Aprendo espanol en Cusco

Saturday night I was invited to go watch Gabriela's father playing a rock covers band and he played some Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin so it was great. We started chatting in Spanish but I ran out of words pretty quickly but they do say any practice is good practice. After we headed to a biker bar to have a burger which was a nice change from the rice and pasta I have been having, not that I don't like rice and pasta.

Monday we had a double helping of class as it's holy week in Peru, they really go to town for the Easter week and have processions through the town with status of Jesus, pictures attached. The Jesus looks black because of the candles that they burn near him. So double class was hard, 4 hours melts the brain anyway but 8 just turns it to mush.

Tuesday me and Ollie decided to have some cuy, or Guinea pig for everyone else, I do have photos but I won't add them, ask if you'd like to see. We also have some alpaca steak, we tried to ask for separate plates but they ended up splitting the cuy down the middle and giving us half each and then bringing out the steaks so everyone looked at us oddly eating two meals between us, hahahahahaha. When I got back Gabriela informed me that there was a solar eclipse visible in Peru that night so we should wake up and try to see it, so set the alarm for 2 and got the camera ready. The cloud was ready and waiting to spoil the he view and we got some very iffy pictures of a reddish blob.

Wednesday we had another school trip this time to a wildlife sanctuary, they have lots of macaws because they cannot teach then to fly again once they have los the ability. However they can teach falcons and hawks with the use of some bait and the big gloves. They also have some pumas that were found as cubs in Lima, they have los their claws and don't know how to hunt and so cannot be released into the wild which is a shame. The highlight were the condors, they did a fly by of the group and they are much bigger than I expected.

Thursday was the last class and I have enjoyed learning a language and the challenges that come with it. I shall be continuing to learn and progress this when I get back as I did feel quite lost without being able to communicate in even a limited way with people along the way on this trip. I certainly like Cusco and Peru and feel that there is still a lot to see and do in south america as a whole.

After class finished, me Ollie and Gabriela took a little trip to devils balcony, which is a natural balcony which overlooks a little river. It is a nice little place, however when crossing the river I managed to slip and smash my knee and both mine and Gabriela's cameras. So my knee is slightly swollen, and badly cut which poses an issue for tomorrow as that the start of my trek. However I am more worried about the loss of the cameras :( EDIT  Gabriela's camera was fine after the rice trick, mine has finally died, leaving me with my phone for the trek and Maccupitchu.

Now is the time to trek to Maccupitchu and see Salkentay on the way.

Local Inca ruins

So I'm now in Cusco and have been living with a local family for the past week and they are really nice and welcoming. Astrid the grandma of the house does not speak any English but she has a good grasp of body language. Astrid is really nice and always offering hot water for hot drinks. Done a week of Spanish classes but more on that another time.

So Tuesday i got up early and tried to see the sun rise from Saqsayhuaman, the Incan ruins just about Cusco but as normal things did not go to plan. I missed the sunrise by looking in the wrong direction, it was really cloudy and the sun rose behind the mountain and trees to my left rather than were I was looking. However got a good opportunity to look around the ruins. The stones are huge, think Stonehenge but bigger stones and they have been altered to fit exactly. And I do mean exactly, its like they played a huge game of Tetris with the stones and ground down ones that didn't quite fit into the wall. How on earth they did this I have no idea or how they even managed to get the stone up to 3400 metres of Cusco. The area of the ruins itself might be half the size of Windsor castle but the size of the stones makes Windsor look like it was made with Lego bricks when compared to the huge stones.

Wednesday me and an American lady Geraldine who is also living with the host family took a bus up to Tambomachy which is 400 metres above Cusco. Our plan was to walk down from there on an old tour trail, however it has since been overgrown and is not used anymore and the local Peruvians warned us off of it. However we saw the ruins of Tambomachy and here the Incas had redirected a local stream through some walls creating fountains of water that come out of the wall. Again how they engineered this is a mystery, and again how its standing after so many years is amazing. There are another two ruins of interest on the way back to Cusco that we saw, firstly Pukapukara which was a fort that the Incas built with a commanding view of the valley in which Cusco is situated. The second site is called Qenqo ( pronounced kenco) this is a single giant rock that had been split into two parts by an earth quake and the Incas had craved ledges into the rock, it is said that young incan warriors would be placed on the ledges and given little food and water until they had a vision about what they had to do in the world.

Thursday we had a school trip to the cemetery, the Peruvians commerate their dead very differently to us. The cemetery contained many small tombs which contained it's that the deceased person might like, a doll for a young child, chocolate or coke for others, some contained pictures of the family so that the dead person would not forgot them. After the cemetery vivist we headed up to Christo blanco ( white Jesus) which is on the hill over looking Cusco, this status was a present from the Israeli people to Cusco. Pictures of both it and my class are below.  From left to right, Steins, Olly, Paulo (Teacher), Me.

Next time Spanish lessons......

Lima and another long bus trip

So many hours later I am in a hostel called the lion in Lima, Peru. Its a nice looking and well looked after hostel in Miraflores, which is the tourist section of Lima. First hour I have met an american guy called Chris who lived in Columbia for a year and Emmanuel from Chile who speaks as much English as I do Spanish but we manage to have a bit of a laugh anyway about how cold the shower is. So I looked for a nice beach to rest on but it turns out the beaches in Lima are not good for anything right now because of pollution unfortunately. So instead me and Chris headed into the night to take a look around the city, saw a few of the more pretty places but my camera is not so good in the dark so you'll just have to trust me.

After the stupidity of my last section of travel to Lima I decided to get ahead of the curve and plan the rest of my flights and travel, the next day. So I spent a day looking at travel options and decided that a bus to Cusco and a flight back to Lima would be the best option. So now I have smashed the credit card hard but I know when I have to be in places to get back all the way to England. I have also changed my plans for the next few weeks again. I'll admit that at time when travelling about I have felt a bit lost as I can only talk to people who speak English, I have perhaps three times used a bit of French to get something or understand directions but I think I have mostly been lucky. So on Monday the 7th I start two weeks of Spanish lessons in Cusco, I'm also living with a Peruvian family who don't speak English so basically I'm dropping myself in at the deep-end and hoping that I can learn to swim really quick.

Back to the bus, now I was dreading the bus that it would be like the buses in Brazil, cold, long and boring. Now in Peru they have got busing down to an art. I mean it felt like I was taking a flight. I arrived changed my voucher for a ticket, checked in my bags and waiting to be called for boarding. Once I got on board I headed up to my seat, I had a seat at the front of the bus on the upper level, right in front of the 25 inch screen that they were going to show movies on. I have a foot rest and the seat reclined to nearly flat. The bus steward came around with proper head phones for the movies. Then at about 7 dinner came round, just like it would on a flight, then breakfast in the morning as well. Needless to say I was very impressed and it made the 20 journey a pleasure not a pain.

Being at the front I got some great views of the road, I'll share a few after this :) so I am now in Cusco, with the family and have had a little tour from the old lady in Spanish about Cusco and have a map. Tomorrow I start my lessons.....