The daily diary of a wandering restaurateur
November 2 - Aguas Calientes
The Hanaq Pacha Hotel is conveniently located to the train ... more so than any other hotel in town! It wasn't much to look at from the outside, but it turned out to be a very comfortable place. Our room was the one on the second floor with the drapes open.
There is a lot of shopping action along the railroad track since that is where the trains unload. There is a train station up the hill, but a rockslide last April took out the spur of tracks that leads there, so everything happens on the lower level which was much more convenient for us.
Look closely. Nearly every restaurant in the row sells pizza. I guess that easily half the restaurants in town offer pizza. The places that don't sell pizza sell local handicrafts. There are easily more than a hundred stalls in the market next to the train station.
The train ride back to Cuzco was fairly uneventful ... until the floor show. This was part of what turned out to be a fashion show of alpaca knitwear. I am not quite sure what this character had to do with selling knitwear ... but it certainly got everyone's attention!
© 2004 Restaurant Doctor
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