A Sunny Day in Cusco

A sunny day at the Plaza Mayor in Cusco
(Templo de la Compañía de Jesús in the background)

It's the rainy season in the Andean highlands. The forecast was for a 60 percent of rain. Instead, it was a sunny day, perfect for exploring the city at a slow pace. (A slow pace because my adjustment to the altitude is, as they say, a work in progress.)

The hotel is about a half-mile from the Plaza Mayor, the tourism epicenter of the City of Cusco.

It is located on Calle Union, which gets a lot of traffic for a one-lane, one-way street.

This is the Iglesia de San Pedro.

It is across from the Mercado de San Pedro:

The area around it is packed, probably more locals than tourists. The Mercado de San Pedro is supposed to be a good place to by souvenirs (at a lower mark-up than the souvenir shops around the Plaza Mayor) and is supposedly a great place to try local food in that middleground between street food and a sit-down restaurant. It's only open until late afternoon, so it's not a dinner option.

This is the Arco de Santa Clara, on Calle Santa Clara.

Passing through this Arch means you've left the Cusco of the locals and now are in the pure tourism town.

This is the Basilica Menor de la Merced:

Strolling along:

This is the Cusco Cathedral, on the eastern perimeter of the Plaza Mayor:

The Cathedral is incredibly beautiful and ornate inside. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside, even "sin flash" as they say in español. There are a lot of photos online of the interior. Not sure if they are official church photography, or if they were taken surreptitiously contrary to church law, or if the rules changed at some point. 

Which means we skip right to the exit door from touring the cathedral.

The Cathdedral was built on the site of the primary Incan temple in the City because, of course. Lots of cathedrals in major Latin American cities were built on such locales, primarily to destroy the indigenous religion in a manner that demonstrates the dominance of Roman Catholicism over the pre-hispanic religions. And before you tut-tut-tut about this, the Catholic church was not unique to this. See, e.g., Hagia Sophia in Constantinople/Istanbul being repurposed into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire.

And this is the Plaza Mayor, a.k.a, the Plaza de Armas, as seen upon exit of the Cusco Cathedral.

There is no "no photography" rule in effect outside the Cathedral proper. The statute of Incan Emperor Pachacuti is in the middle of the plaza, on a pedestal atop the fountain int he middle of the plaza.

It's a popular portrait-photo spot. Pachacuti is the Incan ruler who is believed to have transformed the Inca from a regional presence into the dominant military and cultural force in western South America.

He is the first true "emperor" among the Inca.

That is the Templo de la Compañía de Jesús, on the southern perimeter of the Plaza Mayor.

Let's juxtapose Pachacuti and the Dome of the Basilica Menor de la Merced.

Let's zoom in on the juxtaposition:

The two cultures of Cusco, together forever. Whether they want to be or not.

This is Qorikancha. It is the ruins of an old Inca temple where the walls were covered in pure gold.

As you can see, the Spanish built the Iglesia y Convento de Santo Domingo de Guzmán literally atop Qorikancha.

Next up: the search for the Twelve Angled Stone.

It is a building stone with 12 angles, perfectly fit into the stone wall along what is now Calle Hatunrumiyoc. It's somewhere among the stones in this wall.

This wall was built by the Inca, who perfectly fit the stones together without mortar and without any visible space between the stones. The twelve angled stone is the most prominent of the large stones used in this wall construction.

Selfie at what might have been the Twelve Angled Stone:

I've got the eyes of a man ready for his afternoon nap.

This is now part of the exterior wall of the Palacio Arzobispal del Cuzco, now a religious art museum. The Palacio Arzobispal del Cuzco (no photography allowed inside) was built atop ... what? ... built atop what? That's right. An Incan temple.

Next top, the Museo de Arte Pre-Colombino:

Photography allowed! So let's click away!

This is a collection of Chimu Silver Spoons:

I didn't know the Chimu used spoons. Or had good silver cutlery for special occasions.

Above is a fine example of Chimu silversmithing. I like the Chimu. I visited their main hub, Chan Chan, outside Trujillo, Peru, on the northern coast, back in 2018. I soon realized the main purpose of this museum. Most of the tourists visiting Cusco and Machu Picchu will not go to the Chimu sites in Trujillo or the Sican and Sipan sites in Chiclayo. This museum, a Cusco outpost of the awesome Museo Larco in Lima, serves as an appetizer course for the pre-Incan cultures of Peru for those whose only visit to Peru might be to Cusco and Machu Picchu.

And there's nothing wrong with that. None of us can go everywhere. And, even if you did, could go through everything at a deliberate enough pace to remember anything?

Woodworking.

Bird staffs.

An owl to the left. Parrot to the right. I can't recall which bird species is stuck in the middle.

The explanatory language says this guy is in a religious pose.

He looks like he is having a particular difficult B.M.

I always find these sort of masks a bit on the creepy side.

And here are ceramic bowls from a pre-Incan culture, I believe the Paracas from the southern coast of Peru (near Nasca) (but not the Nasca, famous for their desert lines that will always remain inexplicable). The bowls are decorated with chili peppers.

Many thoughts. First, I did not know that South American tribes had chili peppers pre-Columbus and the globalization of the food trade. I associated chili peppers with Mexico and the four corners region of the USA. But they had them in Peru over a thousand years ago. And they decorated their bowls with them. Which left me with this thought: I too have some ceramic bowls with a chili pepper motif. Should I save them for the collection at the future Spretnak museum?

Dog and fox ceramics.

Unlike a lot of "anthropomorphic" imagery on ceramics, especially ceramics from more than a thousand years ago, these two -- especially the fox -- are very realistic.

Same with these llama head ceramics.

But I think the fox gets the gold ribbon for "most realistic" looking.

That's it for the museum. That's it for the day's sunshine-filled tourism. I'm tiring out easily here due to the combination of altitude and old age. But, in this instance, I think altitude is legitimately the primary culprit.

Time to pass through the Arch of Santa Clara and leave the tourism part of town.

Coda:

Supper blogging.

I decided to eat at a restaurant close to my hotel, primarily because I didn't feel like walking much. I chose the Restaurante y pizzería URPI, which was just down the hill from my hotel.

This was a local's joint. I was definitely the only tourist in here.

This is an Italian restaurant serving a lot of Peruvian dishes. I was going to order the lomo saltado because it is the classic Peruvian dish. But I realized that I really had a craving for pizza. So I opted for an "Italiana," with ham, mushrooms, and tomatoes.

I had a pitcher of maracuya juice -- passionfruit juice -- because I was thirsty. And they served up a big plate of ooey-gooey garlic cheese bread that would have been worth it at any price and definitely was worth what they charged for it: nada. Gratis.

The pizza arrived looking beautiful.

I ate so much of the ooey-gooey garlic cheese bread that I could only finish four of the six slices of my personal sized pizza. The price was 20 soles, or about six or seven bucks U.S. Yes, the mushrooms were probably canned. Tough to get fresh-everything up on a mountainside in a third-world country. Yes, the ham was processed and not artisanal. Did I mention it was six or seven bucks? I would have gladly paid that for the ooey-gooey garlic cheesebread by itself. Essentially, given that reality, the ham and mushroom pizza came free.

A Rainy Night in Cusco, Peru

Lord, I believe it's rainin' all over the world

Here is one of the basic rules of turismo peruano:  When the weather is nice and sunny in Lima and the Peruvian Coast, it's cold and wet in the Andes.  And when the temperatures are mild and the sun is shining down on the Incan tourist sites up in Andes, it's gray and gloomy in Lima. The "sunny and mild" weather time of the year in the Andes coincides perfectly with northern hemisphere summer. So for a U.S. tourist who wants to visit Cusco and Machu Picchu, summer will give you the best weather. And the biggest crowds. It gets so crowded that access to Machu Picchu is supposedly limited during peak tourist season. And I am guessing that a big reason that Lima was a bad reputation among Los Turistas Americanos is that they see Lima at its grayest and gloomiest.

So after a day in foggy-in-the-morning, sunny-afternoon Lima, I jetted off to Cusco, the old Incan capital high up in the Andes. Where it's raining. Because it's the rainy season. Why, yes, I am a contrarian. I try to visit nowhere during that place's high season. Which means I am doomed to visit the Andes in the rain. 

I am staying in the Union Hotel. On Calle Union. I'm guessing the name-commonality is not coincidental.

While the lobby looks great, the room is a bit ... rustic. As in "metal room key." As in: no heating or a/c. Not that a/c would be needed way up at 11,500 feet above sea level. But, especially given the dampness from the rain, heat would be nice. So they brought me a space heater and it's working nicely. But, yes, rustic. As in "no flushing any paper down the toilet" rustic. And I mean "any."

I did get some photos of the neighborhood before the rains returned.

The forecast for tomorrow is "not raining," so maybe I'll get some photos around town. Tonight I am conserving energy adjusting the extreme altitude.

Traffic does seem more manageable than Lima.

But soon the rains returned. And the best way to "take it slow" to acclimate to the elevation is to try to go to bed early.

Back in the Peru Groove

A giant vase in the Parque John F, Kennedy (or is it Parque 7 de Junio?) in Miraflores

An ancient philosopher once said, "The only constant in life is change." I googled the quote and found out it was Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who I would not have known but for googling his quote. But I've known his quote far longer than I knew who said it. And that's as good a lead-in as any to explain why I'm back in Peru groove after only having been here two months ago.

That is the Parroquia La Virgen Milagrosa church right on the walkway that divides Parque John F. Kennedy from Parque 7 de Junio, which otherwise would generally seem to be one park. But they're not. I walked through these conjoined parks en route to the day's tourist destination in the upscale Miraflores neighborhood of Lima.

Anyway, I liked but didn't love Lima the first time I visited here in 2018. I re-visited in Spring 2024 (Peru's fall) and still felt the same: like not love. Then I came back in December 2025. I don't know how much of it was that Lima has changed (and it had) or that I've changed (can't help it) (time is marching onward not matter what I want to do to slow things down), but I now love this city. The food has always been great, here. But now, the city seems like it is not as poor. Crime seems to be down. (I'll probably get hit over the head with a lead pipe tomorrow to prove the naivete of that statement.) People seem more relaxed and friendly (and they were very friendly before). And some other places that I used to like (Colombia, which would include Bogotá, which I used to love) have moved in the opposite direction.

Cool-looking tree in Parque 7 de Junio. So I took its portrait.

Places don't stay the same forever. Nothing does. None of us do. So why should cities in countries? Which is my way of saying that things have moved sufficiently so my like of Lima, Peru, has blossomed into love.

Just a big colorful blue bull in Parque 7 de Junio. So I'm back enjoying this city another time because there is no guarantee that all of things that make Lima wonderful right now will last forever and, even if they did, there's no guarantee that I will be in a position to keep traveling here to enjoy them. So that's my justification for two trips in two months. That and some Delta Airlines credit that was "use or lose."

I'm not let-lagged per se, since Lima is in the same time zone as East Coast USA. But yesterday was exhausting, with getting up at 3:00 a.m. to be at the airport by 4:00 a.m. for a flight at 6:00 a.m. So it was an Eagles day: "take it easy". No letting the sounds of my own wheels drive me crazy. "Lighten up while you still can" definitely was the order of the day.

The day's tourism target was Huaca Pucllana. This is a giant pyramid that it about a millennium and a half years old and, for a long time, locals just thought it was a weird-shaped hill. Then, in the 1970s, someone figured out, "Hey! There's a pyramid under here." And the rest is pre-hispanic American history.

I visited here back in 2018. It's still an active archaeological site. So I decided to return to see if more of the pyramid structure had been, literally, unearthed.

The pyramid and archaeological complex are several acres in an otherwise upscale suburban neighborhood of Lima, Miraflores. Apparently the Lima civilization who built this were sufficiently wealthy to be able to afford such immense acreage in a wealthy suburb.

And here I am. At the entrance to Sitio Pucllana.

This is not a "pyramid" in the Great Pyramids of Giza sense, or even the Mayan step pyramids of Mayan culture. It's a large tiered building that slopes inward as the walls get higher. That's good enough to earn the pyramid moniker.

And even if it is not a pyramid per se, in the mathematical sense, it is impressive architecture.

You can only walk around the grounds as part of a guided tour. Probably because tourists do stupid things. Like climb on steep, fragile 1500 walls in search of the perfect instagram photo. I wouldn't. But "other" tourists would. (I'm being truthful. Walking on the side of a steep cliff is not my idea of fun time. Even if it is only high enough that you would left with a broken neck or broken back -- and not instant death -- from the fall. Correct that: especially since I would be left with a broken neck or broken back and not instant death.)

I had 35 minutes or so until the next English language tour, which was more than enough time to tour the small museum:

Replica pottery.

The Lima people were not the bon vivants that were the Moche people who lived contemporaneously (A.D. 500 to 700), but farther up the Pacific coast. The Moche are known to all of us who still have a giggling middle school boy inside us as the ones who mastered the art of pr0n-o-graphic pottery. The Lima people kept their pottery G-rated and functional. Usually with sharks on them. The Lima people loved the sharks.
 

We will get to that viewing platform once the tour has started.

This is a lucuma tree.

What is lucuma? It's a fruit tree indigenous to the Andes. The Lucuma is a particularly delicious ice cream flavor in South America. I do not know if the Lima people of a millennium and a half ago made lucuma ice cream. I doubt it. Ice cream was probably more of an Inca thing. (But they probably would have made it from llama milk since they the New World was cow-free at the time.)

There is a small garden on the north side of the property growing plants that the Lima people would have consumed (when they were not eating shark) (they ate a lot of shark) (worshipped shark, too) (so they definitely were not believers in the idea of "don't eat what you worship").

You may recognize these little critters as the famous "cuy."

You call them "guinea pigs." We call it "cuy." (The allusion there to the corn/maize TV commercials for indigenous-friendly margarine in the 1970s is probably lost on everybody but me.) I don't believe these cuy are destined for the dinner table. At least that's what they tell us tourists. The truth may be more complicated.

And here are a few alpaca.

No llamas these. Alpacas have better quality wool for clothing making. (Llama hair is itchy against our skin.)  (It also stinks when it gets wet.)

So we reward alpacas for having better wool by shaving them bald and then grilling them up for steaks. Alpaca is supposed to be tasty. Llama meat -- since we on a roll dissing the llama right now -- is supposed to be nasty, tasting like an llama wool blanket left out in a rainstorm.

This alpaca is not sleeping. I apologize for not having the video turned on, but right after I snapped this, the alpaca starting rolling around on his back like a dog who just discovered a big pile of stink. Good times in tourist town.

Time to climb the pyramid.

The spacing in the bricks, which the guide called "bookshelving," makes the structure earthquake-resistant. And this is earthquake country.

And here's the view from the top. Which makes it clear that this 1500-year-old structure (approximately) is just in city blocks.

Because we are on a guided tour, we tourists are well-behaved.

Again, if we had been left to our tourist devices, you know that several of us would be climbing on those archaeologically-significant bricks.

Funeral site:

 

There probably was a mummy in there when this was discovered. Ancient Peruvian cultures mummified their dead. It's a desert thing.

This is a view of Maria Reina church, not far from Pucllana.

It's from a later era.

And the tour ended at the part of the archaeological dig that was the also was the end of the excavated pyramid when I visited eight years ago. There has been no visible archaeological progress in that time.

Is it money? Is it preservation, given that enough has now been unearthed to know what the entire structure looked like without excavating the entire structure? Is the activity now taking place outside of what you can see? Or is it just slow laborious work?

Here I am, looking like a man who didn't get much sleep the day before.

But that look got me the senior discount for admission to the site. I'll take it! I will take any senior discount offered without mixed emotions because a discount is better than paying full price.

Having eaten a big breakfast at the hotel, and having skipped lunch, it soon was time for a big supper. I chose the Punto Azul, a local chain that the hotel bartender said had great seafood. Peru has one of the world's greatest fishing grounds just off its coast, so the quality of seafood is excellent. And the best seafood in Lima is supposed to be found in the Miraflores neighborhood, which is where I happened to be.

I ordered an appetizer, since I did not know how big the portions would be. These are fish wontons. They have some other Spanish sounding name. But they're fish wontons.

The main course was Arroz Punto Azul. The bartender had recommended the Arroz con Mariscos, rice with seafood, but the Arroz Punto Azul sounded more interesting.

The Arroz Punto Azul was described in the English-language gringo-friendly menu as "coriander rice," which I correctly presumed would be rice gussied up with the herb coriander, "with creamy calamari, shrimp and octopus sauce," again correctly presuming that the calamari, shrimp and octopus -- all sea creatures I enjoy ingesting --  were part of the meal and not simply disappeared into sauce. The Arroz Punto Azul was gigante. I should have eschewed the appetizer course. I kept eating my Arroz Punto Azul and the giant heap would not get any smaller.

All in all, not bad at all for a chain restaurant (albeit local chain) in a wealthy suburb filled with gringo tourist loudly talking gringo tourist talk.