Cusco, Peru: Exploring My New City

Yesterday, Dad and I began our day by going to Mass at the Cusco cathedral.  While it lacks much of the polish and put-togetherness of the cathedrals in Europe, it was still beautiful, made even more so because yesterday was a festival, so there were flowers all over the place.  I understood most of the Mass (I don't think Dad did), and all was well until we got kicked out after Mass for taking pictures...at least they didn't arrest us!

This is the cathedral from the outside, with all the local people assembled to watch the parade that took place for the festival.  The festival was commemorating the anniversary of something, but we never really figured out what (I think it was an Incan festival, since all the speeches were in quechua, the Incan language).  Anyway, it was cool to watch, and the colors were pretty spectacular.

After watching the parade for a bit, Dad and I went off to explore the town.  We wandered through all the the plazas, and checked out all the little artisan fairs that were going on.  This is us on one of Cusco's streets.

We also explored the market, which is open every day, and sells everything from whole pigs to cheese to flowers to crafts.  It was really big, full of people, and really interesting.  This is Dad on the grain isle--they must've been selling at least 15 different types of raw grains. 

This is the church of Santo Domingo, the foundations of which are the original foundations of the Incan Temple of the Sun, their biggest and most sacred temple (it was originally all covered in gold until the Spaniards looted it).  We didn't have time to go inside because it closes early on Sunday, but we will be going to see this on Saturday before Dad leaves.

After our day of exploring, we played a couple of games of cribbage, and Dad sampled the local drink, Pisco Sour (he wasn't too impressed).  Some dinner and some more cards and our day was complete.  Off to the ruins today!