We only had one morning to explore Cusco, so we walked to the old town square, which was only about a block away from our hotel. We stayed in the Moaf Hotel — it’s described as a boutique hotel. The location is perfect, just a block from the town square and the staff are very helpful and friendly. I thought maybe it was a small family run hotel, but we were billed out of San Francisco, so who knows? ;-D
The picture above was taken standing on the steps of the church in the picture below. The picture below was taken the previous night when we stopped at the square for just a few minutes. The thing I loved about being there at night was seeing all the lights from all the homes on the hillsides — it was a very pretty sight.
Anyway, the next morning, we spent our time walking around the square, and sometimes sitting on a bench just to watch people. Then, occasionally, we’d wander up or down a street off the square, but we’d always end up back in the center. The town square is known as the Plaza de Armas. Cusco was the capital of the Inca empire, but the Plaza de Armas, with it’s beautiful churches and fountain, show the influence of the Spanish conquerors.
“Viva El Peru” “carved” in the mountainside – along with some symbols.
(The same churches the night before.)
There were lots of people selling everything from shoe shines to tourist trinkets in the square and you really couldn’t get away from them. We said no to everyone, except this darling little girl was just too hard to resist. I suspect her mother knew that, which is why she was there to help sell little llama keychains.
Cusco is beautiful and I wish we’d had more time to visit other parts of the city. After just a few hours in the morning, we tried to find someplace for a quick lunch, but the quick places were closed (we assumed due to Covid.) We decided to just get lunch at the airport and returned to our hotel. Our hotel was very helpful in arranging anything we needed. They arranged a covid test (because we were within 48 hours of flying home) and they arranged for a cab to the airport. Anyway, everything went smoothly — well, except for that whole lunch at the airport thing. All of the restaurants were closed and the only thing available were snacks from vending machines. When we arrived back in Lima, we went back to the Casa Andina Premium for the night. The next day would be our last in Peru!
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