SAN PEDRO MARKET

The San Pedro Market is the place chosen by locals and tourists to buy vegetables, fruits and all kinds of food in the city of Cusco.
Originally the San Pedro Market was exclusive for the sale of food and raw materials, due to the growth of tourism today you can find apart from organic products such as fruits, vegetables, coca leaves, delicious country cheeses and the unforgettable chuta bread; clothing, jewelry, crafts, textiles, handmade musical instruments and much more.

Even though the inhabitants of Cusco are the ones who attend the most, we recommend travelers to visit the San Pedro Market, to approach and learn about the culture of Cusco.
There they will be able to taste delicious natural juices elaborated in the moment and with mixtures of fruits that depending on the origin of the visitor can be exotic and unknown. The fruits most consumed are strawberry, kiwi, mango, custard apple, lapapaya, lucuma and custard apple.

All this makes the San Pedro Market an ideal place for tourists to eat a variety of regional foods at a lower cost.

Schedule: Monday to Saturday from 6.30 am to 6.30 pm. Sundays until noon.

History:

Until the beginning of the 20th century and from the colony the merchants who later would occupy the new market of San Pedro of Cusco were located in the esplanade of what today is the small square of San Francisco and the same square of arms of Cusco, in this time, the space that today occupies the present market in mention was occupied by an old slaughterhouse and orchards belonging to the Beaterio of Santa Clara.

In 1925 it is founded and built during the period of Mayor Manuel Silvestre and Frisancho, the current Market of San Pedro, thus constituting the oldest in the city, this was built by the same architect who built the famous Eiffel Tower in the city of Paris, Gustave Eiffel.

In 1950 the market was expanded due to the population growth of the place, finally achieving the structure that we can appreciate until today.

Architecture:

Its architecture is simple and functional and is classified as neo-classical; To overcome the problem of the unevenness, due to the slope has leveled the ground with a lower structure that houses the public bathrooms and some stores, has been provided with a total of 7 entries that give access to a large rectangular space surrounded by cement structure and metal bars that give enough light to the place, inside have been distributed the full variety of stores under a high roof of metal structure that has three levels, these are supported by pillars of simple finish, which gives it a very wide and ventilation necessary.

Experience

The central market of San Pedro was and is to this day the most important supply center of the city of Cusco, even today with the aim of finding some products that do not exist or are difficult to get in the other markets, people from all over the valley necessarily come to this place, just imagine all that you will see, we tell you a little of what you can find:

Craftsmanship:

The growing flow of tourism has made many of the traders change their line of business and start selling handicrafts. Some tourists call it the San Pedro handicraft market and in fact you can get a great variety of handicrafts at the best prices, so the place is flooded with a variety of languages ranging from native Quechua to English, German, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish that are negotiating smiles and incomparable memories.

Varied food and stews:

There are important sections of food, potajes of the most diverse that satisfy the demanding palates Cusqueños, among them they emphasize the diverse broths of lamb, the guinea pig to the furnace, the calls extras that are delicious and gigantic plates apparently of many visitors, the famous rice with egg in their different varieties, finally deserve special mention also the section of fresh fruit juices of the most varied, and the classic breakfasts cusqueños that are accompanied of fresh milk, the best chocolate, the gigantic bread chuta, and the unavoidable tea of coca.

Keep in mind the type of diet you are used to if you want to venture into the delights we have just described.

Millenarian herbalist:

You will surely find stalls selling all kinds of herbs, where connoisseurs turn to traditional medicine to cure their ills and ailments by resorting to ancestral knowledge in the use of traditional medicine.