12th July: Chill out Day+Cusco City Tour

Chill out day:
Nothing special to report yesterday.

Late morning breakfast, quick visit to the market, which is meant to be fairly dangerous to tourists...!!! The market not unlike what Port Louis market used to be in my younger days, in the way the stalls are setup, goods offered and smells, albeit with a Peruvian twist. Eat in stalls, Clothes, meat, fruits and veg all have their dedicated areas.

Potatoes and Corn here come in all shapes, sizes and colours. 

We buy a couple of weird looking fruits, and some mandarines to sample later, and head back to the hotel to meet Francis. Toasted sandwich lunch with fries at Paddy's highest altitude Irish pub in the world. The place might be packed full at night, but for lunchtime, it's just deserted.

Paddy's highest altitude Irish pub in the world

 Sarah and her FIRST Shepherd's pie...!!!

Quick dash back to the hotel for the city tour.

Places visited:
Main cathedral:
Built on the the foundations of what used to be the old Inca palace.
Like all cathedrals, paintings and statues everywhere, with nice structures supporting the ceiling. Highlight for me was last supper painting, with a huge guinea pig featuring at the centre of the dinner table!!!!!!!!!!!! No pics allowed... :(

Dominican cathedral:
Built by the Spanish on an old Inca temple, some of the remnants of the original stone work remain. As all the Inca constructions, the slightly inwards leaning stones are stacked together, without mortar. Bronze was actually melted into some custom grooves on adjacent stone pieces, giving support to the structure.

Saqsaywaman:
Considered as the one of the most extensive remaining ruins of the Inca temples, the place was built to shelter the royal family in case of conflict. It also acted as some sort of fortress with a stacks of weapons. 5he stones of this impressive structure were used by the evil evil evil evil Spaniards to build the main cathedral at Plaza de Armes.

Tambomachay:
More Inca temple ruins. Spring water was actually routed to this structure to provide constant flow of water to the small fountains built within. Some recesses can be found in the stone work, and during special ceremonies, the mummified remains of the old Inca kings and queens were carried all the way from Cuzco to be installed within those slots.

Quenqo:
Yet another Inca temple ruins. Somewhat less impressive (in its current state) than the other structures seen so far. According to our guide, Cuzco was actually a giant lake in the distant past, and a earthquake caused the collapse of the side walls. Quenqo actually has some underground caves that were created by water flowing out, and feeding what used to be the lake.

We finish with a visit to a shop selling genuine Alpaca clothes, where we get a brief talk about how to tell the difference between the genuine stuff and the acrylic wool garments that are sold everywhere. Why the chiffon mention, esp from an animal like me? Well, there's a nice Peruvian woman that comes every now and then at the hotel, sets up a sort of very basic stall to sell her hand made garments that she certifies as being genuine baby alpaca. she actually makes the stuff on site. Have recorded some footage of her hand at work. Impressive stuff. A hat takes a full day to make, a scarf, 5 days, and a chale, 10 days. This lady is dressed in the usual vibrant colours, and errr..I was her personal paparazzi...!!!! I got suckered into buying a scarf and a woolen hat, by a combination of her sales skills, and the feeling of guilt of milking her for pictures.

Someone looking happy in Alpaca...!!! I think it runs in the other side of the family...!!!:P

Back to centre of Cuzco, we head back to hotel to get some warm clothes, and out we go again.

Francis had been going on about having guinea pig for dinner all day, so we found a restaurant that offered the 'delicacy'. From accounts of past guinea pig victims, the animal itself doesn't taste too bad. Not a lot of flesh, lots of minuscule bones that you are meant to nibble. The feet apparently can be eaten whole, with bones and all...CRUNCHY...!!!!!!!!:P

Maybe it was the printed picture of the roasted animal (looks really yucky if you ask me), or the thought of nibbling over zillions of minuscule rodent bones, or a new found sanity at the very last crucial moment, but he just shied away, and got an Alpaca steak instead... .... .... .... .... LETDOWN...!!!!!!!

Finished the night with the now ceremonial freshly squeezed fruit juice yummyness. Mango, passion fruit, orange and strawberry combo BLISS...!!!!!!