Dia 59 en el Imperio Inca

Right now I should be on a bus to Ollantaytambo with Maggie, but the weather in New York didn´t cooperate and she´s been delayed a day which bums me out. This week felt really busy and was kind of exhausting but in a good way I suppose. First of all, last Sunday was Carnaval and it was so much fun. First, we ( a group of 17 of us) threw water balloons off of Pat´s balcony at passerby on Los Pavitos until the police were called (oops). Then we took taxis to Huaracondo where Pat´s family has a house and where we engaged in water warfare with the children there with Pat´s house as our fortress. Lechon and tamales were served for lunch, though I sadly couldn´t partake in the pork so soon after having typhoid (I finished my antibiotics yesterday and am pretty much eating normally again-yay!). I did, however, eat a very small piece of pig brain, which surprisingly, didn´t taste too bad. It was a very slimy and had a squishy consistency though. Andy and Trey ate the eyes. After lunch we ventured out into the plaza where we got soaked and then found a really nice pool and jumped in fully clothed. We played some chicken and Marco Polo, and then I froze the rest of the day afterwards because I hadn´t brought a change of clothes.

Monday, after school, even though it was rainy, I went on a hike with Dan, Wilder, and Tom. I really enjoyed it and I was proud of my lungs for cooperating. It was pretty steep in some parts and because my actual tennis shoes were still wet from the Carnaval festivites, I was wearing my Converses which have no traction. Because of the rain, the hill was pretty muddy, so admittedly without the boys pulling me a few times I might not have made it up. We went through San Blas and up the hill to Christo Blanco, which was pretty neat because I hadn´t been up to that area before. On Tuesday I walked around for a while with Matteo, which was fun. We went to the two molinos, the second of which had some gross cow parts much like the San Pedro market. Then we bought beer, plantain chips, and chocolate and ate them in the park by my house. Later we went for fondue with a lot of French speaking students and we spoke predominantly in Spanish together and I felt proud that I was able to have real conversations in a new language. Wednesday we had salsa class and then went to the volunteer house where Patrick had made us delicious soup (which I managed to pour all over my lap) and I drank slightly too much wine. Thursday we placed second and third in the pub quiz, respectively. And yesterday I got my hair cut finally. It´s a lot shorter than it´s been in a long time, but I think I like it.

Hopefully Maggie will arrive on time tomorrow and then we will have three days together. We´ll do Machu Picchu Monday and I definitely want to go to Tipòn and eat cuy. Then Tuesday, I will fly to Lima and Trujillo for the rest of my spring break. I´m really excited about the prospect of warm weather and a beach. Can´t believe tomorrow is March. I´m at my half way point now màs o menos.

Hasta luego,

Ashley

Dia 51 en el Imperio Inca

First of all, I hope you all like the addition of some pictures I´ve taken. They, as well as a lot more, are all on Facebook as well. Second of all, I somehow forgot to mention in my last post that there were earthquakes here last weekend. The first one happened Saturday night when I was sitting at the dinner table with my host dad. I felt the room start to vibrate and looked up and saw the chandelier swaying and my dad said, ¨temblores.¨ I had the urge to move but he just sat there so I did too and then it was over after a few seconds. The second one happened really early the next morning, but I didn´t feel it because I was sleeping. As far as I know they were just aftershocks from a much bigger earthquake that was up in the northern part of the country, but didn´t really cause any damage. So, anyways that was my first experience with seismic activity. Also this week I had my first experience with being sick and going to the hospital. Monday morning I was sick to my stomach so I didn´t really eat much all day, because I was afraid of upsetting it more. Then on Monday night I woke up in the middle of the night and began throwing up. I was still sick on Tuesday morning so I skipped school and pretty much literally slept all day. I thought I was feeling better so I woke up Wednesday and showered to go to school, but then I got sick again. My host mother took me to the doctor down the street and I saw a German doctor who gave me a blood test and determined that I had a strong case of typhoid fever. She wanted me to spend 48 hours hooked up to an iv with antibiotics at their sister clinic so that´s what I did. I got to ride in an ambulance with the owner of the clinic, my doctor, my host mom...and a nun. And I wasn´t sitting on the gurney. The nun was. Anyways, the clinic was nice and new and I had a big, private room. I slept most of Wednesday and watched far too much tv Thursday. The view from my room was great and the weather was perfect so I really wanted to be outside. A few friends visited me, which was really nice and my host mother stayed with me a lot. She even fed me soup once when my left arm couldn´t move because my nurse forgot that she´d put a thermometer under it and my right hand had the iv in it. Actually, the whole time I was there I felt fine. The only painful thing was everytime the meds went through the tubes into my hand. It stung pretty badly. It was also really irritating having to drag the iv when I had to use the bathroom. And I had to use the bathroom a lot considering they were pumping 3 liters of fluid into me over the course of two days. But I suppose that is all. Hopefully I won´t contract anymore strange illnesses while am here, but I can´t make any promises.
Ciao,
Ashley

Day 46 en el Imperio Inca

I joined a gym across the street from my neighborhood and went to my first dance class on Thursday. It was really great. It was basically Latin style aerobic dancing with really fun music. I was slightly self conscious being the only white girl there and not particularly a very coordinated one, but I´m excited to go back nevertheless. I also went to Bruce Peru´s pub quiz at the Muse again on Thursday night, but sadly with less success than the first time. I was on a team with my fellow americanos Jen, Phil, and Patrick. A lot of the questions were about Britain and my knowledge of Britain is limited. But it was fun anyway. Friday we had grand plans for the 13th, most of which were not realized. But we did make 5 liters of sangria at Cameron´s house and then met our professor Alberto at 10:30 to check out an abandoned house. We couldn´t find a way in and a group of drunk locals thought it would be fun to mess with us so we left. Yesterday we were walking to a market when we got water balloon bombed by a group of small boys. They got me in the foot. I hate wearing wet shoes. As for el Dia de San Valentin, apparently the whole city was out last night and there were red balloons everywhere. There are far too many couples in this city.

Day 39 en el Imperio Inca

I am currently in an internet cafe that smells like gasoline. I slept 12 hours last night and Monday was my month mark for being in Peru. Last weekend I went to Puno and Lake Titicaca with four of my friends, three from New York and one from Brazil. We left at 9:30 pm Friday night on a bus and got in the next morning at 4:30am. Our travel agency sucked and we ended up waiting two hours at the Puno bus station until someone came to get us. About 20 minutes after we arrived, the electricity went out and we were left standing in the dark which was a bit creepy, but after another twenty minutes or so the sun came up and it was ok. We took a taxi to the port and had another hour to kill before our boat left. There were about 30 other people on the boat and we napped for a while until we got to the floating islands, which are man made out of reeds. They also eat the reeds, which are very watery and taste a bit like cucumber. The islands were neat to see I guess, but I felt a bit awkward being there on a account of them being small and there wasn´t really anything to do. After seeing two different floating islands we went to a larger one called Amantani, where we stayed the night with a host family. The island was gorgeous, especially at night. I have never seen so many stars in the sky. Our family prepared us vegetarian meals including really strong tasting fried cheese and pancakes for breakfast. At night they gave us traditional clothing to wear and took us dancing. We did a bit of exploring during the day and went to the main plaza and sat in a little shop and had drinks and candy, but the walk back up to the house was uphill the entire way and exhausting. We left Amantani early the next morning for another island called Tequile but the water is really rough in the morning because it was so windy and I was horribly seasick the entire ride. I sat out on the back of boat with my head between my knees, trying not to throw up. We finally made it to Tequile and had more uphill climbing to do, which I did not appreciate very much after an hour of being sea sick. It hailed for about two minutes. There was not too much to the island, though there were a lot of great views. It took us about 2 and a half hours to get back to Puno by boat, though it´s actually only a really short distance. We sat on the roof of the boat and sunbathed for a while which was really nice. When we got back to the city, we headed downtown to check out the first day of the festival of the virgin of Candeleria. There were tons of groups of traditional dancers parading through the streets and everyone was very drunk. We ate dinner and were supposed to catch a bus back to Cusco that night, but we all decided that none of us really wanted to go back just yet so we changed our bus tickets for the next day. The festival ended around midnight, and surprisingly, the whole city went home after. We went to a bar and club but there were very few people there. The boys and I ate anticuchos from a vender off the street (beef and potato kebabs) which were yummy. We stayed in a ridiculously cheap hostel (about $3 per person per night) that actually wasn´t bad at all besides being extremely bright and loud in the morning because our room opened up on to a main street. That day we took a tour of some ruins called Sillustani which have pre-Incan and Incan tombs.
Last week, I went to some sites about an hour outside of Cusco called Moray and Salineras. Moray is a site where the Incas probably did crop testing on circular terraced landscaping and Salineras are salt flats located in this mountain valley, surrounded by tall cliffs. They were both really neat places to see. I don´t think I´ll ever get tired of all of the views here. Everywhere you look the landscape is really perfect.
Today I went to the San Pedro market near my friend Patrick´s house and saw some really distrubing things such as a pile of cow´s mouths. It all smelled pretty foul, but I bought myself some fresh fruit. I think that is all for now. I am going to go buy a cake for my housemate Liz who is leaving tomorrow and then we are going out for Indian food.
Nos vemos,
Ashley