Have you ever seen a volcano erupting from the air? As we flew from Arequipa to Cusco, we had a great view of Volcan Sabancaya! How exciting!
I've always pictured Cusco as a quaint, little mountain town. It was obvious when we landed in a big city and spent 20 minutes driving to our hotel, that I was very wrong! This former capital of the Incan Empire, located in the Andes mountains at 11,000ft, making it one of the highest cities in the world. It's home to nearly half a million people and is best known for it's archeological sites and as a gateway to the Amazon. It also has teeny, tiny, incredibly narrow, stone streets! Vehicles have to share these one lane roads with pedestrians who have, at times, less than 10" of edge to stand on.
I've never seen so many hairless dogs as I have in Peru. Some wear clothes in lieu of sunblock.
Here's the view from our street in San Blas. There's a closeup below of the far mountain with the Viva El Peru sign. This ended up being a great location for us. We walked just about everywhere.
Some roads are very steep, so walking is a workout here, especially with lower oxygen levels. You know it's steep when the sidewalk is a staircase with no end in sight!
The Plaza de Armas (main square) was a short walk from our apartment. This is a main gathering place with the cathedral, park, shops along the square and street vendors.
Let's talk about the food!
Hands down, our favorite place was Avocado Toast, a cafe we visited about five times in our ten day stay. The flavor combinations were delicious, and the presentation was over the top! My favorite was the strawberry avocado toast with feta cheese and a balsamic reduction, and mango avocado ceviche.
An burger with a whole avo for the bun, and avo fries (below).
Right across the street is Green Point Vegan, another restaurant with enormous proportions that are equally as imaginative.
When in Peru....
...you just have to try the cuy (sounds like kwEE). We're talking about guinea pig. This restaurant came recommended for their cuy. We arrived very hungry and found the full baked dish we had planned on ordering requires a full hour of prep. A side was ready now, so we opted for it. How was it? Well, let's just say it was the most expensive couple bites of food during our whole trip. Both kids have always been up for trying any food that's offered, however, on this one, Journey drew the line. *Actually I think her remorse from trying alpaca and seeing this pushed her over the edge, as soon after, she decided to remove all meat from her diet.
We enjoy visiting markets and found a few different ones while exploring.
From the outside (above) and inside (below)
Lots of vendors line the streets too.
Here's more photos from our walks.
You can see how the homes are built up the sides of the mountains.
I enjoyed the variety of wall designs and the different stones used for the roads. The second one below is fashioned after the archeological sites in the area. Some rocks possibly even taken from a site.
Overall we really enjoyed Cusco and I'm happy we spent 9 days here. I would definitely return. There is one big downside. It's COLD at night and heat is not really a thing apparently. We were here in the winter (September) and it was pleasant during the day but dropped to like 30 degrees at night. The apartment manager wheeled in a 2ft long radiator to plug in...for our 3 bedroom apartment! Oh and the hot water didn't always work either. Brrr!
This is right outside our apartment.
While we had 9 days to explore Cusco, our stuff actually lived in the apartment for 16 days. When planning for Machu Picchu we found out we could only take a small pack on the train, so the apartment manager was kind enough to store our backpacks during that trip and again for our four days in the jungle.
But first I'll tell you about some of the cool archeological sites we visited in Cusco in the next post.
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