusco on Thursday and spent the night, so it must have been Friday morning when we arrived in Cusco. It all sort of blurred together, and we were all three a little sleep deprived and had slight headaches at some point after arriving in Cusco. It's easy to blame altitude, but when you haven't slept well it's hard to say what the real culprit is.

We were eager to explore and hungry though, so we walked for a bit in the historical part of down, just down the Avenue del Sol and found a traditional style restaurant to eat lunch. We were eager to try things we had heard about so:

Troy ordered guinea pig. Right off the bat, for his first lunch. Couldn't wait.

 

I ordered one of those corn cobs with the gigantic kernals I had read were so delicious (hmmm, not so much, really) which was served with huge hunks of cheese and some tomatoes. I also ordered mutton. I guess I was starving. We all ordered too much food at this meal. Like I said, a bit sleep deprived.

 

Kalyn ordered ceviche, which is fresh raw fish (in this region usually trout) marinated in citrus juices. It was good, but it was heavy on the juices and spiced with chili peppers.

And then dancers came in colorful bird costumes and performed traditional dances. Notice the huge potato print on the wall. Peru is famous for many different kinds of potatoes. They have some very unusual ones we would find on our plates throughout our trip.

 

This little girl was loving the dancers and was dancing along with her brother. The Peruvian children are adorable. Their parents dress them up so cute and dote over them.

We were kind of wanting to explore more after lunch, but we were more tired than anything else. We went back to the Hotel Taypikala, and sometime in the early evening our room phone rang. Madison and Carrie had arrived by train from Puno, I believe. We were happy to see them and they were happy to see us. They had been in Peru a week before us, but even in our short few days we were getting frustrated trying to communicate with only Spanish speaking people.

We got to explore some of the town the next day. We went to the grocery store to get water to drink. I love grocery stores in foreign countries. The packaging on familiar items is so different, and the unfamiliar items are even more interesting. I remember, in the glass case when you walked in they displayed clear plastic cups with chocolate pudding layered with lime jello. Interesting combination.

We did not want headaches due to altitude sickness. I read a lot about coca leaves and heard that these candies should help while hiking. We bought several and ate them liberally. Calling them candies is a bit deceiving, they tasted more like a throat lozenge.

 Kalyn is always checking out the pastries at the store.

These sweet ladies asked in sweet voices if we want to take a picture with their cute goat? We gave them a sol and took the picture. There would be many, many cute girls dressed the same way with cute little goats asking for pictures, but this was our only one.

 Here are the girls in front of a fountain near our hotel.

This is a famous cathedral (ca-teee-dral) on the Plaza de Armas.

Troy and I posed in front of the cathedral doors. Of course we had coffee at the Starbucks next door, for Kalyn. It's interesting to see stores and restaurants of today housed in original Inca buildings. The Starbucks was built on top of one.

I bought a bag at this shop. I would later purchase a poncho at a similar shop. I knew I wouldn't come home without one.

On Sunday we transferred over to the Hotel Puma to meet our tour group. We wondered who we would be hiking the Inca Trail with. Where would they be from? How old were they? How long had they been in Peru? Where had they been before? What would we learn from them? I will post about that tomorrow.