Bien, now where did we leave off. I think it was
Thursday. Or wed.. anyway, I think i´m getting used
to this whole altitude thing although I might be sick
tonight. i just ate a whole banana split and drank a
pisco sour. Speaking of drinking, a bunch of us went
out to this place called Indigo where lots of
extranerjos hang out listening to American music and I
drank three beers and a pisco sour. My back had been
hurting earlier in the week, i think fro,m the cold,
and even though it feels better now, on thursday i
went to get a massage at a place my host other, Sarah,
recommended. It was my first massage so it was kind of
weird, they made me take all my clothes off and
….just kidding, just the shirt. she worked alot on
my arms and hands, trying to get my joints to work
properly but they´ve always popped so I asked her,
Puedes trabajar en mi espalda abajo? and she said si
and we started to have a convesation in spanish, which
was cool. I also talked to a cab driver about
american politics, tourists and business being lento.
Habla no hay muchos touristes como en el ano pasado
por que de the earth quake. People are afraid to come
down.

Anyway, I guess the massage was good, I have no
frame of reference, but i´d say i don´t really need
them all that often. At the end of the massage, she
had me sit up and started messing with my neck and
trying to do some cyropractic numbers and I was like,
that´s okay, no necessito. In fact, my neck kind of
hurt after the massage, but then like 10 minutes
later, it felt really good and i felt like dancing.

Despues de masaje, fue a la fontana en la Plaza de
Armas a encontrarmecon mi amiga Jenny, la chica de
Alamania. We went to a club called Uptown and arrived
just in time for the free salsa lessons. I´ve had a
few lessons back in the states and typically it´s like
here´s the basic steps and a couple of turns, but the
3RD move he showed us involved me flipping my leg over
the girls arm and spinning her underneath me. the next
one, I grabbed her neck, turned her and she fell back
towards me and i held her up and picked her back up by
the neck. they were some crazy moves but so awesome, i
felt like a real salsa dancer. now if i can only find
some form of rythm. I´ll have to show off my moves
when i get back.

Bailamos hasta doce y media cuando fue a la casa. I
had to get up early to go to class again, which has
been going quite well. I like my teachers and having
the group in the morning and the private lessons in
the afternoon really helps. Plus living with the host
famly makes me use it more then I would cause they
really don´t speak english. Oh, and when I got home
from dancing, mi familia was watching Spirited Away en
espanol. I understood someof it. Sam and I are going
to go see a movie later on this week to help with the
spanish.

Oh, also on Thursday, there was a little music class
after school and a guy came to talk about Peruvian and
incan music history, all in spanish of course. The
last half of the class, we got to play the zamponia
which is basically two pan pipes, roped together, one
has 6 holes (the ira) and one has 7 holes (the arka).
With the instruction of the professor, we didn´t sound
half bad. Ayer, compro un zamponia y apprendo tocar
¨Hey Jude¨.

On Friday after class there was a salsa
class which I went to but didn´t think it was as good
as the one at Uptown. Afterwards, we went to CUziCuy
for dinner, the same place we went the first night for
the welcome dinner, to have some cuy, which is the
local dish of Peru. In case you don´t know, cuy is
guinea pig. So that little Fluffy you have at home,
they eat him in Peru. The service was really slow
cause there was one guy for the whole restaurant, but
finally we got our fried cuy, legs,claws, head and
all. They even put a little tomato on his head as a
hat. Most people were grossed out, but as I said,
carne es carne andI ate most of it. The vegetarians
wouldn´t touch it. the meat was like chicken but
had more of a rabbity flavor, it was hard to get the
meat off of all the bones. it´s like crab, not worth
it in my opinion. But we did have fun taking pictures
with it´s head and stuff.

Despues de cena, fuimos a Uptown para mas bailar.
They had the salsa lessons againa dn we learned even
more crazy moves, they look so cool, i hope i still
remember them when i get back.
Entones, fuimos a Mythology un otra club. They played
more hip hop and I was less into it. I left around 2
and came home to sleep. Hoy es Sabado, entonces,
duermo hasta diaz. I needed that cause I´m always
tired here, not in a sluggish way, it´s just like you
know how I go into food coma in the states, well here
it´s even worse, of course I´m also eating less. Your
digestive system is slower at these higher elevations
and so the peruvians have a medium sized breakfast, a
large lunch, like three courses, and a small dinner,
just soup or something, otherwise you´ll have bad
dreams, which happened to me the first couple days.
Tengo pesadillos en el Lunes pasado. I dreamt that
all these nurse came into my room and needed to be
taught, but I couldn´t teach them cause I didn´t know
spanish. it was that same sort of dream I had when I
first started my job. I think i was just stressed
from trying to get out of my fast passed life and into
a new groove. I sleep fine now and have ear plugs to
knock out at least some of the noise from the road
outside.

This morning, Sarah said she was going a el mercado y
Raquel y Marlena hablan they wanted to go too, so I
also joined in. We thought we were just walkng up the
street a mercado de la esquina pero Oscar pulled up in
the car and off we went.

We first went to go visit
the cemetary to see the grave of Sarah´s other cause
it was the day that she goes and visits her. She just
died two years ago, so she cried a little when she was
showing us her grave. How they do the graves here is
a bit different, instead of burying people in the
ground, they have these huge walls erected in which
they put the bodies.

On the outside of the walls,
there is a tiny inlet covered by a decorative frame in
which you can put pictures, flowers, have the epitaph
on the back of, etc. It was amazing to see and I felt
kinda bad, but I had to take a couple pics of it. I
just made sure no one saw me.

They also have maseleos
(masaleums) inside but nstead of the gothic style of
the states, some of them lookmore like bathrooms. the
outside is tiled and some have clear clouded doors on
the outside. It was really interesting to see. In
the inlets, people put things that sort of describe
the persons´s life.

For instance, some of them had
little tables with dolls sitting at it and tiny crates
of cervezas y huevos y otra casos, that person was a
restaurant owner. There was one maseleo which had a
huge torka (gear) stuck in the side of it and that
belonged to an engineer.

Afterwards, we stopped by a
lot of shops and picked up some groceries, ending
finally at the market. Marlena began cooking cause
she made a german dish for us which was basically
potato pancakes with onions and other stuff, they were
good but really heavy. While they were preparing the
food, I went into town to use the internet, but ended
up meeting Sam and Marleen at Jack´s Cafe and stayed
and talked for a while.

I went home, had a big lunch
which was the papa panqueques y pollo y papas dulce
con marshmellows, y, yucca cual es no me gusta. I
took a little nap and then went back into town with
Oscar to meet Sam and Marleen and arrange our
excursion tomorrow. We´re going to take a bus to
Pisaq to see the ruins there and other places so it
should be fun.

Afterwards, I was supposed to go home,
but ended up once again getting some desserts and
pisco sour with Marleen and Sam. It´s difficult to
make plans here. In other places I´ve visited, I´ve
lived in hostels with other people, so it´s really
easy to make plans cause you all live in the same
place, but here, we go home to our respective houses
for most meals, so we actually have to plan beforehand
and hope that other person comes through. Sofar it
hasn´t been a problem.

After the pisco sour, I came
here to the internet, payed all my bills (life still
goes on back home), wrote this log and now I´m going
home to relax, maybe watch a movie or draw, and
hopefully not get sick.
Ciao mi amores.

Olah, amigos. Espero todos es bueno.

It´s been a
busy few days and I´ve been sort of stressed because
there is an option to go learn spanish next week in
Pisca, the Sacred Valley, which is supposed to be
beautiful and all the new friends I made here were
going to go. There are ruins and things to see
thereand it will be much quieter then Cuzco, however,
i don´t think i´ll get much spanish learning done
beause i won´t be with a host family and my friends
and i will prolly speak english more often then not.
so it was un decision de ser social or estudiante
bueno.

Yesterday, Sam, a dutch guy, decided that he
to was going to stay in Cuzco, so I decided to stay as
well. I´m gonna miss the folks, but there are others
here which are also fun and there´ll be a new batch of
students too. If i were staying 3 weeks, i´d have no
problem and I would go, but ah well. We are slaves to
time.

Anyway, we´re going to take a day tour down
there on Sunday anyway.
I haven´t had any problems physically with the climate
which is good., my apetite is still not that big, but
that might be a good thing. no diahhrea or vomiting
or anything like that and the shower is supposed to be
fixed today so no more freezing cold showers. The
taxis here are really cheap, dos o tres soles ir a
Plaza de Armas de la casa, which is like a dollar for
a 10 minute drive. The buses are 50 centimos, but I
had a bad experience the other day. I decided I´d try
the bus for the first time by myself and I thought I´d
reognize something and know where to get off but I
didn´t and ended up taking the bus all the way through
the residential neighborhoods to the last stop at the
bus station, had to wait for another bus and pay again
to take it back into the city. I missed my class of
course since I spent an hour and a half on the bus.
ugh. so I´m just gonna take the taxis, point a to
point b, easy.

the bus operators are crazy, there´s a
driver and a loader. the loader hangs outsie the door
asking people if they want to get on, telling them to
hurry and also jumping out every once and a while to
punch a time card on the street. the bus only stops
to pick people up, even then it´s more of a slow roll.
it´s like a little adventure everyday.

Last night, we went to a bar called Indigo where they
played lots of American music, we drank and talked
till a little after midnight then had to wake up at 7
to go to class. it was fun though. They have a drink
called Pisco sour that´s made from egg whites, lemons,
cinnamon, and fermented grapes (but not wine). It
tastes almost like a whiskey sour and is the oficial
drink of Peru. It´s white with the cinnamon on top
and muy rico! their local beer, Cuzquena, is also
really good, there´s a blonde and a malt, i of course
like the malt and theink it´s better then een
guinness. at this point, i´d have to say in order of
beer likage: Ziggenback Amber on top, then Cuzquena
Malata, and Guinness. I apologize to my heritage.

My host family actually works at a travel agency and
are going to get me some cheap prices on Amazon tours,
so Dianne, don´t book that trip! I want to see what
they have.

Right now, it´s six hours of class a day, 4 hours in a
group in the morning and 2 hours private in the
afternoon which is a lot of classes, almost too much.
I´d like to spend more time hanging out with people,
but I did get to go over to a friend´s place and make
dinner and watch a movie, which was fun. I also met
this guy, Diego, who I swear looks like the Peruvian
Johnny Knoxville, mannerisms and everything. It was
hilarious.
Es todos para ahora.
Ciao!

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!

Okay, peoples. If you’re getting this then that means
i am a genius and in 30 min produced a DBS frm abroad
and altered my site files so that I can save logs on
zoracle AND send them out to everyone in one clean
stroke. If you don’t get this, well that’s my
problem.

Anyway, arrived safe and sound in Lima at 4am. Went
out to walk the city for the day until my flight this
afternoon, unknowing how extremely cold it was, I went
out in just a tshirt. I froze my little butt off most
of the day, but got to see the Plaza de Armas, the
Iglesia de San Francisco and the catacombs underneath
which house more then 25,000 dead bodies. their bones
are lined up in rows in places and I saw a huge well
filled with femurs and skulls, got some good pics.
I’ve got to go get on my flight to Cuzco now, so I’ll
update you on the details later.