Nate and Kara Buchanan vlog in Cusco, Peru: they move from an Airbnb to a nearby hotel, tour the San Blas neighborhood and market, try local dishes including guinea pig (cuy), visit a church and catacombs, and attend a pre-trip meeting for a Machu Picchu tour with Mountain Lodges of Peru. The guinea pig is described as fatty, slightly rodent-like in smell, and overall the meal was mediocre.
That's really good.
Perfect.
I need a close up of the toenail.
So this morning we are moving from our Airbnb to a hotel right up the street. Normally aren't such a mess when we're moving. Since we were only moving two blocks, we just threw everything in, all the bags that we had. So tomorrow starts our trip to Machu Picchu with a company called Mountain Lodges of Peru. So they're putting us up in a nice hotel, same hotel that my parents are staying at for tonight. So that's why we're moving.
Coffee?
Thank you.
Thank you.
This is beautiful.
It's perfect. Yes.
We just got checked into our room. It is so nice and the sun is shining. So we're going out for a walk.
So we are going to like, I think it's the best preserved Incan ruins in Cusco and I kid you not, the local pronunciation sounds like Sexy lady. So we are walking up the hill to see the Sexy lady ruins. Cool alleyway.
So the ruins were called Sexy Woman, not Sexy Lady. Missed that one by just a little bit also. So we walked up to the top of the hill and they have these tourist tickets that like all of the major tourist sites in Cusco operate off of. They're like $45 a person. Maybe we don't have those. You needed one of those to get in or you had to pay a $25 entry fee. We're about to spend four days exploring Inca ruins. So we've decided not to do that. Now we're going to explore the hipster neighborhood of San Bl.
We are in the San Blas neighborhood. It is so cute. Lots of little cafes and the streets are cobblestone. I love it. I just read a rating. Real classic disco. We're gonna walk it out.
I had read that there was a San Blast market.
Yeah, Passion Fru.
We just got a little pre lunch snack at the San Blas market. We got some juices with passion fruit, super sour, super good. And we don't really have a plan. We're just kind of walking around. We get lunch, eventually it stops raining.
What'd you get?
I got that it is the Inca calendar. Looks really good.
It is raining again. So we're going to find some lunch.
Oh, that is like.
It has teeth. A nose.
Rodent teeth. Like a picture of it.
Claws. But.
My sister studied in Peru years ago and I remember her coming home and telling me that she ate a guinea pig. So ever since we decided to come to Peru, this is like the one thing that I wanted to Try. While we were here. Here in Peru. Guinea pigs are not pets. Their food. And so we ordered a guinea pig. The head, the body, they just fried up the whole thing. But instead of me trying it on the vlog, we're gonna let my mom dig in.
How do I. How do I do it?
I just grab the back leg and pull it off like a chicken. I like that.
Did I cut it or.
Depends on how proper you want to look on the vlog. I know you like eating cheese.
Well, I think you're gonna have to cut it to cut the skin.
Oh, is there a backbone?
A broken slag.
Oh, there you go. Oh, that looks delicious. Okay.
Now you have to describe tastes. Pretty good.
Kind of like.
Not exactly chicken. It's got a little different flavor to it than that. Is it chewy? No, fatty chewy. It's not real fatty. Let me try.
Yeah.
It'S got just a little extra flavor to it.
So guinea pig. Not. Not the best.
Cara tried some before I did and said it had, like, a certain smell.
Like a rodent.
Yeah. There was just, like, this faint odor that. Yeah. Just really didn't let me enjoy it. We tried it, though. We can say we tried it. Really just all the meal was mediocre. Don't go to the place that I showed on the sign. Where to now? Ice cream.
We're redeeming our mediocre lunch with some ice cream.
So yesterday on our walking tour, we learned about this church called San Francisco. I think it's this one that's right behind us. And our tour guide told us that underneath, they have what's called. Is it catacombs? And they have a bunch of people buried down there, and it stretches all the way, like, under the road, and it's like $2 to get in. So we thought we'd go check it out.
That's gonna be awesome. We are loving Cusco so far. It's, like, super touristy because everyone who is here is here because they're going to Machu Picchu. And so everything revolves around tourists.
You get hassled a lot.
Yeah, there's a lot of people trying.
To sell you massages, trips to Machu Picchu, come to my restaurant, tattoos. But at the same time, it's a really cool city.
Very authentic feeling and, like, really cool history.
The architecture is not, like, super impressive, but it's really old and really cool.
And, like, cool things like these underground catacombs.
There's 39 churches. If you're into churches, this is the place for you. And my Parents are here, so it just makes it better. All right, we're going to the church.
This is real.
Yeah.
It's raining again. The church was good. The catacombs that, like go all the way underneath the town square were a little oversold by our tourist guide yesterday. There were like three little rooms. So I'm not sure if they just like, aren't publicly accessible or if he had no clue what he was talking about. How'd you think the church was who it was? I thought it was a really cool church. This bar was watching the maintenance people almost knocking the chandelier out of the ceiling of the sanctuary.
They had scaffolding and they were moving it and they like knocked one of the diamond pieces off of the chandelier. That's all there is to say about that.
Our tour to Machu Picchu with Mountain Lodge La Peru starts tomorrow. But tonight everybody is meeting at this hotel to get the beats on what we're doing.
We've never had a pre trip meeting before, but here we go.
The meeting went well. There are 11 people in our tour group. We have two guides. These seems super cool. They told us about our day tomorrow and it sounds super fun getting picked.
Up at 7am after our meeting, we went out and grabbed some pizza and we just got back to our nice room and there is chocolate and turn down service waiting on us. That was weird. There's chocolate. They did turn down service and they left us some chocolates. Let's go. Sweet.
That seriously looks like it was gonna hit your backpack.
They never end.
What pink stuff?
This pink stuff.
Oh, it's some kind of sauce. It didn't squirt. It didn't squirt out again.
We could take the head to one of the little donkeys outside.
I'm going to eat it. The head.
