In Cusco and Loving It!
Olah, mi amigos! Cuzco es bellisomo y me encanta!
Just to warn you, I´ll be throwing muchas palabras de
espanol en mis cartes por que am trying to learn and
it is weird to type in english again, but also a
relief. Don´t worry, i won´t do it too much. If you
get lost though, try freetranslation.com.
When I flew into Lima, it was freezing cold and
raining. I waited for hours outside for laiglesia de
san francisco a abrir y when it finally did, it was
cold inside as well. No one has central heating and
everything is pretty open so it´s cold everywhere. I
stopped in a little cafe to get some food and hoped it
wouldn´t make me sick,it didn´t. Iglesia de San
Francisco was really cool. It was the first church of
the Franciscan order in Peru and not only is the
inside beautiful (in a different way then european
cathedrals) but it has catacombs all underneath it
where more then 25000 bodies are buried. the have
excavated many of them and laid the bones, mostly
skulls femurs and tibias, in rows. There´s a huge
well with piles of skulls outlined in femurs, it´s
really creepy. you´re not supposed to take picturas
pero i had to. i´ll post some. meanwhile, not 10
feet above, genetes tiene un servicio de Dios y
religioso. It´s really funky.
Also, riding in taxis
in Peru is really crazy. SOME of the taxis have
seatbelts and no one really adheres to the rules. In
Lima, my taxi driver was driving in a two lane road,
we came to an intersecion where two cars already were.
He went between them over the line, didn´t stop, just
honked the horn and kept going. Es muy peligroso y
loco.
En Lima, I was getting disappointed in Peru, pero
cuando llegado en Cuzco, fui muy contento por que
Cuzco es en cuidad de bonito! It´s up in the
mountains above 10,000 feet and the houses are built
on the sides on the mountains and the arcitectura es
different then anything i´ve ever seen. Es un lugar de
mucho contento y mucho triste-> It´s a place of much
happiness and much saddness. The beautiful colors are
amazing pero mucha structuras son run down or half
built. There are children playing in the streets and
old men sitting homeless next to a streetlight. there
are old women carrying frutas y otras comidas in
blankets on their backs and soldiers talking and
patroling with guns, pero mas gentes son contento.
It´s so hard to describe, but very interesting. Once
the children are old enough to talk, they put them to
work, I bought un agua mineral de una hija tiene no
mas que ocho anos.
I thought I was going to have a lot of extra time
here, but the days are pretty packed with
stuff,including 6 hours of clases, 4 horas in la
manana en clases de grupo, y 2 horas in la tarde en
clase privada. There´s also tours and movies and
welcome dinners. I´m also meeting so many new people
and as you know I love to talk. and of course they
are mostly germans and dutch, those countries get
around,pero there are also canadians, and… nope
that´s basically it. I love the dutch though and the
germans so I´m all good. 
My studies are intense but it´s only been a day and
I´ve learned so much. My host family is very helpful
with speaking spanish all the time. I was surprised
when I got there, their house is sooo nice,really. A
nice big yard with a house with lots of windows. I
have my own room upstairs and there are two girls down
stairs who are also students. Oneis german, the other
is from iceland. We talked of Sigur Ros. she agreed
with me that they DO always look like they´re in pain
when they play. Those who went to Coachella 2006 know
what I´m talking about. Mi familia es Oscar, el
padre, y Sarah, la madre, Catalina (i think), la hija
(daughter), ya a house keeper whose name I still
haven´t gotten down yet. They are greatpeople and
lots of fun.
However, there is only about 30min of
warm water in the morning at a certain time and I
apparently didn´t make that time because that was the
COLDEST shower I have ever taken! It´ll wake ya up
though, refreshing!
The altitude has affected me a lot pero no enfermo…
yet. I don´t breathe a lot anyway, so I really have
to make a point of it here and whenever I get dizzy,
take some deep breaths. The hardest part was getting
to sleep,I kept waking up and taking a deep breath
cause I wasn´t breathing enough. I think I actually
have sleep apnea cause I seriously don´t breathe that
deeply or often usualmente. I think anyone who has
sleep apnea shouls spend a few months at high
altitudes, it would probably cure them.
That was my
first night, we´ll see how I do tonight.
Oh and since I onlyhad like two horas to pack, i
forgot a lot of stuff like Immodium (yikes) y my knee
brace, y mas importante, mi chaqueta (jacket). During
the day it´s very nice hre, pero at night, es muy
frio. I will definately have to buy a jacket
tomorrow. One more thing to carry., oyE!
Okay, that´s it for now, soy consado. buenos noches
mi amores!