Wednesday 15.10.14 – Cusco – Machu Picchu tickets, local markets, Sun Temple, Museo.

Up too late last night, wasn’t tired, so blogged, read, caught up on email etc and awoke not enough hours later at 5.30.

Up to the balcony on top floor of hotel, views over
Cusco.

Looking down into the lobby, in the covered
Courtyard of Awki's Dream Hotel.

Street signs were lovely, the flowers were different
colours, purple, red, yellow that we saw.

A  VW bug on the walk to the
markets.

An arch near the square.

Met guide Reni at 9.00 to take us to buy extra tickets for Machu Picchu for tomorrow arvo, we get their mid arvo, so want to take an opportunity to get a sneak peak before the guided tour on Friday. We left Bruce and Reni took us to the local produce markets for Cusco.

Here we saw the most amazing range of fruits, vegies, meats, herbs, spices, grains, corns, offal, flowers, drinks, soups, dried llama fetus’s etc. The ingredients for some of the soups were a bit stomach turning – frogs, bull penis, cows heads and god knows what else some of it was. There were all sorts of corn, spuds, quinoas, cheeses, breads and stuff used by Shamans.

Pork.

Bread.

Ladies selling fruit and veg.

Frogs, alive in the tub and skinned
up above. Used in soups.

Along with this array of 'stuff' including bulls
penises, frogs bits...and this all was in a soup that
people were enjoying.

Snouts - horse? or cow?

Definitely, bull heads.

Snouts and legs/trotters.

Algae.

Veg and legumes.

Corn.

Jelly things in the eating aisle.

Fresh flowers, all Peruvian.

Lady tending her Fruit and Veg.

Fruit and Veg.

Breads.

Algae.

Fresh cheese wheels.

Corns.

Bags of, beans, grains etc.

Nuts and Spices.

Jellies, great colours.

There was a demonstration happening in the square.

I liked the tiles of the Church shining in the sun.

Then we headed for the Temple of the Sun – Qorikancha. Qorikancha is in the Santa Domingo church – they basically took over the Sacred site of the Inca Temple of the Sun, destroyed bits and built their church on the Inca stone walls. There are some great examples of Inca walls and structures – but all the gold and jewels were raided and damaged by the Spanish.

There were lots of religious paintings of the Escuela Cusquena (Cusco School) which supposedly mix the two belief systems – Catholic and Inca. Any Inca references were pretty subtle and it all looked awfully Catholic to me.

The Church built atop and with Inca walls.

Here's us in Qorikancha. The Sun
Temple.

Niche, through niche, through
niche.

Look closely near the finger, an extra piece of stone
worked in...maybe to fill a hole?

An interesting thing, I was going
to research further but haven't.

Lunch at Nuna Raymi – Quinoa Tabouleh, Quinoa breaded chicken and Cassava balls. This restored the energy for another museum – Machu Picchu Museo – a new museum, which contains Inca artefacts removed from the site in 1911/12 by Hiram Bingham the explorer credited with discovering Machu Picchu. These artefacts had been dug up and taken back to Yale University by Bingham for further study, they were returned to create this museum in 2011. It was really interesting to see actual artefacts and to learn a lot more about the current thinking on Machu Picchu and its use as a Summer Palace for Inca royalty from Cusco.

Street with canal down the centre.

A door somewhere on our walk
today. not the many sided stone
on the right side, 4 rows from top.

Then on the walk back home an amazing hot chocolate and quinoa mousse at an unlikely last option to get something before the hotel, it was just around the corner. The hot chocolate contained cinnamon sticks, star anise, cloves and a little chunk of lime rind – it really hit the spot, as we were getting a bit tired and cold.

A-mazing hot chocolate, with star anise,
lime, cinnamon stick etc.

Back to hotel for a chill at 3.30, before heading out for dinner to a Lonely Planet recommendation – Marcelo Batata. We took a taxi for a whole S3.50 as it was cold and we were a tad weary, the meal was really, really good. We shared some Peruvian dishes and they all just melted in the mouth, washed down with a Chilean Sauv Blanc. 

Zucchini SaladHand chopped organic lettuce topped with avocado, rosemary – roasted tomatoes, grilled zucchini, tossed with a sweet lime – honey – sesame – soy sauce.

Pork Adobo
Pork tenderloin slowly cooked for hours in a traditional corn beer stock with ají panca cream, garlic, cumin, rocoto, onion, and bay leaf, served with scrambled de-hydrated potatoes

Classic Aji de Gallina
Shredded chicken tossed with a sauce made with Peruvian yellow peppers, garlic, onions, peanuts and fresh cheese and garnished with rice sautéed with corn and parley and black olive tapenade

Probably one of the higher quality places we have eaten and it was worth every cent. When we worked it out it cost a total of about 56 Aussie dollars. It was so good, we forgot to even take pictures.

It has a rooftop terrace, so we went up for a squiz.

Cusco by night. ©Suzie Sloan