Cusco, Peru: Semana 1

Well I had a panic attack when I arrived. No joke. I am NOW in south america. I thought being in Puno was different because it was a poorer city, but no. We got into the terminal de buses and all i could see was a dirty city filled with poor people. And sidenote, I got to sit next to this really large smelly traditional peruvian woman the whole 8 hour bus ride. I miss Josi already:( She would sit next to me and I wouldnt notice that we happen to be the only tourists on the whole bus. But I definitely noticed when I was alone. Anyways, I began to calm down once I took a taxi to my house because the center of cusco is actually quite nice. Very rustic but in a nice way. I found my house all right and met my mother, Judy, and her 9 year old son, Renzo. Marisol, the director of the school, was also there. I met her first in Buenos Aires, then in Chile, and now she recently is the new director since Cusco school just opened. I have my own room and bathroom and all is great. There is also a spanish guy living in the house that is working here on a project for a few months. That night I went out dancing with Marisol to Mama Africa...all the clubs are filled with tourists. I bought I think 3 drinks for less than 7 dollars. So cheap I love it already! The next morning I got up and had breakfast with the family. Her sister came over and brought some food and then I find out that we are going later that day to eat Chicharron. I had no clue what it was when I was going but soon found out that it is just a big slab of fried pig with some fried potatoes and some cornish stuff. It was actually muy rico but I defintely gained five pounds in one sitting. Later that day we went to mi madres cousins house to have hot chocolate. Mmmm was it good. It was made with real coco and sugar and milk and some cinnamon. I had 2. ANd the cousin spent the whole time talking about this drink that he has called ayasuaca that the people of the jungle drink to talk to the gods...pretty much a justified hallucinogen. I was just sitting their nodding my head during the story but then he showed us a film from you tube that was in english, and thennnn the pieces were put together. Ther first time I got to speak english all day was when I called dad and gram that night. Wow this is going to be a learning filled week.

Monday was my first day of classes in Cusco. I am not only the only student in my class, I am the only student in the whole school since it is brand new! So, I have a private teacher and the activities director is my private tourguide. We had a welcome lunch like normal and went for a tour around the city. After that, I went home and had some dinner. Everything here is served with at least rice and usually potatoes as well. The next day I learned all about different refrains and frases in spanish. A lot of them are similar to the ones in english like ¨speak of the devil¨or ¨its on the tip of my tongue¨. After class I went to Qoricancha which is a church in Cusco. It was made by the Inkas but when the spanish came here, they took down most all of it, or covered it up. So now, half of it is Inka, half spanish. Later that night I told mi madre that I wanted to learn how to knit more detailed things so we bought me some baby alpaca which is so soft and sooo nice. We went to her uncles house to look at his artwork and we had some tea and cookies there. Then we went to this chicken place and we ate broasted chicken which is pretty much fried chicken and french fries and I think i could have died and gone to heaven. It was the best fried chicken I have ever had. After dinner, we went home to start my scarf but I was tired and it was really frustrating because she was trying to explain it to me in spanish and something i dont know how to do with workd that i dont know in spanish is not a good combination. Wednesday after class I did some errands with mi madre and then I booked my tour to Macchu Picchu. We had a late lunch which consisted of a mixture of frech fries, tuna, tomatos, and red peppers and rice. Interesting mixture that I dont think I would ever have thought of but it was still good. We went to the mega store to buy food for thanksgiving but couldnt find much. No turkey, squash instead of pumpkin, etc. That night I went out again with Marisol and some other kids that I met in Santiago that I happened to run into on the streets of Cusco. We had a fun night out...all free drinks because the promoters want you to go to their club and then they dont want you to leave so they give you more free drinks. Before I went out, I twisted my anke when I fell of some stairs and then danced on it all night and my foot was not happy the next morning.

My Peruvian Thanksgiving: Yes, I had to wake up early, yes I had to go to school, and no I could not find the Thanksgiving parade on tv:( BUT I did cook all day. We had Thanksgiving at Marisol´s house and there were eight people. Mi madre, Judy, cooked the chicken (since there is no turkey here until christmas) and I did the rest with the help of Judy´s niece who happens to be in college for cooking! There are no cans of pumpkin here so I boiled the whatever type of squash that i found that was yellow enough, and started to make the filling. But when i finished the filling was so watery, we knew that it wasnt going to set, it would just be liquid. So thanks to Fiorella, she made a better pumpkin puree that looked more like what would come out of a can and then our filling was much better looking. I made mashed potatoes and they turned out really well but they were very gummy. The type of potatoes I bought was not the right one I dont think. They have so many choices in the grocery store that I just grabbed the most normal looking ones. Anyways, I made everyone around the table say what they were thankful for, in spanish or course, and we ate our delicious meal. Everyone even liked the pie! What a success, but I was tired after a long day of cooking. I went back to the house and called the family and it made me super home sick! But, I have to remember I have many normal thanksgivings ahead of me and this is one that I will never forget. Plus I got to share a tradition with people that had never experienced the holiday. Still, I am counting down the days until my family gets here!!

I had my test the next day, which I passed but I actually had a debate over grammer with the teacher because I thought I was right even though he marked it wrong. I still got a good grade but I still think that I am right! After class, I had an interview with a marketing company over skype for an internship in Buenos Aires. I have the internship if I want it, but I think that I am going to look around a little more when I get there just to make sure that this internship would be the best for me. After that, I went shopping! There is this one market that sells all pirated dvds and cds for less than $1 a piece which is less than it costs to rent a movie so I bought a lot. I can just leave them here and it is still worth it. I also got this cool sweathshirt that looks like PUMA but then says PERU with a llama. Its pretty funny. That night we went out for pizza and we tried pizza with alpaca. It was alright but not something that I need to eat again.

The next morning was the start of my trip to Machu Picchu! I got up and the company called to tell me that my student id was not working and they were on there way now and so Judy rushed me to get ready and then I sat and waited for 35 minutes after i literally ran around. I kind of feel like I have a mother who is making sure I get to everything ontime which is nice on occasions, but sometimes I want to remind her that I am 22 years old! But anyways, all worked out fine, got on the bus and went to Valle Sagrado. We visited a market in Pisaq, Pisaq ruins and Ollantitamba ruins. It was interesting kind of but I have not learned much about the Inka culture before and it is not as fun seeing something you know nothing about. After that, I had to catch the train to Aguas Calientes which is the place you stay overnight if you are going to Machu Picchu in the morning. I got to my hotel and of course I didn´t brnig my passport because it is safer at my house. But then, they told me you have to have your passport bla bla bla or you have to pay. So I had my first real fight in spanish. But I still had to pay. It was the agencies fault for not telling me and no matter how cheap the cost is, I am really sick and tired of being the tourist that gets ripped off! My room had nothing in it except a bed, so I just read and went to bed early. At ten someone knocked on my window and scared the hell out of me since i was already creeped out being alone in this weird room, but it was just the guy giving me my ticket for the next day. The tourguide told me he would pick me up at 7:30 to go to the bus station and then up the hill, but he never showed up. So I managed to find it by myself but was annoyed. I got there and decided to go with the english speaking half of the group but I chose wrong. I know for a fact I can speak better spanish than she could english! But it was a fine tour and after we had free time so i climbed this mountain called Wayna Picchu. I went with a guy I met in my group which made it more fun, but it was such a hard hike. Straight up hill with all these rocks for steps. The ascent was hard enough with the altitude and everything but i enjoyed going up a lot better than down. Once We got to the top, it wasnt better, it was worse. There were smaller stairs and no hand rails and wayyyy steeper. I was 50 times more scared at the top of this mountain than when i went paragliding. But luckily on the way down, the Argentine air force was going down at the same time and at one point one guy was holding my hand and the other guy was holding my backpack since I was so scared going down this one part. I went home on the train, talked with this american couple and on the train up there was food so I didnt eat thinking that i would get free food. But no so at one stop there was this lady that sells choclo y queso (corn and cheese) and i flagged her over to get some and then practically the whole train did the same thing after me. It was delicous. Overall I had a good weekend in Machu Pichu, it was quite an amazing site, but I really do like enjoying my travels with someone I know rather than going at it alone. Plus, I am getting pretty bored of tours at this point, so I am done for a while and just going to enjoy the rest of my time here without trying to see every touristy thing possible.