Cusco Day (with Pictures!)

First things first. We had to delay our trip to Lima. They are fumigating the house where we will stay and can't accmodate visitors until Saturday. So I'll have to contain my travel excitement for two more days. We have bus tickets to leave Cusco on Friday at 11AM and are scheduled to arrive in Lima at 7AM. So given the usual Peruvian time conversions, we'll probably be in Lima by 9. 

Next up, photos! The computers have been cleaned and are currently virus-free, which means I can transfer photographs to the computers without fear of infecting my laptop. Yesterday I went in to Cusco by myself to buy bus tickets for us, pick up some translated documents for the JVs in Tacna, and run an errand for the parish. Here is my day in pictures:

To get to Cusco I caught a bus. I was lucky enough that it had empty seats, so I didn't have to stand for the whole 40 minute ride.

My first errand was to pick up translated documents for Tacna. The translator works in the neighborhood called Magisterio, which is a fairly upscale neighborhood. Note the buildings taller than two stories, the clean cars, and the green trees.

After getting the documents, I caught a cab to the city center. I went to the Jesuit residence to pick up some documents for the parish. Downtown Cusco mixes colonial and Incan arquitecture. The stones on the lower half of the building are original Inca stones, all cut without steel and held together without any mortar. Fun fact - if you send me mail, this is the address you are sending it to. Fr. Calilo picks it up and brings it back to Andahuaylillas for us.

This is the Cathedral of Cusco, located on the Plaza de Armas. 

There was a protest of the new Youth Labor Law on the Plaza de Armas. It was passed last month, and is highly contested by Peruvian youth. There have been demonstrations in Lima almost every week since it passed. If you look in the back of the second picture, you can just make out the national police standing by with riot shields. Things didn't get ugly, but the police are always prepared with riot geat whenever I have seen a protest of any kind.

Next stop, the Terminal Terrestre - the bus station. Thanks to a tip from the parish administrator, I knew that it shouldn't cost more than S./3.50 to get to the terminal, and the cab driver wasn't able to charge me extra for being foreign. I compared times and prices of 4 different bus lines (there were about 10 that go to Lima). An interesting thing here is that you can pay more for seats that recline more, and seats are advertised by the reclining angle. Erin and I will be sitting in seats that recline to 160 degrees. Worth the extra money when we'll be in the bus all day and night. 

Instead of taking a cab, I decided to walk back to the city center. Avenida el Sol (Sun Avenue) has a wide pedestrian walkway splitting the two directions of traffic.

At the end of the walkway is this park. Across the street is a giant artisinal market. It's sort of the beginning of the tourist section of the city, and you start to hear a lot more languages once you pass this point.

For lunch I went to my favorite spot, Mercado San Pedro (Saint Peter's Market). Besides lunch stalls, you can buy all sorts of food here. On the left is the meat section of the market. Yes, that is raw meat sitting out in the open air. No, it's not weird here, it's the norm. Only fancy places can afford to refridgerate their meat. On the right is the potato aisle. Those are all different kinds of potatos, and Peruvians have specific ways to cook each one. 

Lunch at Mercado San Pedro is always fun. There was a guitarist playing music in the next aisle of stalls. When I took the picture of the soup, the man sitting next to me said "Friend, you're supposed to eat the food, not take pictures of it." I assured him that I was only taking pictures of the food so that I could show my people in the US what a real Peruvian meal looks like. On the left we have sopa de trigo (soup of wheat) and on the right we have trucha frita con lentejas (fried trout with lentils). I didn't eat the salad, raw vegetables are a risky thing, especially if you didn't prepare them youreself.

Dessert isn't as much a part of my life here as it is in the States. But, there are some delicious bakeries near Mercado San Pedro. They were just pulling some bread out of the oven when I arrived, and it smelled like home. I bought a lengua (translates to "tongue"). It's made of flaky pastry dough sandwiched around manjar blanco (Peruvian for caramel). Delicious.

After a visit with my host family, I returned to the Urcos bus station to catch a bus. They can pack up to 12 busses in this lot. Buses are leaving almost every ten minutes (they usually don't leave until the bus is full, but it fills up pretty quick). 

After 8 hours in Cusco, I returned to the Casa de los Voluntarios (the volunteer house) to eat scrambled eggs and toast for dinner with Erin. It was a day well spent.