La Vida de Cusco!

Ok I could tell you all about the various ruins I´ve visited but actually I thought I´d save that for the slide show and history lesson when I return! (Emma I know you´re especially looking forward to it and as a treat I´ll have an extra long slide show for you!). So Instead I thought I´d try and describe some of the general stuff I´ve come accross.

The City

The centre of Cusco is beautiful. The buildings are an odd mix of spanish and incan architecture, the spaniards having used the large inca stones as foundations for their colonial buildings. There are several plaza´s with fountains and benches. My favourite is plaza regocijo, I like to sit in the sunshine watching people, the loca shoe shine guys and reading my book. It´s much quiter than the main square and has less sellers and more locals than the other squares.

Away from the centre and the tourist areas, its a different city altogether. I´m glad I´ve had the chance to see the other side, as if I´d stayed as a tourist in the centre like most people do I´d be leaving here with a dream like impression of the city. The wealth of the tourism industry unfortunately doesn´t reach accross the whole city.

My journey to work in the moring takes me along Avenida de la cultura. I pass almost every aspect of Cusqueña life on the way. The area I live in failr afluent by peruvian standards. The houses have electricity, cable tv, running water and are made of brick or breeze block. On way to work I pass the areas where most cusqueñas stay. In barrios (neighbourhoods) of adobe (mud brick) houses, often with no electricity or running water. Also very unstable when the heavy rains come. At the bottom of my street an adobe building collapsed during a particulry heavy rain storm last week.

Within each district the houses are closely mixed with buisness including restaurants, internet cafes are every few meters and larger heavier industries, like timber merchants, garages and JCB depots. Past these districts are the pueblos (small villages or towns) where people survive by subsistance farming. There are all kinds of animals roaming the towns streets, chickens, horses, cows, ducks and pigs. The hills are so green, the mountailns high and imposing and the sky feels so close!

The People
The people I have met here have been so hospitable and generous. They are immensley proud of their incan heritage and of their city and country. They are so desperate for people to enjoy themselves and to love the country as much as they do.

Above all I am so appreciative of their patience with me and my shaky spanish-although it is getting better! They find other ways to say what they need to say and help to correct my spanish when I get it wrong. Which in a city as busy with tourists as cusco is astounding that they can do that people. One guy Herbert, originally from Arequipa works as a lab assitance at the centre, likes to visit some of the tourist sites with myself and Lisa and also helps me with my spanish daily!

Almost everybody I´ve met within the first few minutes wants to know where you are from, how long you are here, what other countries have visited, how much did the flight cost and how long was it and have you tried cerviche/cuy/pisco sour yet! If you answer no to the last question they then proceed to tell you the best places to try each!

Which leads me on nicely to food..........

The food

For peruvians, as with most countries, food is central to their identity. They eat all the time! Well it certainly seems like it sometimes! With every dish you have potatoes and rice, and i mean everything, breakfast, soups lunch and dinner!

I had expected the food to be spciy but I´ve not come accorss anything that I would consider spicy. There are lots of fresh vegetables and meat in probably every second meal I´ve had.

The past couple of weeks I´ve been trying out some of the street vendors and "fast food" places that are dotted along every street. I love choclo con queso, it´s like giant sweetcorn, but not sweet to taste and the peruvian cheese, is like a hard goats cheese. Choclo sellers are everywhere, with their canister of gas and little stove, boiling the corn. Yesterday I had piccarones which are batte rings served with syrup over the top, so tasty!

Each town in to the andes has their own speciality, cuy (guinee pig) was in Tipon, Lucre a village further along is pato con arroz (duck) also very tasty and the cillage where I work is chicharon (pork), that is next weeks new thing before I leave!

I´m going to wait until I get to the coast to try cerviche, which is trout marinated in lime juice, the national dish!