Cusco (Jan. 17-22, 2009)

We awoke in Cusco to breakfast in a pleasant hostal, anxious to see the city after arriving at 11:00 the night before. 

Our hostal, and it’s neighbor where we moved after a few days, were on Calle Albado, a pedestrian alley. Cusco’s two major plazas, marked 3 and 4 on the map, were nearby.

The hostal Orquidea Royal on Calle Albado where we stayed the first few nights is to the left. The Hotel Sueños del Inca, where we moved later, is across the alley to the right.

The Plaza de Armas, Cusco’s main plaza, is downhill about three blocks from our hotel. In the center of the photo is the Jesuits’ Iglesia del Compañia, built to compete with the cathedral, to the left, built by the Bishop. Both were constructed on the foundations of Inca palaces. Surrounding the plaza on the remaining sides, and continuing several blocks deep, are restaurants, sweater and woolens shops, art galleries, hotels, gift shops, etc.

The Cathedral, seen here with a few of the 600,000 tourist said to visit Cusco each year, houses a collection of religious paintings of the Cusqueña school, painted by Indian and mestizo artists in a European style, but with occasional Andean elements.

This is the most famous example, the last supper by Marcos Zapata which shows a guinea pig as the entreé.  (Marcos evidently didn't know that Jesus kept kosher.) We toured the cathedral, but photos are not allowed. This is from Wikipedia.

Southeast of the Plaza 6 or 8 blocks, is the Convento de Santo Domingo, built on the walls of the Inca temple of the sun.

In fact, the historic center of Cusco is built within the Inca capital, using stones from the Inca buildings and occasionally the Inca walls themselves. The wall to the right is reconstructed from Inca stones, to the left is an original Inca wall.

Wall detail.

 

In addition to sightseeing, there is shopping. Alpaca sweaters are the main item for the tourist trade, but hats, jackets, tablecloths, paintings, ceramics, and so on are all available.

And , obliging Quechua children and ladies, colorfully dressed and complete with llamas, are available for photos. 







Cusco is also a great restaurant town, with a tremendous variety to suit every tourist taste and menus in English everywhere (except the Israeli restaurant which seemed to advertise only in Hebrew.)  In addition to the Peruvian/international cuisine, seen below at Pachapapa...

...there were two Irish pubs, vaguely Indian vegetarian (root stews and curries), California vegetarian (salads, soups and veggie burgers), beef burgers, Anglo-Indian, Italian, Chinese, Argentinean, "global fusion,"and tapas, the latter served in the very pleasant bar at Cicciolina below.

And from Cusco, we took the train to Machu Picchu, which will follow soon.