Military parade, Peruvian beer, and Mexican food

Cusco was the capital of the Incan Empire and is South America's oldest inhabited city. It was populated by the Incans until the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzaro stormed south from Ecuador through Peru, conquoring the natives and capturing and killing Atahualpa, the Inca Emperor, in 1532. In 1536 the Incans rebelled in battle, but lost, and the Spanish finally had Cusco. But since the Spainairds were seafaring people, they didn't have much use for the mountainous city of Cusco and soon abandoned it.

Today, some of the city's buildings are still supported by stone walls built by the Incans, huge blocks of stone perfectly cut and fitted together like jigsaw pieces. Not too unlike the blocks used to build the Egyptian pyramids. Most of the streets surrounding the central plaza are narrow, cobble-stoned alleys, some of them rising in steep stone stairways through shops, restaurants and neighbourhoods. It takes a lot of energy and effort to see past the millions of tourist shops, western restaurants, touts selling the same crap every 10 feet, and countless tour agencies all selling the same trips. But once we did manage to get past this (it took a while), we found that it's not too bad.

We woke up early for us, and headed down to the plaza to get some breakfast and coffee. And, low and behold, there was another military parade on. This one was much bigger than the one in Arequipa, but pretty much the same. We watched a bit of it, then wound our way through the locals and Peruvian tourists to a cafe on the plaza for coffee, yogurt and muesli. We still had a great view of all that was happening from the cafe. We spent most of the afternoon wandering around town, half-heartedly searching for ways to get to Machu Picchu. But being Sunday, most places were shut (though oddly they all re-opened later in the evening). We had a cheap 'set menu' lunch of soup and pizza (you cannot get away from pizzas in Peru. They are everywhere!), then hiked up one of the hills through alleyways and found a small local restaurant selling cheap, cold beer. We greatly enjoyed a few beverages while playing cards, then went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, chosen because of the price. The food turned out to be excellent, filling, and cheap (by Cusco standards). And we got free red wine with our meal, so who could argue?

Returning back to our hotel, we didn't even attempt a semi-not even lukewarm shower and went straight to bed.