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Ahhh…. the untold simple bliss of sleeping in. It was 0930 before we saw the day and began by shopping for clothes and souvenirs. Sue’s bartering skills are becoming well honed. We visited the Museo de Inca which had many wonderful artifacts and models of Inca towns and gave an even greater insight into how great the civilisation was. It also had many pre-Incan artifacts, some dating back to 2000 BCE. The next stop was the Museo de Arte de Anti Colombia or Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, which had even more artifacts and lots of gold and silver. Each item had a description in Spanish, English and French and they were completely over the top with things like “the strength and plasticity of the artist manifests itself in the timeliness of this object and its anthropomorphic themes”. Whoever wrote it would put Edmund Capon to shame.

Lunch was next and consisted of stir-fried vegetables done in the Peruvian fashion by the German owner. We went for a wander around the back streets of the town down footpaths only one person wide and roads only one car wide. If someone was coming the other way, one of you had to step onto the road. If a car happened to be coming, you had to wait till it passed.

The Museo de Arte y Monasterio de Santa Catalina was nearby and on our museum ticket so we had a look inside. There was a lot of art inside, but it was variations on the theme of mother and child and bloke on cross. We were out in less than 10 minutes. Also on the free list was the Museo Historico Regional but this only had a limited collection and in some instances cases full of artifacts were labelled only with the name of the donor. Its report card should read “must try harder”.

Tonight we met with the rest of the group and went out to dinner at an incredible restuarant called “Fallen Angel“. This is an old colonial house with a huge angel statue in the central courtyard. There were pieces of art all over the place. The seat were small cubes which opened to store your coats and bags. The large tables seated eight and were made from bath tubs with a thick sheet of glass on top. The baths were half full of water and had goldfish swimming in them. The music in the restaurant was mixed live by a DJ and three CDs were available to buy. On top of all this the food was incredible. The speciality was tenderloin with about 20 different sauces. Everything about the place was good and it is definitely worth a visit.

Tomorrow we visit the really high country.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 1432 and is filed under South America 2007.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.