Shop ’till you drop!… Or run out of soles

Cusco Peru reminds me a little bit of Venice. The streets are narrow, and are everywhere going every which way, giving Cusco the feel of a small town when in reality it’s pretty large with a population of 350,000. The buildings are tall and squeezed close together in the back streets and there are shops littering along every road littering the streets. We don’t have a lot planned for our three days here in Cusco before we hike up to Macchu Picchu, all the activities have been planned for when we return to Cusco after our trek. So we’ve been shopping every day all day with the exception of mornings where we’ve been doing home work.

I love all the merchandise here! From leather and knitted back packs, to hand made jewelry, to Alpaca anything. The best is baby alpaca, it is just about the softest thing I’ve ever touched. We’ve let ourselves go a little with buying things here since we’re meeting the
McCarthy’s in two weeks, we’ll send it home with them.

Yesterday when shopping with dad I went from 37 dollars on my allowance to 7 all in one market! I bought a ring that I’ve been vigorously searching for in every country we’ve been to, a pair of colorful knitted gloves that can be finger gloves or mittens, a hand made hat that’s reversible, I had to do some hard bargaining with that purchase because dad had said if I got it down to 32 soles then he would pay for some of it. Well the lady was at 34 soles and I was at 32 one soles is 36 cents so we were bickering over 72 cents! But I really needed it to be 32 so I could split the price, dad cut me some slack and let me pay 33 soles and still share the price, I think because he was proud of my bartering skills. I used his most effective move, where you name your price and say, “That’s a good price” really convincingly while you hand them the money. I then bought my dream alpaca coat. I’ve been seeing coats like this one all over Cusco but every one I try it on it’s either really really itchy, too expensive, or too small. The last thing we got with the last of our soles were a pair of “fuzzy on the inside snazzy on the outside leggings”.

“I’ve lost my soles!” Dad remarked as he gave the woman every last coin we had. On this trip, having one new possession makes me feel like a whole new person, right now I have the song Walking on Sunshine running through my head, and a swagger in my walk!

Molly’s Shopping List for Cusco;
1.) Ring ✔
2.) snazzy pants ✔
3.) finger / mitten gloves ✔
4.) back pack
5.) alpaca sweater ✔
6.) Shoes
7.) hand made hat ✔
8.) baby alpaca hat ✔ (this item was not originally on the list!)