Sunday January 23^th, 2011

Today we tried to walk to Sacsayhaumán (well-known Inca ruins site) with the dogs (yes, all 5). Of course I say ‘tried’ because we failed. The dogs are all small and not used to being walked, so they tired out pretty fast. We made it as far as a market where we bought a bunch of food, then walked back.

Of note with the food in the market are the mangos and avocados. I didn’t recognize the mangos as mangos at first because they look completely different than the mangos sold in the US. They’re smaller and yellow with dark spots and taste wonderful. They’re a bit tricky to eat but worth the effort. I never liked mango when I tried it before, but I liked these mangos. The avocados are notable because they are about twice the size of those sold in the US. Sometimes they’re almost over-ripe and a little bitter, but besides that they’re delicious (and abundant) as well.

Monday January 24^th, 2011

Last week I bought a bottle of lotion. This sounds simple and trivial, but frankly, it wasn’t. I enter the pharmacy, where all the products are encased in glass below the counter or behind the counter on shelves. As you can imagine, it’s a bit more challenging to shop this way, squinting to read the labels from afar, looking past the employees behind the counter. But I found the lotion I wanted, told the señora and she took it off the shelf. I started to get out my money to pay for it, but she indicated that I needed to take the slip of paper she gave me and cross to a different window to pay. After paying at this window, I was given another slip of paper to take over to a different window to pick up my lotion. I was obviously confused during this process because I’d never encountered anything like this before while trying to buy lotion. It seems way overkill to me, but I guess this just shows that shoplifting/thieving/poverty are even bigger problems than I thought. Who knew buying lotion could be such an eye-opening experience…

Wednesday January 26^th, 2011

I had taken note that when Alberto speaks to me he often uses the infinitive form of verbs. For example, he’ll say to me “Yo llevar tasas” instead of “Yo llevo tasas.” I just assumed he always spoke this way, but I recently found out via Paty that this is the way he speaks to the foreigners who stay with the family. As I understand it, normally the visitors have less experience with the language so he simplifies his speech for them. Of course, I generally understand when verbs are used in their conjugated form and want to be immersed in correctly and naturally spoken Spanish, so upon discovering this intentional dumbing down of the language I was frustrated and a little offended. I realize he probably just does it out of habit, but that doesn’t keep me from feeling like he’s speaking to me as if I were a child. So to try and break this habit, I’ve taken to (ironically) correcting him when he does this. He’ll say “Yo lavar platos” and I’ll respond with “Tu lavas platos?” and I’ve said to him “Alberto, I want to learn to speak Spanish well, not like a child!”

Speaking of children, here’s a recounting of a couple of gringa moments earlier this week. I don’t know if I’ve described this before, but the combis (microbuses I take to the school) are operated by a driver and a second person who opens and closes the sliding door and collects the fares. This second person (in my experience) can be a man or a woman, but is usually a younger male. As I found out earlier this week, this person can also be a child. Obviously I was surprised by this—don’t you have to be at least 14 to work in the US? Apparently there aren’t rules for that here (or there are rules that no one follows) since this kid could not have been more than 10 years old, although I think that’s a high estimate. I want to say he was more like 8 years old.

 Anyway, sometimes interacting with children is depressing for me because they speak better Spanish than I do (or at least speak it faster). This was no exception. At one point the kid was asking me to do something, and I truly did not understand him. I eventually figured out he wanted me to scoot over to make more room for another person to sit on the bench. This really just meant that I made myself into a squished sandwich because the person to my left didn’t move as I scooted over for another person to sit on my right. Riding in combis is just delightful sometimes… The second gringa moment came when I paid just before getting off at my stop. I gave him 1 sol and was expecting 0.40 in change, but the kid instead asked me for 0.10. With the attempted explanations of the other people on the bus I figured out at the last second that the kid wanted 0.10 so that he could give me a 0.50 piece in change. I successfully ride the combi with Peruvians the majority of the time, but apparently when trying to do so with a child for a door operator, I make a fool of myself.

On a totally different subject, I want to share something I learned on my hike two Sundays ago with Jean-Jacques and Telma. My first impression of Cusco (as seen from airplane) was that it was a city in a valley, therefore it inherently had limits. I thought that the city had grown to the size it could, that the land at a shallow enough grade to build upon had already been built on and the rest would remain undeveloped. However this vision of Cusco as a city that had grown to its limits and now sustained constant population levels (little to no growth) was shattered by the knowledgeable Doctor Jean-Jacques. Apparently the city has continued to grow till this very day up the mountains. In some areas it has even expanded into areas owned by the government and officially called “parks.” It is unfortunate that it continues to grow, especially considering that the homes constructed are of fairly poor quality and it seems that many areas lack things like garbage service (yes, garbage can be a significant problem in some parts of the city).

To change subjects completely again (I must work on my segues…) I wanted to follow up on a statement I made earlier about it seeming strange to write and think in English. Well, it seems that switching between Spanish and English is like anything—it gets easier with practice. Thanks to things like writing this blog, listening to music, and watching television with the family my brain is frequently exercising this ability to transition. Let me back up a minute and explain that listening to music and watching tv help me practice this because there is a pretty strong English language influence here. Some songs that are popular in the US are popular here as well and many of the cable tv channels are in English. Some are voiced-over, but others just have Spanish subtitles. Of course I prefer to watch the channels in Spanish, but sometimes the best shows are in English. For example, last night I got to watch the Big Bang Theory (!) Does anyone else think that show is as downright hilarious as I think it is?? But I digress. The bottom line is just as spinning and dance aerobics every morning has been making me stronger, practicing the language switch has made my brain more flexible. One language doesn’t have to dominate my brain; they can simply coexist in peace J 

Saturday January 29^th, 2011

Today I washed my clothes. The interesting part about this is that before doing so I found out that they have a washing machine. This was a bit of a shocker to me, since if you asked me which is better for washing clothes (your own flesh, muscle, and bone or a machine) I would say machine before you even finished the question. As it turns out, Alberto believes that the washing machine uses more water and doesn’t wash the clothes as well. So I subjected myself once again to this labor (I didn’t go to the gym this morning exactly for this reason).

I have little else interesting to say, so here are the promised photos and a couple extras:

The live music for the dances.

Twirly skirts and colors!

More colors! Sorry these photos are blurry—the dancers just wouldn’t stop moving ;)

Baila, baila, baila!

Mimi and Hade sleeping. These two are the least crazy of the five.

Mimi and Abita. Abita is normally bouncing off the ceiling, so catching her in this position was a rare moment.

This is Blanca (or Blanquita) and is of the same temperament (crazy) as Abita, so again this is a rare moment of tranquility.

This fifth dog, Perika, is a little shy, so I don’t have a photo of her, but she pretty much looks like Blanca and Abita. 

PS. For those of you leaving comments inquiring about a certain person, stop your imagination before it runs away with you. He's actually much more likely to be with someone whose name I will not mention, due to the sensitivity of the situation...

Tuesday January 18^th, 2011

Today marked the beginning of our (Paty and my) commitment to regular exercise. Since Paty has to work at 9am, we went to the 7am-8am aerobics class. It turns out that Telma (friend from the hike with the big dog) goes to the same class every morning! Cusco seems big, but it’s not. The class today was pretty much just constant dancing. The instructor, Sandra, is a little bit crazy, but that makes it fun. And man oh man can she move her booty! No joke, it was like nothing I’ve seen before, and nothing that I could hope to imitate accurately.

The only other notable thing today was meeting with Miguel after class. He wants to improve his English and I had homework that I knew he could help me with, so it was a win-win situation. We talked in English a bit and he tried to tell me that I speak English faster than he speaks Spanish. Of course this simply isn’t true, it just that to the person learning the other language it seems like the native speaker talks super fast. It’s a nice change of situation to be the one slowing down my speech and over-exaggerating pronunciations so that someone else can understand me for once, instead of always being the other way around. I feel less idiotic, like I’m not the only person in Cusco who has to say ‘What? Can you say that more slowly?’ Anyway, all I’m trying to say is that empathy is a good thing. Now I understand better the effort they have to put in so that I can understand them and I think Miguel understands better why it’s so hard for me to understand conversations sometimes.

Oh, also notable today was my first time royally screwing up using the bus. Miguel was in a hurry to get to his house so we got on a full-size bus instead of waiting for a microbus (combi). I knew the route went past my stop, but on the big buses they don’t call out my stop. I tried my hardest to look out the window to know where to get off, but the bus was literally crammed with people and I was standing, so I couldn’t see well. I was way past my stop before I realized it and had to get off and catch a bus on the other side of the street. But hey! I was glad for the opportunity to see a part of the city I hadn’t visited before, even if it was dark out and a little sketchy… but all’s well that ends well!

Wednesday January 19^th, 2011

This morning Paty and I went to the spinning class instead of the aerobics class. This was definitely more intense, but I liked it. And if I can handle this exercise at this altitude, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be some sort of super-woman when I go back to lower altitude :D

Friday January 21^th, 2011

After class today Alberto came to Tinku so that we could go together to the theatre. On the way, we passed through the Plaza de Armas (the largest and most important of many plazas in the city) to see the cars. I’m not sure about the details here, but from what I understand there is some sort of international (between Brasil, Peru, and Chile maybe??) race going on to celebrate the completion of a highway that reaches both coasts of South America. As I understand, it goes directly from Brasil to Peru. This is obviously pretty cool, but more interesting to people who care more about cars (ie, not me).

The show, on the other hand, was awesome. There were several dances from different traditional Andean cultures. For each dance there were different outfits, and all of them so colorful! I promise I’ll post photos of it soon, although photos can never do justice to a dance.

Saturday January 22^nd, 2011

For lunch today we went to the house of some relatives. They were all quite nice and the food was good, despite the strong presence of meat. To be honest, meat is a big part of Peruvian cuisine and it can be challenging at times to find a vegetarian option. But I digress, it was quite a nice meal and I think at some later date we’ll go to the little town where one of the uncles owns a house (out in the countryside).

Since there’s little else to mention right now, I’ll share some photos you might find interesting.

This is the shower. There is no hot water heater (all sinks are cold water only) but there is always a hot shower, thanks to this apparatus! I’m not actually sure how it works, to be honest. All I know is that you turn on the water, flip the switch, and somehow electricity magically warms the water! It’s a very effective system and you never run out of hot water for your shower J

Here’s photo of inside Centro Tinku. Like many places, it’s an open-air design, which I find quite agreeable. The small classrooms open directly into this larger area.

I think I neglected to post pictures of my birthday, so here are a couple:

My cake—it was quite delicious :D Note the ellipsis after my name… yeah, I don’t know why either…

Preparing to blow out the candle.

Me and Paty

Me, Miguel, Jisela, and her husband (he was making even weirder faces in the other photos, believe it or not. When we asked him why he defended himself by saying “I’m not a model!”)

Saturday January 15^th, 2011

This was a laid-back Saturday, but here are the highlights:  Alberto and I went to a market in the Plaza Tupac Amaru (it’s there every Saturday). There was quite a variety of things there—plants, belts, jewelry, furniture, books, etc. In general, the price of most of the items (when converted to $US) was CHEAP. They say you should always barter to a lower price, but that’s hard for me when it’s so cheap in the first place! I also tried “queso helado” at the market, which I guess means “cheese ice cream,” although it had a different consistency than ice cream and was still sweet. It was quite delicious—if you ever get the opportunity you should try it.

This is a photo of Alberto in front of the monument of Tupac Amaru (he was a hero), which is at the center of the Plaza Tupac Amaru.

In the afternoon I had the fortune of successfully finding a café with free Wifi. Pay for one coffee and use the internet for 2 hours—very agreeable to me.

In the evening Paty and I went to the surprise birthday party for Jisela. We were late (Paty always works late) and thus arrived after the surprise portion, but it was fun regardless. Peruvians seem to be quite a fun bunch, full of joking and dancing.

This is an action shot of Jisela and her husband dancing… and someone’s arm…

It seems that it’s also a custom at birthday parties for everyone to say something about the birthday person. Of course, I thought I would be exempted from this, but I wasn’t. I said something like ‘I met Jisela just recently, but in this time I already like her a lot!’ Although it was probably even more awkward sounding than that due to my continued struggle with the Spanish language. Around midnight we—you guessed it!—went to a discoteca. This discoteca was rather large and pretty classy (as far as discotecas go). We danced and danced until about 4am and then finally went home.

Sunday January 16^th, 2011

To be honest, I hadn’t been too keen on staying out late last night because this morning I had to wake up at 7:30am. I had made plans to join Jean-Jacques (director of Centro Tinku) and his friend on their weekly hike with their dogs.  Overall the hike was excellent. We hiked up into the mountains surrounding Cusco though rural parts, forested parts, past ruins, across creeks…

Beginning the ascent. Jean-Jacque on the left and Telma on the right.

My first sight of Inca ruins, up close and personal! Ika (Telma’s giant lab) also appears in this photo.

Jean-Jacques playing fetch with Korie (this is the Quechua word for gold because she’s a golden retriever!) Ika is in the foreground. These flat areas are the terraces built by the Inca’s, which are very convenient for playing fetch nowadays ;)

This photo speaks for itself. Me, happy as can be in the mountains with a donkey :D

Cusco

A taste of the scenery

More Incan ruins. This site is called the Cárcel de los Incas (cárcel means jail). This is where we stopped to snack. 

This was the worst part of the hike (the aftermath), but it was totally worth the pain. Now, before you go lecturing me, let me say that I was wearing SPF 30 sunscreen during this hike. The sun here is even stronger that I expected, so to fight back today (Monday) I bought SPF 55. If that doesn’t do the job, then I guess I’ll just have to admit defeat and cover every inch of my skin when I go for a hike…

Monday January 17^th, 2011

The highlight of today was learning how to wash my clothes by hand. Paty told me yesterday ‘If you have the money, pay to have your clothes washed for you because doing it yourself is horrible.’ But I said ‘No, I want to learn and if it really is horrible, then I want to have that horrible experience.’ In hindsight, she was mostly right. It’s not fun at all, but it’s given me a profound new appreciation for washing machines. It is my conviction that much of the cultural development in the arts, music, science, etc. has come about due to the time and energy liberated by the invention of the washing machine. I know I was especially slow at it because it was my first time, but my goodness! I think I spent a good 3 1/2 hours washing what would have been one load of clothes. Lucia (she cooks and cleans for the family sometimes) was making fun of me because it took me so long. She called me ‘super lavadora Laura’ and I responded with ‘super lento!’ It was all in good fun J I think tomorrow my rear end and back will be sore for having sat bent over a tub for so long! But I’m glad I learned this new skill and as long as I have the time, I think I’ll continue to do it during my time here. When in Rome… right?

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but Peruvians in general are shorter than people in the states. After this experience today, I’ve finally figured out why evolution here favored shorter people—less fabric to wash. So, if I come home wearing super skimpy clothing (shorts and tank-tops every day) it won’t be because I’ve taken a sudden liking to showing my skin, it will because I got sick of washing so much fabric! 

Friday January 14^th, 2011

The rest of my birthday Wednesday was fun. We had pizza and cake with Paty’s friends (Miguel, Jisela, and her husband, can’t remember his name…). Around 12:30am Paty, Miguel, and I went to a discoteca. I thought that it was silly to go out on a Wednesday and that the club would be empty, but it was quite packed! The night life lives throughout the week because of foreigners in Cusco on vacation. I met people from the US, Argentina, and Chile, for example.

Yesterday in class I learned about how the Spanish language has mixed with the indigenous languages in South America. Here in Cusco many words used today are Quechua instead of Spanish. For example, I had already learned the words for scarf, sweater, jacket, avocado, pig, socks, and underwear, but here they don’t use the words I learned, they use the Quechua words, so I have to re-learn them! Just when I thought I knew how to say “Look at the pig wearing socks and underwear eating an avocado!” I have to start from square one again… ;)

Tuesday January 11^th, 2011

Yesterday was my first day of class at Centro Tinku. Monday through Friday I have class from 3-5pm. In total I will take 5 courses, but right now I have 2, one about the Spanish language and one about language and culture. Both of my professors are female and both are very nice, which is pretty important considering my classes are one on one. I was hoping to have classmates of some sort so that it would be easier to meet people and make friends, but I guess I’m out of luck in that department. Yesterday I briefly met 2 students from Germany, but I think they’re both leaving Cusco to do volunteer work. I think there are other students that will eventually be coming, but they’re not here yet. I must practice patience…

On a lighter note, I successfully took the bus all by myself today! The first time going to and from Centro Tinku my host father Alberto went with me, but today I went on my own. I take one of the many “microbuses” (or combi) which is basically a van with extra seats in it. Sometimes they’re full to the point of standing room only, which is a bit uncomfortable. When you're coming up on a bus stop the person operating the door yells out the name of it. If you're getting off you have to say 'baja', otherwise they won't stop! 

Tomorrow is my birthday, which would be super important if I was in the US, but here it’s just another birthday (in Peru the drinking age is 18). I don’t yet have any specific plans. I’m not sure what Peruvians usually do to celebrate a birthday, but I’ll find out soon!

The weather here is still pretty nice. It rained most of the night last night, but then was warm and sunny during the day. So far this “rainy season” isn’t all that bad…

Wednesday January 12^th, 2011

¡ Feliz cumpleaños a mí ! This morning Alberto prepared a special drink for my birthday. It’s called Ponche de Habas and is a drink for parties and is served hot. It usually contains the alcohol beverage called Pisco (it’s unique to Peru) but this didn’t, of course. Ponche simply means ‘punch’ and ‘habas’ translates to ‘broad beans.’ It also contains egg, cinnamon, and airampo, which has a red color (I’m not sure if it has a certain flavor or if it’s just for color). For lunch we prepared Pastel de Papas, which means ‘potato cake’ literally. It was a lot like a lasagna, but with potatoes instead of pasta. It also contained tomatoes, onions, hardboiled eggs, milk, cheese, and whipped eggs. To bake it, we didn’t use the oven here; we walked to the ‘gran horno’ where a woman operates a big wood fire oven. I suppose it’s more economical in both energy and money to use a community oven!

Right now it’s 7:30pm, so for the rest of my birthday, as far as I know right now, Miguel and some other friends of Paty are going to come over for dinner and cake and then we’re going out to dance. I’m glad Paty has friends to share with me since I still don’t have any of my own… :/

Class today went well and I once again rode the microbus successfully! I’m getting to know the city better, little by little and once I get a better map of the city I’m going to do more exploring.

One cultural difference that you might find interesting is the way Peruvians greet one another. When you greet someone you always put your cheek to theirs and make the kissing noise as if you were kissing them on the cheek (but you aren’t literally kissing them on the cheek). It doesn’t matter if you see them every day or if you’re meeting them for the first time, you always use this greeting. To be honest, I’m still getting used to it…

I’ll hopefully continue the story and post again sometime this weekend! 

A couple photos...

My room

El Río Blanco (taken from the van)

The view from our hotel room in Abancay

Choclo; very tasty :)

Tía Maria, Paty, Regina, and me at the reception after the wedding!

More photos later, hopefully both here and on Facebook...

Finally have internet, sorry for the delay!

Thursday January 6^th, 2010

I have finally arrived in Cusco, Peru! It’s 7:39pm and I am sitting on my bed in my room, which is small, but that doesn’t bother me—I’ll think of it as cozy J I’ll give a brief summary of my trip, which ended up being much more exciting (aka stressful) than I expected.

I arrived at the Grand Rapids airport around 10am with plenty of time to catch my 11:50am departure. I would then have plenty of time in Atlanta to get to my departure for Lima at 5:15pm. But apparently that wasn’t meant to be. Instead, the plane arrived 3 hours late. The Delta employee told there was a good chance I’d miss my next flight and that my options were to stay overnight in Grand Rapids and book the same flights for the next day or to go to Atlanta and attempt to make my connecting flight. If I didn’t make the flight I would stay in a hotel in Atlanta for the night. Of course, I decided to go for it. I changed my seat to the front of the plane and when I got off in Atlanta I literally ran to my next gate. If you’ve ever been to the airport in Atlanta, you might appreciate how long the run was from terminal C to terminal T, and of course both gates were at the very end of each terminal!

But in the end, luck was with me. I arrived red-faced and out of breath at gate T1 to find that they were boarding the last group of passengers. It was a group of 18 Japanese tourists who were also late for the flight. Because of them the flight was delayed 10 minutes, and because of them I made the flight. I’ve never been more grateful for Japanese tourists.

During the 6 hour flight, my transition into the Spanish-speaking world began. All of the people sitting around me spoke Spanish and most of the flight attendants were bi-lingual. To be honest, it scared me a little and I was very nervous to speak Spanish to anyone, so it was a very quiet flight for me.

I arrived in Lima around midnight, which left me with 6 hours to kill before my flight to Cusco. This turned out to be a very good thing, because I spent a couple of hours doing everything wrong in the airport. My biggest mistake was this: when I checked my baggage I asked if I would need to transfer it when I changed airlines in Peru and they told me no, that it would arrive at the city on the tag, which was Cusco. That turned out to be completely wrong (thanks so much Delta airlines). So when I went to check into the airline LanPeru, they told me I needed it and I had to be escorted by an employee backwards through the airport to get my bags. Very embarrassing!

Overall, I found the Lima airport to be very confusing and poorly laid-out, even though most of the signs were translated into English as well. If you ever travel to Peru, contact me and I can help describe the airport a bit so you’re not as lost as I was! But eventually I figured things out and made it to my gate with plenty of time to spare and finally boarded my flight to Cusco around 6am. I slept for most of the 1 hour flight, but when I did look out the window, oh my, the mountains were incredible. They were so huge and mostly covered in snow. Some were so tall that they made the clouds around them seem very low to the ground. And flying into Cusco itself was incredible, too. It truly is a city nestled in the mountains, surrounded on all sides.

I was picked up by a couple of people who work at Centro Tinku, which is the language school where I will be taking classes, starting Monday. By the time we arrived at my host family’s house I was thoroughly overwhelmed and also a little out of breath. My heart was beating faster than normal in response to the new altitude of11,000 feet above sea level.

My host family is a father (72 years old) and daughter (30 years old) and they are very kind. They gave me coca tea, which is supposed to help with the adjustment to the altitude, and we had some breakfast. But I couldn’t eat much and was still very overwhelmed, especially with trying to speak and understand Spanish. I have to be honest, I felt like an idiot and eventually started crying at the table (like I said, I was thoroughly overwhelmed). Great first impression, right? But in my defense I hadn’t slept in 24 hours. I went and lay down in my new room and slept for 3 hours and felt much better when I woke up. The first thing I heard was a little scratching at my door and when I opened it I found dogs! I had been told that the family had 2 dogs, but they actually have 5; to me, the more dogs the merrier J They’re all smaller and very cute—I love them all already. The daughter, Paty, adopted them all from the streets (there are many “perros abandonados” or abandoned dogs here—it’s sad).

But my favorite thing about the family’s dogs is that they don’t speak and I don’t have to speak to them. Furthermore, I have a greater understanding of what it’s like to be a dog now, to hear conversation all around you but to understand nothing. That’s not to say I never understand, but often I have to ask people to repeat things, talk slower, and look up words in my pocket dictionary (life saver!). But of course I know I will learn, little by little, and be less frustrated.

I have already met many friends and family. A friend of Paty, Miguel, joined us for lunch. He seemed very nice and already asked me if I would teach him English! I told him I am not a teacher but that I would try. After dinner some relatives came over. I’m a little confused as to how everyone’s related still, but they were all very nice, too. And there is a woman who cooks for the family sometimes, Lucia, who I chatted with (to the best of my abilities). Alberto (my host father) and I also went to the market nearby to pick up some gloves (so I can help with the dishes) and a few other things.

Those are the basics of my first day in Peru. If my writing seems strange at all it’s because already it’s feels weird to think/write in English, and it’s only been one day! I don’t want to think about how hard it will be after 3 months…

Friday January 7, 2011

I don’t think I’ll be able to use the internet until Monday when I go to Centro Tinku, so I’m just going to keep writing and post as soon as a can!

I slept quite a bit last night and felt good in the morning. My only complaint is that I was a little sore because my bed is quite firm. The best comparison I can think of for my bed is a very compacted futon mattress. Anyway, here are the highlights of my second day in Peru:

At 11am, Paty and I took a taxi to the Mercado Central because we needed to get dresses for the wedding. Her brother is getting married in a small town nearby (they said about a 4 hour drive) and apparently it’s necessary to wear a dress. Taking a taxi is very cheap. It was 3 soles, which is about $1, to get there. The traffic and driving is terrifying though. It seems like the ‘rules of the road’ are pretty loosely followed and several times I thought we were going to hit or be hit by another car. I don’t even want to image myself trying to drive a car here!

But we made it safely to the market and found the dress shops. The stores are very small and I didn’t really know what was going on most of the time. The first dress I tried on fit, so I stuck with that, not wanting to try on any more. Paty tried on a few at two different stores and finally found one. I assumed we were buying the dresses, but I eventually figured out that we were renting them and are going to return them on Monday! I was confused and surprised by it at first, but it seems like a perfectly sensible system.

I was originally told that we were going to leave for the wedding today at 3pm, but I recently found out that we’re going to leave tomorrow in the morning. It doesn’t make much of a difference to me, but I am excited to visit this smaller town and excited for the wedding—it’s bound to be an interesting cultural experience.

Sunday January 9, 2011

It’s 8:00pm and we just arrived back in Cusco. We left yesterday morning; Paty, Alberto (my host father), Regina (Paty’s cousin), Miguel (Paty’s friend), Alberto (my host father Alberto’s son), tía Maria, tío Flabio and me, all in a van. The wedding was in Abancay, which is a 3 to 4 hour drive in the mountains. As you can imagine, a drive through the Andes mountains is very scenic and beautiful—I took a ton of photos. But as you probably can also imagine, it’s VERY curvy and terrifying at times. For example, you’re rounding a hairpin turn and suddenly a semi is coming straight at you in your lane (I guess they like to take the corners wide). Tío Flabio drove and did a great job, but I wouldn’t say that he drove smoothy or took much care to brake BEFORE we got to each curve. And when there is hairpin turn after hairpin turn, let’s just say it’s not all that comfortable. Mom, I’m positive that if you’d been in the car you would have demanded to be let out and would’ve walked instead.

As a side note, I think I’ve figured out the most important rule of the road here. As I mentioned before, the driving is crazy, but I’ve figured out how they determine who has the right of way: whoever honks or honks first has the right of way. If a person is crossing the street and a car is coming, the driver honks and then the pedestrian has to run to get out of the way. Likewise with other cars; if someone honks it means get out of my way or watch out because I’m coming up on you fast. And they honk a lot.

On the way we pulled over for some fast food in one of the small towns we passed through. And by fast food I don’t mean McDonalds, I mean we pulled over to the side of the road and bought choclo and cheese from a street vendor. The best description I can think of for choclo is corn but with much larger kernels and it’s quite good. There’s a photo of the one I ate.

Despite the crazy mountain driving, we arrived in Abancay safe and sound. Previously I described Cusco as a city nestled in the mountains, but this description suits Abancay much better. When I first saw the city it was from the top of the mountain we had just driven up. Looking down at the city was quite a view (sorry, no picture because I’d lost my camera in the van by this point and it was dead on the way back L). It’s smaller than Cusco and is surrounded by taller mountains—very beautiful.

The wedding was yesterday evening and it was really not much different from other weddings and receptions I’ve been to. I think that has everything to do with the Spanish bringing Christianity to Peru—it was a Catholic wedding. Most of the non-religious things were the same, too, including the bouquet toss and garter! The reception was quite fun once the formalities were out of the way. There were lots of appetizers followed by dinner, then champagne, then wine, then beer, then whisky, then rum and coke (no lack of beverages!). There was a live band and lots of dancing. We staying until around 3am and then Miguel, Paty, Regina and I went to a discoteca (nightclub). For the record, this wasn’t my idea. I was already quite tired, but I’m glad we went. You know me—I loooove to dance J We didn’t leave until around 7am and by that time I was practically falling asleep on my feet. These Peruvians are wearing me out already!

For breakfast I had pineapple juice, which was made with pureed pineapple and water—very delicious, highly recommend it. After hanging out in the Plaza de Armas, taking some family photos, and having lunch with the newlyweds plus family/friends, we hit the winding road once again.

Of course, having slept for about 3 hours last night (and it was impossible to nap in the car, what with being tossed back and forth constantly) I’m pretty tired. I’ll get some good rest tonight so that I’m ready for my first class tomorrow! I’m excited to finally see the school and start my studies. I’m learning a lot as it is, but I think classes about the language will help move me along much quicker.

I enjoyed the wedding and getting to know the family. Furthermore, Regina (she’s Paty’s cousin and just a couple years older than me) lives in Arequipa, which is another major city of Peru I want to visit. She said I can come to Arequipa and stay with her—I’ll definitely be taking her up on that!

Overall, I had a great time this weekend—me divertí como chanco, as they say here. This roughly translates to “I enjoyed myself like a pig”…  I don’t understand the expression, but I like it :D 

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3...

Well I guess this kicks off my new-fangled blog! This is where I'll be posting updates, stories, thoughts, insights, complaints, revelations, etc. during my semester abroad. Most of this will be from Cusco, Peru, but I will also be traveling outside Peru at some point.

I hope you find the future content of this blog to be interesting, informative, and maybe even entertaining-I will post next from below the equator!