It’s not Rome, Florence or Milan. No, it’s not New York, Chicago or even San Francisco. Surprise - my nomination is Aguas Calientes, a small town in the Peruvian Andes which has the distinction of being the closest settlement to the famous archaeological site of Machu Picchu. Most visitors to this fabled Incan city will either pass thru the small, hilly town of Aguas Calientes as an afterthought while others (like myself) end up staying a maximum of one night before moving on. Walking around town, the sheer volume of restaurants and cafes in Aguas Calientes overwhelmed me; most of them were virtually empty. What was even more astounding was the number of restaurants featuring pizza - wood oven pizza, deep-dish pizza, and thin crust pizza - pizza was all around me.

For the life of me, I do not understand how restaurants in this small tourist town can survive in the long run, as on any given night, there just aren’t enough tourists to go around. The competition for the tourist dollar must be very fierce - many restaurants feature a very liberal happy hour or some other gimmick, like sexy gals in skimpy attire, in an attempt to lure new customers. I should also mention that on the average, restaurant prices for a meal and drinks are higher in this town than anywhere else in Peru, save Miraflores - the upscale tourist zone of Lima. In fact, to prove a point how hungry these restaurants are for business, I was easily able to negotiate 30% discount on my dinner at a small restaurant on my only night in town. The following day, while celebrating my reign as “King of the World”, I was able to demand (and receive) a 20% discount off my order of a small vegetarian pizza.

Aguas Calientes has some redeeming attractions other than its close proximity to the ruins - the Plaza de Armas (the main square) which features an impressive monument of the former Incan King and the nearby thermal hot springs are a wonderful place to soothe those aching muscles after a long hike, even though the temperature of the bath waters could be several degrees higher.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 9:45 am and is filed under Peru, travel. 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.