Finally, the most relaxing day of the entire trip - exploring the same city where we are staying! Every day prior we've either had to wake up early and travel to a new place or be under the iron fist of Silverio and have to wake at 4am. This was incredibly refreshing as we were able to sleep in, take our time with eating breakfast and then just spend the whole day without any agenda on hand other than explore Cusco, and perhaps buy some alpaca articles of clothing.
Our entire day literally was composed of bouncing from market to market. There are two major markets, one that specializes in alpaca and tourists which was too far to visit, and the other was the San Pedro market relatively close to the center of town, near the Plaza de Armas. This one was pretty smashing as it was essentially a local hangout for the locals with cafeteria type seating and dozens of food stands that us gringos probably would trouble stomaching, but these Andean warriors had no issue. After taking a quick tour of that section we zigzagged through rows upon rows of clothing, crafts, and other various nic-nacs. We didn't exactly purchase anything here as this was towards the end of the day. Although this had been planned as our first stop, there were countless, and I mean countless tiny side alleyways that opened up into vast underground market worlds. I was content with the first one we stopped at right by our hostel and got all my alpaca goods there, but Emma really wanted to not discriminate and truly assist the local small businesses by purchasing only one item from each of the markets we visited. It was very kind of her, and we really got an excellent insight into the local commerce scene.
Aside from the markets, we did take some time to the main cathedral located in the plaza del Armas - rightfully called, La Cathedral. Its an incredibly ornate and beautiful structure akin to any European cathedral, but really illustrates how big of jerks the Spaniards and catholic missionaries were back then. The ornateness solely comes from the conquistadors tearing down all the Incan relics to craft their own bloodart.
After a full day of shopping and walking around, Cusco has an incredibly wicked charm to it. With such a heavy European influence, absurdly high volumes of touristy traffic that brings in a stream of money, this city would fit unnoticed in any European country. From the other places we've visited in Peru, Cusco is certainly the hub of commerce. The streets are constantly bustling, you feel safe anywhere you are, and your concerns over the food, plumbing, etc are momentarily forgotten.
To conclude this day, we opted to take a quick breather from typical Peruvian cuisine and treat ourselves first to some local Starbucks lattes and then to some fine fine crepes at the local creperia conveniently across from our hostel. The Starbucks adventure was just to relax and kill some time as we didn't really have enough time to do anything else before dinner, but turned out to be an adventure in its own. Located in the plaza del Armas, their main plaza, this Starbucks was by far the nicest I've seen. Fantastic 2nd story views of the plaza with extremely expansive seating and their own door man/security guard, this was a sight. For those who recall, when traveling through Europe with my friend Courtney, she was obsessed with Starbucks Chai lattes and since Italy doesn't allow Starbucks, each city we visited we had to get one. Interestingly enough, each chai from each country tasted a bit different (if you're curious, the best chai we had was in Geneva, and then Amsterdam), and the same was the case with Peru. It actually reminded me slightly of their cheese and the typical smell of Peru which is difficult to describe, so not the most enjoyable but assumed its been catered to the Peruvian palate.
Back to the creperia; run by a girl who was born an raised in France but spent time traveling South America and fell in love with Cusco, she whipped up some dashingly good crepes with fresh ingredients typical of France. I say this only because the sight of Parmesan cheese was glorious as the typical Peruvian cheese they they slap onto most dishes is well, not very appetizing. It tastes just incredibly bland with a texture of warm plastic. We smashed away a savory ham/cheese/avocado/mushroom/onion/andmorecheese crepe and concluded it with a sweet banana/strawberry and Nutella one.
The next leg of our adventure was perhaps the most challenging as of yet, having to endure and overnight bus ride from Cusco to Puno, d:10:00pm and a:4:30am so we could tour Lake Titicaca....
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