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.