another eye opens

On my way to Machu Picchu, I visited my friend Javier, a former New Yorker who now lives in Pisac, in the Sacred Valley between MP and Cuzco — his friend Katya was currently sharing the house.

I was travelling with my friend Adam, who lives in Portland — we shared the guest quarters

beautiful downtown Pisac

typical transportation in Peru — custom-decorated three-wheel mototaxis

the outskirts of Pisac are pretty rustic — wild pigs feast on scraps along the river, protected by their friendly guard dog

tomatoes are in high season at the farmer’s market

Andy and I had a hankering to see THE WORLD’S END, and we’ve spent almost no time ever in Williamsburg so decided to make an evening of it.

The movie was crazy and fun, and then we were hungry. Yelp notified us that there were a multitude of interesting-sounding restaurants nearby. We tried Trayf and Xixa — packed to the rafters. We ended up at Cervezeria Havemeyer — low-key, very much to my taste, Mexico City-style tacos and enchiladas and margaritas, served by an Aussie who’d lived there and approved of our choices (including dessert: grilled string beans)

And then a stroll through the burg, on our way to meet one of Andy’s swimmer friends at a brand-new bar called Kingsland, where we had a drink before heading back to Astoria through a ridiculous Saturday-night traffic jam