Peru Day 2: Around Cusco, El Truco, and the "Other" Citizens of Cusco

In the afternoon Oscar came by at exactly 2pm to pick us up and drop us at his little office on Triunfo Street. Apparently, Choquechaca is too small for tour vans and buses. Soon enough, we were picked up and on our way to Qorikancha (aka Golden Palace).

The Convent of Santo Domingo (actually a monastary) is built upon the ruins of the Golden Palace and Temple of the Sun. According to our guide, when the Spanish conquered Peru, many Inca sites were either buried, destroyed, or like Qoricancha, churches were built upon the ruins to convert the population to Catholicism. The gold lined temple walls were sacked and treasures were absconded. The Inca stone work was so good, built without cement or mortar, you can't even stick a credit card between blocks! Our guide told us that the trapezoidal architecture used by the Inca was also earthquake proof. As fate would have it during 2 major earthquakes much of the church was destroyed...leaving the Inca "foundation" standing strong, the irony cannot be lost. This is a definite must see if visiting Cusco.

Here's a view of Avenida del Sol from Qoricancha , Cusco's "main drag", the business district:

We also visited the ruins of Sacsayhuaman(we were told....say "Sexy Woman" and you'd be pretty close) above the city of Cusco.

These ruins contain some of the largest and impressive stone blocks, and was an important military and religious site. Some of the longest and bloodiest battles between the Spanish and Inca took place here. Now the site is reverently silent, except of the occasional whistles from security when someone does something against the rules.

In the same area is an interesting amphitheater of sorts called Q'enqo. This rock is of religious importance during the summer solstice, we were shown a photo of the outline of a puma created on the monolith by shadows and light.

There is also a labyrinth of tunnels zig zagging throughout. One of them includes this altar:

This tunnel was uncommonly cold......much better to keep things "fresh" I suppose......

More on Sacsaywaman can be found here and here.

We were told that Cusco was designed to resemble a Puma, and Sacsaywaman is the head of the Puma. On a later visit to the Museo De Nacion I found this chart:

We also visited the Cathedral of Cusco(no photos allowed). The item that really caught our attention was the mural of the Last Supper, with Andean touches. On the table you notice that Cuy(Guines Pig) was being served, and along with Chicha Morada! The last stop was Tambomachay, where two Inca fountains, still sprouting water today, high lite the enduring quality of Inca architecture.

By this point, I had worked through our ration of Coca Leaves....luckily, our tour was over. We returned to Cusco, and made it back to our room for some rest.

At 730 Oscar picked us up, for a scheduled dinner(included with the tour) and show at a restaurant called El Truco. And though we enjoyed the entertainment, I could only equate dinner to be the equivalent of the "tourist Luau" back home. The restaurant itself, is large and cavernous, and quite nicely attired.

Rather than be really negative...I'll keep my comments to a minimum:

The Anitcuchos had decent flavor, no aftertaste, but was ice cold. The potatoes were tasteless.

The Rocoto Relleno (stuffed rocoto pepper) had no flavor, and was cold.

The Missus ordered Chicharron de Pollo (deep fried chicken), was cold and soggy, and frankly, had very little flavor.

I ordered the Alpaca Steak, which was hard as rock, and the gravy was cold. The Papas Fritas (fried potatoes)? Sigh.........

Needless to say, we hardly ate anything, and left before dessert. To be fair, the service was very efficient and nice. But all the food was obviously cooked in advance, and kept standing......sort of the buffet without the buffet line. As noted in my previous post we took a walk up to Pachapapa, and didn't have much success either. At this point, we decided to not waste our time eating at scheduled stops, nor recommendations from various "guides"...instead we would search out places that caught our interest. With this strategy in hand, we had much more success during the rest of our time in Cusco.

El Truco
Plaza Regocijo 261

On our way back to our room, we could smell "meat cooking", and suddenly our luck had changed. Right down the street from our Hotel, there was a street vendor grilling up some really tasty Alpaca Anticuchos (marinated grilled Alpaca heart). Man was it good! Sorry for the bad photo, the lighting was terrible, but the Anticuchos were not! Full of flavor(cumin coming on strong), hot, tender(much more tender than beef heart), with no sour aftertaste(and no tough "nasty bits"). Indeed, we had turned the corner food wise, no more tourist food for us.

Un Perros de Cusco (The Dogs of Cusco):

The human inhabitants of Cusco were not the only ones that kept us entertained and enchanted. We were amazed at all the dogs in Cusco. It seemed that they lived on the street, but many of them looked like they had been groomed, appeared well fed, and were quite clean! There was a kind of harmony that existed between the four legged and two legged residents of Cusco. The canine inhabitants seem to follow certain rules, they knew how to cross streets, left humans alone, handled their business with discretion, and had good manners. In turn, they were treated like citizens of Cusco.

There were several Dogs we saw on a regular basis, we ended up naming three of them, but one of them really captured our heart. Meet "El Mayor de Choquechaca":

This little one had so much personality, he ran Choquchaca, the little street we stayed on. We never saw him on any other street. He would walk up and down, busily checking things out, making sure all was well. The Missus was so taken with him, that whenever he was around (which was almost all the time), a slice of Anticucho would suddenly fall to the ground...or the Bolsa de Plastico(plastic bag) of leftover Chicharron would suddenly break, and pork would fall to the ground(how convenient). I named him after an incident which confirmed what I had thought....he was the Alpha male of the street....A new dog, a large shepherd mix cruised on up Choquechaca, and came upon El Mayor. Being a stranger, he came chest to chest with El Mayor, presenting a challenge, walking in a circle....before you could blink, several other dogs, El Mayor's henchmen, surrounded the stranger.....which ended up with a peaceful bout of "butt sniffing"..... leave it to El Mayor! To this day, the Missus will look wistfully at me and ask, "I wonder what El Mayor is up to?"

Meet the other regular of Choquechaca, we called this one La P0licia(the police):

Always marching up and down Choquechaca.......patrolling it would seem!

Meet Senor Under bite:

Some were "busy", no time to talk, places to be, butts to sniff....

Some just wanted a nap......."You got a problem wit dat?"

After all it's a dog's life, isn't it?

Looks like dogs have long been treasured in Inca culture.

Comments

[Carol]

Hey, Kirk! These are awesome pictures. I feel like I was there with you. And who can resist those dogs of Cusco?

[nhbilly]

I guess like they always say when in Peru do as Peruvian do. Street food I think is always the best eats compare to tourist spots.

[Hannah]

Great pictures! But did you eat the Guinea Pig meat?? ...I wonder what that tastes like..

[Kirk]

Hi Carol - You can't resist those dogs.......

Hi Billy - There are some outstanding restaurants in Lima, but you can always depend on the street food in Cusco!

Hi Hannah - We had Cuy (Guinea Pig) 3 times in Cusco, those will be in upcoming posts. When done right Cuy is almost pork-duck-chicken like. The meat is all dark meat, and the skin is almost like pork skin. It is very good!

[Captain Jack]

Man those steet vender alpaca anticuchos have me wishing I could tele-transport there right now. They sound awesome.

[clayfu]

Speaking of bad "tour" food, when i went to Spain for a week, we ate only Chinese food! We had ONE meal that was paella, which wasn't even that good.

never taking that tour again!

[porta rickin rick]

Hey Kirk,

My sister is in Cusco right now and will be calling me tonight, is there anywhere that I should tell her she absolutely must eat? Keep in my that she is a vegetarian, so the cuy is definitely out (she had a few as pets when she was a child). Also, any other places that she should go in general? She has been there for a few weeks already and has been to machu pichu and been out dancing and things like that. She will only be there three more days and then goes out to the amazon for a month or so.

[Kirk]

Hi CJ - The Missus thought the Alpaca Anticuchos were much more tender than the Beef.

Hi Clayfu - Only Chinese food when touring Spain!!! That is just plain wrong.....

Hi PRR - I sent you an email, I hope you get it.

[porta rickin rick]

Did not receive an e-mail yet. Maybe my security settings are too high?

[Chubbypanda]

Well, I prefer chicha morada over wine by far, but you can have the guinea pig. I'll never ever be able take Cat to Cusco. She'd want to take all of the dogs home with her.

Tourist food sucks. You guys made the right choice.

[Kirk]

Hi CP - You need to give Chicha de Jora a try....we wanted to "adopt" El Mayor, we still talk about Him almost daily.

[sandy]

what a cast of characters! Great pictures and that's a shame about the meal... it looked good (well except for those fries)

[Kirk]

Hi Sandy - We could have spent the whole week just "dog watching"......