Cusco

I have been in Cusco for over a month now. The time has gone by amazingly fast. I have Spanish class all week and weekends have been filled with outings to nearby towns and hikes in the lovely mountains. I live with a host family here. They are a lot of fun and are very easy going, don’t mind me coming and going when I want to, etc…they seem to worry less about me than other host families I’ve heard about, which is perfect for me. We live about 20 minutes from the center of the city, in “combi” that is. Combis are little vans that seem to run constantly, cost about 15¢, and pack in as many people as possible. Today as I rode home on Servicio Rapidio, with my head smashed against the ceiling and a man’s elbow digging into my back every time he turned the page of his newspaper, I counted over 25 people in the little bus. It’s great to have such a convenient, cheap way to get around, since most days I find myself making a couple trips from home to the center where most everything seems to be going on. Even when nothing in particular is going on there, it’s a good starting point from which to explore the city, which is what I often do in the afternoon once I’ve finished class. I’ve also visited a number of Inca and pre-Inca ruins in and around Cusco. It’s amazing and fascinating to see what people were able to do with stone so many years ago.


I spent last week differently than the previous few. I went with a friend from my Spanish school to Puno, again. It was very different than my first time in Puno. We went there slowly, stopping in little towns on the way to see Inca ruins, the “Sistine Chapel of the Americas” (where it turns out I will be doing volunteer work with a couple architects from Cusco), hot springs with a view of snowy mountains in the distance, etc. We arrived in Puno on a bus that reminded me a lot of those that I rode in Bolivia. It was overflowing with people and stopped all over to let people on and off, including the largest woman I’ve seen in Peru who got on the bus, set up a table at the front, and began chopping meat, putting it into bags and selling it to almost everyone on the bus. Once in Puno, we met up with my host mother and two host sisters from my family in Japan. They had hoped to visit me in California, but when they heard I was in Peru they decided to visit here instead! It was great to see them again, to be speaking so many different languages (English, Spanish, Japanese, and German), and to teach them what I’ve figured out about Peru so far. Together we all went on a trip to the islands of Taquile and Amantani about three hours away from Puno out in the middle of Lake Titicaca. The islands are beautiful! From the top, the view is amazing. The lake is blue and sparkling and there are big, tall mountains in every direction. Although our tour of the islands was too touristy, it gave us an interesting perspective of life on the islands. We slept on Amantani with families. We got to see their houses (without electricity or running water), the way they cook everything over a fire in the tiny kitchen, and we tried to learn a few words in Quechua, their primary language. Early in the morning we got up to watch the sunrise over the lake and saw the people of the island waking up to tend their fields of potatoes, quinoa, and wheat. It felt a bit wrong to invade their island like we did, but it was also a very interesting experience.


Now that I am back in Cusco, I have just a few days left of Spanish class left before I get to start my volunteer work…finally! I’m not totally sure what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be most of the time, but I’ve gotten in contact with a couple architects who I’ll be working with. The projects are different than I originally thought, but seem interesting and will give me a chance to visit areas outside of Cusco. One of the projects is in Andahuaylillas, where they are doing a three year long restoration of the “Sistine Chapel of the Americas.” Their other project is building something…not sure what yet, in the town of Chinchero, where I haven’t yet been. This week, one of the architects, Mario Castillo, who is also a professor at the University, is showing me various places in Cusco. He took me to the very unimpressive Central Library at the University and tomorrow he is taking me to meet the director of the Inca Museum. He seems to have connections everywhere, so that should make things interesting for me. I’ll get to meet lots of people and see different places, I think. I suppose I’ll just have to wait to know more until next week when I actually start doing my volunteer work.