Arequipa y Puno

Allie, Julia & I are going to Arequipa & Puno. Yeahhhhh boiiii (I’m pretty sure no one says that around here). We’re leaving Friday night for Cuzco where we’ll do some partying and grab an overnight bus the following day to Arequipa. Arequipa is known as “The White City” because it was built in the Colonial period. And from what I’ve heard, it has a large assortment of FOOD!!!!! It is sad how my life has boiled down to hot showers & good eats. I’m sure we will do other activities but that’s about all my mind & belly can look forward to for the time being. That and Cerveza.

After Arequipa we’ll head to Puno which is on Lake Titicaca {what a silly name}. It is the highest navigable lake in the world {don’t quote me on that} and is supposed to be really serene with some remote islands.

Don’t worry; I’ll get some pictures with me in them, as requested. I’ll be sure to update when I return.

La Vida de Cuzco

I was in the midst of updating yesterday when the power blew out in the internet cafe, the glories of living in a small Peruvian town. Cuzco was spectacular. I´d like to go back right now but I do have responsibilities here in Ollanto.

The weekend started off with a bang with an Awamaki pizza party followed by excessive drinking with my family in celebration of Marco´s car. I came home from the pizza party to find my family drinking outside next to the car (which was covered in flower petals) and jamming to some salsa music or something of the sort. The drinking continued until about 4 am or so which made for a rough ride to Cuzco the next morning....or the same morning, rather.

We (Julia, Allie & I) arrived in Cuzco and found an amazing hostal (seriously - it was amazing). It included our own bathroom, hot & long showers & it was adorably quint. We found a cute place to eat in the Plaza de San Blas filled with delicious vegetables & salads. Did some wandering, exploring and shopping in the afternoon followed by showering, blowing our hair dry & looking cute for the first time in a month (my standards of living have seriously decreased here). We returned to San Blas for some vegetarian pizza & Pisco Sours until we met up with Fernando, our Spanish teacher, and his friends at a bar, Siete Angelitos. We finally got to meet the highly anticipated, Phuru, whom was playing in his band that evening at the bar. He was quite possibly one of the funniest people I have seen & met in a long time. After, we went to a bar in the Plaza de Armas called Ukuku´s (it´s a Qechua name) where I did some serious salsa dancing until about 4 am. It was a fun night and we didn´t want to leave the next day but were forced to return to our meat filled reality in Ollanto.

We are thinking about going to Cuzco & Arequipa next week and hopefully Lake Titicaca as well. The weekends of indulgence have become necessary at this point and we have also penciled in Wednesday lunches to escape the meat.....and maybe a dinner too.

On the volunteering front - things are going well. I´ve picked up an hour of English Club at the Telecentro on Monday & Wednesday evenings. The kids there are pretty cute there - and it´s basically an hour of English games.

More to come later this week.

Cusco

I'm going to Cusco this weekend. Things I look forward to:

-Eating veggies all day long at delicious restaurants
-Shopping for some relatively cute clothes
-Drinking mass amounts of Pisco Sours
-Going out and dancing
-Being hungover & getting to eat some more delicious food

I'll update after the weekend.

Spaghetti con carne con papa fritas

Food. I couldn't possibly want vegetables, fruits and deliciousness more now than ever.

Yesterday for lunch, I had Spaghetti with steak meat and homemade french fries IN the spaghetti. Not only do I have meat for both lunch and dinner every single day but they feed me huge proportions of bland tasting food. The steak meat around here is tough and relatively chewy and even more so when reheated. I knew I was going to have to eat spaghetti again when I got home for dinner and I was right.

My favorite meal has become breakfast. Because all it consists of is coffee or tea and a piece of bread with jam. And I can eat as much or as little as I want.

Also, my little sister likes to eat the feet of the chicken in her soup. It is quite disgusting to see and they keep telling me that it's good for your intestines. Right now, the only thing I can think of that would be better would be not eat meat anymore.

OK, I'm done griping. On a positive note-I'm going to Cusco this weekend for some dancing, drinking and better food. Yessssssss

Chicha

Hola Amigos,

Sorry for the serious slack in an update, I´ve had a busy & interesting week.

Monday was the start of English classes at the school, Virgin de Fatima. I have a total of five classes with Julie between Monday & Wednesday so it´s a relatively easy schedule. It´s grades third through sixth and the kids have been fairly excited to learn English. Classes thus far have been OK....Julie and I decided prior to the start of the week that we would do the majority of the class in English with some instruction in Spanish. But it ended up that she spoke in Spanish 98% of the class and I felt like her assistant. I´ve been a little frustrated about it but I´m trying to keep in mind that it was the first week and possibly necessary. More to come on that later this week.

Thursday and Friday were a bit more relaxing & I hiked up to a cross on a mountain near my house. On my way back down I managed to get into the back of the main Inca ruins here that cost tourists 70 soles to get in. Cha-ching. I didn´t do much walking around since I get in for free with Awamaki anyway.

Thursday evening, I managed to narrowly escape eating cow stomach for dinner and went to dinner with Julia. I ordered a ridiculiously delicious vegetarian burrito and couldn´t get over how fantastic vegetables tasted. Side note-I literally eat rice, potatoes & meat for every meal, it´s gotten reallllllly old.

Friday night I watched a Japanese horror movied dubbed over in Spanish with Jesus. It was quite terrible but entertaining none the less. After, Janet asked me if I would be Micaela´s Godmother...I couldn´t figure out if she was serious but I accepted anyway. Now Mica refers to me as ¨Mi Madrina¨....I´m still not sure if it was serious but sweet none-the-less.

Saturday, Jesus and I went for a run in the morning which was the first good run I´ve had since I´ve been here (first of three....). I need to start busting ass. Later in the day, there was a ceremony in the soccer arena in our neighborhood for my host family´s cousin, Elvis. He´s the new mayor of Ollantaytambo. And of course it involved drinking cerveza allllllll day long. Also in alcoholic form, was a traditional Peruvian beverage called Chicha. I´m still unclear on how it is created but it´s basically a homemade corn beer that is gauranteed to put in you in bed for a couple days if not accustomed to it. Although not practiced much anymore, I believe the original way it was created was by chewing corn kernals & spitting them into the beverage. There were multiple Qechua women selling it in barrels & I tried a sip...not sure what the frenzie is about, I would much prefer beer. Later in the evening, I went to another pizza party for the new volunteer followed by Pub Inglais & the very classy Ollanto discotech until 3 am. The discotech was like a 7th grade dance with the girls seperated from the boys. It was quite comical.

Time for an intense game of Monopolio. Wish me luck.

Caio

Urabamba & Lares

This week has been interesting. We've had the week off in terms of work because of Holy Week. On Monday, I went to Hearts Cafe (where I currently am) and returned to my house to find that I locked the key to my room IN my room. I never lock the door or carry the key so I must have hit the lock when I walked out. Oops. Jesus, Janet & I tried to pick at the lock for awhile and failed. I ran around town to try and find one of the guy volunteers to pick the lock. I found Frederick, he tried and also failed. Damn Peruvian locks. So there are three panes of glass between my room and the next room. I left for Spanish class and apparently Jesus knocked out one of the panes & got in. They cleaned up the glass and all that before I got home but that just lead to another stupid adventure.

In order to get the glass replaced we had to go to the next town over, Urabamba, which is a half hour ride away. We got a collectivo taxi to Urabamba which is 1 sol but they pack it with like 15-20 people which makes for a crappy ride. We got to Urabamba around 8 am and went to the market which is much bigger than Ollanto's market. At one point, I questioned AGAIN why I eat meat. The meat section was gross- meat hanging everywhere with saws & pigs heads displayed like a prize on the table. So we got a bunch of stuff....some for Suzanne's shop & her sister's shop. We probably had like 50 eggs, a sack of flour & a bunch of other stuff including a chicken with the legs and head, yuck. Then we went to get the glass. We got the piece cut, walked back with it to get another taxi back to Ollanto and....ccccrrrrackkkk. It broke once we were settled in the cab. I had to squeeze back out, walk back up to the store with Janet, get a new piece cut and grab another taxi back home. What a pain. Needless to say, I found the key in a pair of pants and it is in the door now & will stay there for the duration of my stay.

On Thursday morning, 14 people from the Awamaki crew decided to hike to Lares where there are some hot springs. It's an all day hike, so we grabbed a collectivo at 7:00 am for a one hour ride to the starting point in Patacancha. The first three hours were up-hill but great & beautiful & a little chilly at higher altitudes. Right before we hit the peak of the climb it began raining. And it had rained a bit this past week so the down hill portion was really muddy, wet & really cold. Needless to say, it was miserable. Everyone was so cold that our hands weren't functioning and at one point I was thinking - where the hell is a car to pick me up and take me to these hot springs immediately? But there was literally nothing but llamas, alpaca & mountains in the distance. I had also fallen in mud at the beginning so I was covered in mud. We didn't even really stop for lunch because we were so cold we all just wanted to get there as fast as possible. The last hour was a little more bare able and we finally arrived at the hot springs....which were closed.

Kidding, they weren't closed. They were spectacular and did an excellent job of returning my body to a normal temperature. However, everyone's backpacks had gotten wet and so did a lot of the stuff in them - including the dry pair of clothes were were all looking forward to wearing. So we were all cold again and some people didn't bring an additional pair of shoes so they had to put on their wet and muddy shoes from the hike. We grabbed dinner- which was the same as what I eat at home....rice, potatoes, meat. And everyone just wanted to crawl in bed to warm up & go to bed. I think we were all sleeping by 9 pm....the earliest I've gone to bed here. I slept in my jeans & coat and thankfully there were 4 heavy blankets on the beds to keep us warm.

Of course, when we arose yesterday morning it was a beautiful day. A great day for a hike. Funny how life works. The ride back took 3 hours and was beautiful. I got a few pictures but I don't think they do justice to the views here. It is quite spectacular.

When I arrived yesterday, I went over to Suzanne's for Jesus' birthday (my house brother-ish, not Jesus Chris :P ) We had ceviche and Pisco Sours for lunch and then drank ALL afternoon til about 11 pm. Zack, another volunteer who eats with my family, & I were pretty drunk. Jesus had to have been drunk too. That's the most drunk I've been here and going to bed is pretty fuzzy. The result - I've got the shakes today.

Tonight, there is another pizza party for the new volunteer who arrived yesterday. I look forward to pizza and not more rice, potatoes and meat. I'll post more pictures soon.

Caio for now.