The afternoon

So everyone was right when they said I’d drop dead of exhaustion for the first few days. I want to do yoga and stretch out my back and legs but it’s too cold in this hostel (or the hotel yesterday for that matter) for me to want to take off my sweaters, scarf, boots, gloves, ect. So I’ll settle for lying down and typing (which I can’t imagine anything feeling as good as sitting after walking all over this city).

This is the hill....




After my morning… I struck out looking for apartments and found nothing. Not a sign, not a whisper at a café, not a small pamphlet listing vacancies. I wandered through San Blas (arts district) for a bit to no avail (and honestly after wandering here for a day, I already think this is not the area for me—why I wanted a hostel here in the first place). Then on to Central Cusco, then to the Western part of Cusco. I have decided to go for the apt that was found for me by Nilda, because of convenience and because I don’t want to be in a hostel indefinitely. And honestly, everyone in the states keeps telling me they can’t find one room studio apts for that price, let alone with utilities included. So win.

When I finally gave up looking, it was well into lunchtime so I wandered the absolutely gigantic, fabulous Mercado Central de San Pedro. Did I mention it’s really big? And supremely crowded? When I first entered, I was immediately surrounded by large gathered skirts of the traditional Peruvian style (thought not in fabric). At each booth, there was a little Peruvian lady or gentleman with a treadle-powered sewing machine, working on garments, which were hung up for sale as soon as they were completed. There were all sorts of hats and vests and mantas (shawls) and ponchos and mittens and gloves and sox and more of both Alpaca yarns and brightly colored synthetics. The better part wasa the food…. I’m told it’s the best place in the area for delicious cheap veggies, locally grown and harvested. I got 3 bananas (called plantains here though they’re just bananas), 1 tangerine, the most delicious Peruvian avocado ever, and a pack of whole wheat flat breads. That was lunch today, a snack tonight and breakfast tomorrow. Mmmmm fresh local tasty food. That’s the tame food. There were isles of meat, where whole animals were being made into cuts and sold, where piles of chickens that were freshly plucked still had their feet but no heads, where I seriously wondered about it all…. Other strange things of note: pig feet, donkey noses with fuzz still on them, fish eggs, more types of potatos than I’ve ever seen in my life, corn with kernals the size of nickels…. There were also more grains than I knew the names of (in English, let alone Spanish), beautiful fresh purple garlic, bouquets of what looked to be mint, fennel, and chamomile for the holiday on Tuesday, Spices, fresh (fragrant) cheeses, drop spindles, stone mortar and pestles, and a section that was just people cooking and serving up traditional dishes from gigantic cauldrons that were big enough boil a person. Everything from Chicken Soup with Rice (which has chicken feet and chicken heart in it btw), lomo saltado (salted beef and potatoes with rice), octopus, curries, stews, juices, smoothes (which they call milkshakes), and tons of things I didn’t recognize. I’ve been cautioned not to eat at places like that because you can’t control the water they use and if it’s contaminated or the veggies are and aren’t cooked enough, you’re in trouble. Ran into a pair of Canadians and ended up talking about the mixture of abundance and poverty there, and which spices were most delicious. I accused them of being from the US because they didn’t speak with British or Scandinavian accents (most English speaking people here do if they’re not from the US). I think I may have offended them (or at least gave them a good reason not to ask me to get a drink with them, oh my). Had lunch on a sunny bench, moved to a different, more shady stone wall to read for a bit, headed back to the hostel for a bit.





I got to meet Adrienne, one of the other Fulbrighters this afternoon. We met at the Plaza de Armas (central plaza) and headed for a little café she knew for tea and introductions. She’s an archeologists and I think we’ll get along famously (or at least I hope so). She’s been here the last 2 summers working in the sacred valley region, so she’s very familiar with Cusco. She’s offered to take me out to the ruins and temples she’s working on, and let me in on the secret not-touristy time to go to Machu Piccu. She also salsa dances and is a tea connoisseur (see what I mean, we’ll get along very well).

Plaza de Armas



Was invited out with mi maestra’s amigas and then it was postponed (which was perfectly fine with me, I wasn’t up for much this evening anyway). I ended up drinking tea and eating veggie curry at a little café near the hostel, and stayed, drinking more tea, to read my book because it was warm there.

Off to sleep now—I’m up at 7am so I can meet Nilda and we can go to an awesome festival tomorrow!
Ciao!