My Real Local Peruvian Experience In Cusco Peru
Unlike some travellers who chose to spend a day or two relaxing and acclimatizing to the high altitude in Cusco before venturing off to their main objective of Machu Picchu, I did things the other way and got my Machu Picchu adventure done the next day after my evening arrival to Cusco. Since I did not get any symptoms of high altitude sickness, my long day to and from Machu Picchu went okay leaving me with a full day to explore Cusco (actually a full day and a half since my flight back to Lima was an afternoon flight).
Since I didn’t want to eat at rip off touristy restaurants, I made my way to the big San Pedro market just five minutes from my hotel and is right across the street of where the Perurail train station is. I wanted to eat breakfast at the market and what an awesome experience it was to eat among the locals, paying what they pay for real, authentic Peruvian food at dirt cheap local prices. I wanted to get the real local Peru experience today. Here’s the video showing how happy I was to have breakfast there.
After breakfast, I went on the main road to the town center to check out the Plaza de Armas main square. Not surprisingly, this historical area had more tourists mingling about but it still didn’t feel too overly touristy nor crowded. It was quite a pleasant stroll through town.
I ventured further past this main square into the San Blas area which was more quiet but had very narrow streets with barely enough space on the sidewalks to navigate on especially when traffic was coming. I found another market in San Blas which was smaller and less busy compared to San Pedro but had another great local Peruvian experience with a unique quinoa beverage that was quite refreshing.
One thing I did see in Cusco which was a bit heartbreaking to me was seeing quite a lot of stray dogs as well as the odd cat around town. They were obviously neglected but are surprisingly well behaved and not aggressive although most were quite timid. The locals just seemed to ignore them and even tolerated them venturing into the markets. But as a long time dog owner who just lost my last Lhasa Apso early this year, I just wished that the town helped out these poor dogs more.
I did end up meeting a very friendly cat which just added to my enjoyment in Cusco.
After San Blas, I found my way back to the San Pedro market for another awesome local experience this time at the fresh fruit juice section. I also had more time to check out the rest of this big market which ended up being one of my favourite places in Peru.
I was not really going to spend much time shopping for any souvenirs simply because I’ve long retired from bringing home knick knacks due to no more shelf space. The only exception would be artwork for my walls and in Peru I noticed some nice wall hangings so I spent my final morning hours before my afternoon flight back to Lima at a small market haggling with the local vendors. They always quote a high tourist price which is inflated of course so I was prepared for that. I ended up buying two really nice hand woven wall hangings for a total price of $60 and here’s a short video on what they now look like on my walls.
The above wall hangings ended up being my only purchases I brought home in addition to the one scuba diving t-shirt I got back at Little Cayman. I really enjoyed my time here in Cusco and the bonus I guess is that at no time did I encounter any high altitude sickness symptoms. The next stop is Lima which is at sea level since it’s right on the Pacific Ocean coastline.
