Cusco, Peru travel guide – The YEH, MEH, NAHs
Cusco, Peru is a town teetering on a precipice of unpalatablility. Touts interrupting private moments, taxis careening through small streets, tourists drinking to excess, smutty air pollution, and slutty corporatization threaten to bury this otherwise charming town. And the charm…
Soroche suffering: How to prevent altitude sickness in Peru
After visiting Cusco, Peru and the rest of the Sacred Valley, I am now all too aware of the fragility of human beings. Specifically this human being. I’m a sea-level creature — childhood through collegehood spent on the New York…
Cusco’s offally interesting Mercado Central
Though I’ve explored the aisles of markets all over the world, the meaty bits on display at the Mercado Central (Central Market) in Cusco, Peru challenge even my steady stomach.
Here are the people in the neighborhood
I can’t resist a good bout of street photography. If it’s ever offered, I’ll be first in line for a computerized camera in my eye so I don’t miss a thing. In Cusco, Peru, as we explored the Plaza de…
What’s revealed around the corner in Cusco
If you wander deep enough into Cusco, Peru — away from the Plaza de Armas and generally in an uphill direction — you can escape the touts and the tourist traps. In the side streets and alleys, the city starts…
The cult of saints, live and in person
Back in a college class about early religion, I read The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity by Peter Brown. Stay with me here…
Sacred and profane: Put a tout on it
We avoid making eye contact with most everyone in Cusco‘s Plaza de Armas. Being so shifty eyed makes chilling out on one of the main square’s park benches a little awkward. We want to people watch, because there are just…
Drawing of Cusco’s rooftops from the hills of San Blas
While wandering aimlessly through Cusco, Peru‘s hilly San Blas neighborhood, the choice is pretty much just up or down. We choose to wander up and up until we come across a small terrace. Seats at a table. Coca tea. And…
Sacred and profane: Put a cross on it
Neither Todd or I are religious. Ask us if we believe in god, and we’ll tell you stories instead. About how, when we first moved to San Francisco, we hosted a combined Passover Easter party and a Hindu guest knew…
Drawing of Cusco’s Iglesia la Compañía de Jesús
The Jesuits of the 1600s sure knew how use a church to get all up in the face of others. Built to outshine the nearby Catholic church, La Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús, or Church of the Society of…
