lunch in an odd cafe

Most of the time, we had great luck with meals in Cusco. We followed the advice of guidebooks and random people, and ended up having many delicious meals. Cusco is known for it's mountain food (rather than the fish-based specialties that you get in Lima, on the coast). This includes dishes made with quinoa, alpaca, beef, and cuy (guinea pig). They say that until your body acclimates to the high altitude it's best to eat light foods and to avoid meat. I tried this tactic and it worked for me. Britt and Addison were more adventurous and tried various local meat specialties, though no one had cuy.

One day, we were looking for a place to have lunch after a long morning of hiking. We looked for two different places recommended in one of our guidebooks, only to discover later that both had moved. Tired and hungry, we settled on a little cafe that was brightly decorated and offered a simple choice of sandwiches and freshly made fruit juices. As is often the case in this part of the world, the service was very slow, and we waited quite a while for our meal. Bored and hungry, Britt picked up some of the magazines that were laying around - only to discover that they were from the 1970s and consisted of nazi propaganda from the 1940s translated into Spanish. It was very odd and gave us the creeps. We were the only clients having lunch, though the rest of the staff was busy eating their own meal, ignoring us, and closing doors constantly. There was also a lone young woman, who was drinking tea and reading (we bumped into her again at Macchu Picchu.) Eventually another group of people came in - two couples, American. We were on our way out, by then but couldn't help but notice the looks on their faces as they innocently picked up the reading material and figured out what it was.