Market day in a Peruvian backwater.

After continuing our pre-Machu-Picchu acclimatization – first in Cusco then Pisac – next on our LatAm-2025 trip was… a bit more acclimatization – heading down the valley of the Urubamba River…

// By the way, the waters of this river feed into the basin of the great (or could it be even the greatest river on our planet) Amazon. Who knew?!… //

Today was to be one of those people/street-life/local customs/general-daily-life-watching days – like we recently had on our China-2024 trip in Songzhou. Just observing how a day passes here for the locals away from the tourist magnets…

And that includes observing what they eat – and that includes… black corn!

// Actually, it’s purple – maíz morado. Heard of it before? I hadn’t. And I didn’t get to try it, which I regret. //

We were told that Peru grows hundreds of different types of both corn and potatoes. And after walking around the local market, I can confirm this to be true. The path to the market goes through Pisac, whose Inca ruins we’d checked out the day before. But on this day we checked out not the ruins but the modern-day, lived-in part of the ancient city. So, let’s take a walk down its alleys and squares! Let’s see how the average Peruvian lives…

We were dropped off at a tourist-market spot in the city center, and from there we set off for a stroll – as one does! It went something like this:

Spanish-style balconies and doors:

Look at this… snake! By the way, according to the Chinese zodiac, I’m a snake. So when I see such a symbol… I want to shake its hand. Then I remember – snakes don’t have hands. Then I recalled – this isn’t a real snake ->

Seemingly endless, narrow, market-stall-lined streets:

What with so much supply here, there surely must be quite a demand, right? Alas, we didn’t contribute to it. It’s almost embarrassing…

We walked through the llama/alpaca wool tunnels, caught our breath, and then headed to the market square. We were promised “full grandeur” and “mucho wow-wow”, but on this day other festivities were planned (Epiphany), and the local population is very religious…

We were told we’d see a market the size of the entire central square, but we didn’t. Apparently, on this particular Sunday, the market “shrank” due to the religious holidays. I’m not sure about that, but it might have been the case. Still, it was interesting to walk along the stalls, assess the quantity and quality of the offerings, and buy some fruit…