Lead-up to Inti Raimi
When I arrived in Cusco it was the beginning of the lead-up to Inti Raimi (Quechua Inti: Sun, Raimi: Festival), the festival of the sun around the solstice. Even before the festival on the 24th of June, every day there is marches and celebration in the town square of Cusco where the different departments and institutions of Cusco present themselves and their tradition. Sadly I had to leave Cusco just before the solstice but I would have loved to see the actual show at saksay huaman.
Saksay Huaman
This Inka site used to form the head of the Puma shaped walls of the Inka capital. They are thought to be a stronghold as well as a ceremonial ground and observatory. Today the big area is used for events.
The way the place is supposed to look can only be reconstructed from rough sketches and descriptions that Spanish chroniclers made before the Spaniards raided and pillaged Cusco in the 16th century.
Templo del Sol
After the conquest and destruction of Cusco the Dominican Order built their monastery on top of the old holy site of the Inka sun temple. Of course the whole temple was stripped of its gold artifacts before that. Supposedly the top of the walls was covered with a thick layer of gold and there were multiple gold statues within the temple.
The different buildings of the temple were each dedicated to different nature deities.
Food
Chiri Uchu
This traditional street food is prepared almost exclusively on the day of Corpus Christi and consists of 3 different meats: Chicken, Alpacca and Guinea Pig. I arrived pretty late on the day so I could not find any on the street. A guy showed me a restaurant that also prepares it. Although, the restaurant part didn’t help because the guinea pig wasn’t done well (I was told later) and the whole thing was very dry altogether.
Also, I had bad diarrhea the next day. Luckily it went away before my hike to Choquequirao.
Street Food
Cusco had some amazing street food to offer. When walking on the streets in the evening or at night you could buy fresh fruit like blueberries or passion fruit from some street vendor, get some hearty grilled cow heart skewers (Anticucho de corazon) or some deep fried treats like churros or picarones.
Picarones
These are just deep fried dough rings that you get together with a small satchel of sirup. Very basic, but hey, freshly deep fried dough is pretty great.
Churros
Now these were really my favorite street food. Not only were they far superior to the typical star-shaped machine squeezed dough churros that you can get in Germany, but they also had toffee cream inside (aka. dulce de leche / manjar)! Also, the dough was way fluffier.
San Pedros Market
San Pedros market is the central market hall of Cusco. Here you can get everything that is edible. From fresh smoothies, soups and meals you can get sweets, cheese, fruit and even souvenirs. I was specifically looking for chocolate. On the hikes that I did with Alpacca Expeditions the chefs always made hot chocolate in a certain way and I was told they use chocolate puro (100% dark chocolate bar) with a cinnamon stick and cloves and some sugar. I went to the market to buy these things and I found them for quite cheap.
Apart from that I got a big cheese that I later grilled in the pan.
Somewhere else in town I also got some more flexible glue to glue my glasses back together because the superglue that I had used previously was too brittle.
Chicha
This restaurant was more on the fancy side but still affordable enough. The food was outstanding though and the menu was filled with interesting local dishes. They were of course not traditional dishes but they were all made with local ingredients which resulted in very interesting creations.
Cicciolina
The other rather fancy place that I went to for dinner. This one had tapas style appetizers and a delicious slow cooked alpacca among other great things of Andean make.
