Mercado Central de San Pedro

This guide to Mercado Central de San Pedro in Cusco opens with a question locals have argued for a century: who actually built the iron columns overhead, Gustave Eiffel, as popular legend insists, or someone else entirely. It traces the market back to a 1905 public design competition on a site that once held a slaughterhouse yard beside the San Pedro church, through construction in the 1920s. It looks at the columns' resourceful engineering, iron wrapped in concrete and reinforced with old railway rail. Look up at the tin roof and timber trusses as you walk the aisles.