Cusco: Day 1

The weather is divine in this ancient Incan Capital. We thought that it would be much cooler than it is. Yesterday me and my boyz (Eliot, Shuster and Ludlow) enjoyed our complimentary breakfast and headed out to explore the great city. We visited the main Cathedral which with impressive architechure and plenty of areas for specific veneration of saints there still is a large stone outside of the church that represents the Sun God of the Incas. The devotees touch the rock as they exit their visit of prayers to praise the Sun God as well. It´s good to have all your bases covered I suppose.

The boys decided that the best plan was to climb to the top of Cusco. So we did. As we slowly went through a variety of neighborhoods including San Blas which is the center of art and modernity (which means as far as I could tell there is a Thai food resturant) Shuster takes the role of Jesus with the little Children. All 3 of these guys are pharmacists and sometimes they venture into a language of inside medication jokes that causes me to look at then funny and call them nerds. Shuster apparently had honed in on the fact that there is quite a bit of poverty here and that children don´t always get the small luxuries. The patron saint of school supplies, Shuster, carries a full backpack with pencils with positive reinforcement messages like Excellent! and Super! and pads of paper to learn how to write the alphabet. At first he passes out a pencil or two, soon the entire community has come looking for the Saint! He is surrounded by little children begging for pencils and paper. We even bump into a little girl that knows the words thank you and yes in English. She becomes our guide for a bit through some neighborhoods. She leads us to the local artisan shack and quickly runs in and retrieves the sacred flower of Cusco, thanking him.

You know its interesting because this must have been what the disciples and such felt like with Jesus. A swarm full of blind, deaf, infermed people coming for help and they just stand around in ah, shocked that this one guy can make such a difference in a small gesture.

In the evening we went to the Andean Grill in the Plaza de Armas. We had almost a 4 hour meal in which we tried many native Peruvian foods. For those of you that maybe wondering we did in fact sample Coy (guinea pig) and the beloved Alpaca. Both which were really tasty. Alpaca especially good. The coy was good but these are not meaty animals therefore it is a bit of a struggle to get meat off the bone, but once that is accomplished it is good. Our 3 hour meal was delicious from beginning to end. Well mostly at the end. We tried a mango like pie that had the consistency of stale marshmellows. Luckily I ordered ice cream too.