Resting and Recuperating Back in Cusco

The Inca Trail left us freaking exhausted. After some serious sleeping in on Friday morning, we stumbled down to the Ninos courtyard for some breakfast in the warm sun. They bake fresh bread daily and also have this marmalade made from a berry called sauco, which according to our hosts, grows only in the Cusco region. It is very good; tastes a bit like blackberry, but richer. After that, we promptly headed back up the steps for a nap and then spent most of the day just walking and shopping around Cusco. Normally we are not big souvineer buffs, but we couldn't resist a few classic Peruvian wool hats, a woven tapestry depicting (in abstract form) a fisherman and fish, and a few other goodies. That evening we, along with Clark and Jessica met up with our hiking crew (JP, Claudia and Michele) for an early night of dinner and wine at a restaurant on the square to relive good memories.

On Saturday, we and our trusty travel buddies, the Cases, decided to leave the cozy bars and restaurants of Cusco (clearly somewhat demented from four days of hiking and high altitude) to venture out into the Sacred Valley. The Sacred Valley refers to the low lying valley area that surrounds Cusco and includes several small rural andean villages as well as some notable ruins. We rented a driver for the day (O'Braun again) to take us on a tour through a few of the villages and sites. It was a really pretty day and Alan spent most of the ride looking for and taking pictures of llamas, goats, and - his personal favorite, burros. Although the language barrier prevented any meaningful communication between us, I am quite certain from the twinkle in his eyes that O'Braun found this all hilarious. I am not sure that he quite knew what to think when Alan asked him to stop at a random farm somewhere outside Chinchero so that he could tiptoe out into a field to get some close up film footage of two random burros munching on some scrub.

Anyway, O'Braun put us up in style in his 1978 Datson hatchback for a ride through narrow, curvy country roads to Pisaq and Ollantambo for our trip. The ruins were great, but I am sure that we would have been much more impressed if we had not just come off the fantabulous Inca Trail. It really is hard to compete, especially when we had to share these ruins with other - gasp - tourists. All in all we were quite pathetic, bitching about the crowds, having to walk up hills when our muscles hurt and that the beer served at Kusicoylloy (a restaurant) in Ollanytambo was too warm. Clark definitely spiced things up a bit though when he bought a flute from local guy playing at the Pisaq site. I am sure that O'Braun appreciated his backseat rendition of Mary had a Little Lamb as we barreled through the countryside with the wind blowing in our hair on our way back to Cusco.

Back in Cusco, and after the obligatory nap, we went to Pomodoro with the Cases for a little food and libation. The dinner was average at best for such an upscale place and wouldn't even merit mention in this post were it not for Alan's order - the infamous cuy hornito, aka roasted whole guinea pig. Cuy (pronounced kwee) is a delicacy in Peru, reserved, it is our understanding, for special occasions by the locals. Once you got past the fact that you were eating a guinea pig, it was good, a bit like rabbit to us.

After fueling up on cuy, we headed back out to now our regular hangout, Ukukus. This night was no ordinary night at this peruvian hotspot, though. No, tonight the feature act was a seven member all girl Bolivan band. Picture tall (very tall) strong dark women dressed in flowing robes and all playing their own instruments (about three different guitars, flutes, drums). They played dance music and was really interesting to see the locals jamming to Justin Timberlake one minute and then these girls the next. JP, Claudia and Michele met us there for the show. Loved it.