Guinea Pig For Lunch, Shopping Frenzy
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
103
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Cusco,
Peru
Thursday, April 3, 2008
We did lots of shopping here where you can pick up alapaca wool clothing like ponchos, beanies, socks and scarves. It is very difficult to work out prices for bargaining and whether or not the items are the real deal or not until you shop around alot and ask lots of prices.
Guinea pig With Inka Cola
I typically go for one off unique, handmade items. We bought some beautiful crystals here including rose quartz, clear quartz, obsidian rock and serpentine. There is also loads of silver jewellery for sale here. There is an element of vendor harassment and is does get alittle annoying if you are not out shopping for anything but simply wandering around the town. We made friends with most of the jewellery sellers who frequent San Blas.Cusco is one of the Andean cities in which visitors can taste many spices, of different origins, and agricultural produce, mostly organic, treated and grown in environmental friendly and traditional ways. We had a favourite pizza shop that we would frequent where they cooked the tasty pizzas in a mud brick dome shaped oven. The restaurant is located down an alleyway in San Blas and is cheaper than those closer to the main square. We had to try the local delicacy, cuy, which is roasted guinea pig cooked in a wood fired oven. The large rodent rat creature turns up taking up your whole plate and surrounded by a few vegetables. You can still see itīs teeth and claws and even some hair. The rat tastes like a cross between chicken and rabbit and there is not much eating on the guinea pig. Worth trying though only for the novelty of it. I sent the kids a postcard home with a picture of some guinea pigs jumping into a cooking pot and Izabella took it to school for show and tell and told her whole class that "My Auntie Pixie went to Peru and she ate a guinea pig and she says it tastes just like chicken".
panoramic shot
Classic. We also ate the half an avocado stuffed with cold creamy vegetable mix too. Inka kola is popular here but tastes nothing like Coca-cola and more like creaming soda. Lots of people chew the coca leaves to alleviate altitude sickness. The worst we were effected was some huffing and puffing up the hills. Taxis are only 3 soles (AU$1) all around town anyway so we normally go for that option. There is a fresh food market downtown but there are pickpockets everywhere there and Nadine once got the spray -a- liquid- on -you -to -distract -you -and -steal -your- bag /watch /money-trick. Luckily she was clued up on it and the thieves never got a thing.
The city has lots of Inka walls still standing and most impressive of them all is the one that has a 12-sided stone set into the wall, tricky dicks the Inkas were. There is a tacky looking guy dressed up as an inka warrior who seems to guard the stone during the day and charges tourists for a photo with him and the stone. There is a trend in Cusco where the local indigenous women carry around live animals like alpacas and lambs wearing hats or costumes so they can have their photos taken with tourists. The police donīt allow this practise because of health reasons and the ladies are always on the move. Children are taught to beg at a very young age and even babies will hold their hands out for spare change. It is sad that there are many very young children working here in Cusco. We have one friend named Sylvester who we have bought some crystals from on the street leading down from San Blas to the square.
street
Sebastian is 8 years old and works full time with the crystals and then does llamada! llamada! call outs to sell mobile telephone calls. We give him a well deserved hug everytime we pass.We have met some good travellers at Casa de la Gringa which is a cool little hipppy vibe hostel owned by a lady named Lesley who runs San Pedro Cactus ceremonies from her garden located in her house nearby and close to the Temple Of The Sun and Moon. One of the people we met was Kirsty from Scotland and another was Roanne plus Jason from England and many more who passed through the casa de la gringa doors every morning. The hostel is fairly transient because lots of people do Inka trail or Salkantay treks from here. Nadine later met Felicia Finke there who is an Australien and the Auntie of our DJ friend Sheila back home. Small world. There is a guy named Miguel who lives on the couch at the hostel and works for Lesley doing cactus ceremonies. Miguel looks and acts like the Jack Sparrow character played by Johnny Depp in the Pirates of The Carribean films. He swigs wine from a bottle an eats lamb shanks with his hands. Nadine loved cooking dinner for him. One time Miguel slept in his bed with a full chunk of family sized roast meat in the bed with him. We had many fun times with Miguel the pirate. Nadine also bought him a new pipe, leather jacket and knife when he lost all his possessions in the street.
The local was the Muse cafe at the top of San Blas where the coffee was quality and the tunes were nice. We also hung out at Macondo restaurant and bar where there was a gallery of funky Dali style paintings. We ended up buying two of the pieces by the Peruvian artist and got them back to Australia.
We were to stay in Cusco for quite some time. Nadine was to be here longer than me because i went out to Diego Palmas for the Ayahuasca retreat.
