Hello! After two nights of getting 12 hours sleep, I finally feel half-way normal. While I haven’t been posting much yet, I wanted to start with a review of a restaurant I stopped by tonight.

So far, the food situation has been… interesting. Before leaving the States, it felt like everyone warned me about what not to eat. No one told me what to eat. So, I need to be careful about: water, undercooked meats, cooked meats in unsanitary conditions (such as sitting out without heating or cooling), dairy, raw vegetables (from the water they are washed in), fruit juices (once again, water), and ice. So, what’s left to eat? I am trying to avoid raw vegetables, but I might change that in the future. And unless I change something, I see a lot of cheese sandwiches in my future.

After getting lost by trying to go down the main street (I shouldn’t have stopped to shop, it turned me around…) I decided that I didn’t want to take risks while looking for food tonight. So, I decided that I would simply walk down the street that my hotel is on until I found a place that looked appetizing. I eventually found this little coffee shop that looked nice. I stopped in and ordered a ham and cheese sandwich with hot chocolate.

The sandwich was interesting, but very good. There wasn’t much ham, and it was an odd texture. There was a lot of cheese on it. The cheese was a white variety that seems to be popular around the area. I’m not sure what kind it is, but when it is not melty it is a little squeaky, like mozzarella. The sandwich was hot and good. What was really good is the hot chocolate. It was grated off of a bar of chocolate and mixed with a little water to make a paste. Then steamed milk was added.

This is where the place gets really interesting. It is an organic, farmer owned restaurant where they make their own chocolate and coffee beans. I spoke to the person running the restaurant, which was very interesting. She spoke no English, but she spoke both Spanish and Quechua, one of the indigenous languages of the area. When I was finished eating, she spent some time talking with me. There was a mini museum area that detailed the process of making chocolate and coffee through pictures and some physical samples from throughout the process. She took the time to talk me through the process and try to help me to understand. I didn’t understand everything, but it was a great experience and nice to talk to someone so friendly!

The name of the place is Cafe Ricchary. Ricchary comes from the Quechua word that means “wake up” in reference to their coffee, and they have won awards based on their coffee. Here is the website I found that information on, if you are interested in more information.

http://cafericcharycusco.com/

I actually ended up buying some of their drinking chocolate.

This was a lovely place, and I intend to return to try their coffee when it is not so late in the day!