New Update

Jan 18^th

Well I tried a Peruvian dish today called Cuy (baked guinie pig). It is quite a delicacy here and the locals really like it. I found it to be ok and edible but a lot of work for what you get. I am glad I tried it but I won’t be eager to have it again. I shared it with my friends Damian and Rebecca and they felt the same way about it.

Jan 22^nd

Thing have been quiet here, there is not too many students here in the language school and being the slow season not too many tourist either. My friends Damian and Rebecca have left and I have made a new friend with a new student (Elwyn).

Jan 25^th

I have been spending my days studying Spanish and spending my evenings talking with Elwyn. She is a fascinating person and it is easy for us to lose track of time when we are in one of our many conversations. Tomorrow we go to Pisac and Ollantaytambo.

Jan 29^th,

Pisac was fun and we met a couple of very interesting people along the way. We started from the town side and hiked up, I had for gotten that my friends Annie and Renzo had told us to take a cab to the other side of the ruins then we would only have to walk down. Therefore we never made it to Ollantaytambo. It was good though, on the hick up we met 2 people who decided to hike with us and ultimately the 4 of us spent the day together. Elwyn left to continue her travels and then return to the US. It is an interesting thing about being in a tourist town, you make quick friends as everyone tends to be quite real and without pretense but everyone moves on quite quickly as well.

Feb 10^th,

Things have been quiet and nothing really to write about. This past weekend I went out with some of my friends/instructors at the school as it was someone’s birthday. We ended up going to a Karaoke club, as that seems to be fairly popular here. It was fun as a number of the people in our group can sing very well. I don’t really sing but they did convince me to participate in one song. Thank god it was in English as my Spanish is not that good yet.

 Feb 17^th,

I have stopped going to Spanish school as I now need to integrate what I have been learning. Nothing really all that exciting has been going on. I went out with some friends dancing at one of the clubs. I ended up staying later as some other friends showed up just as we were getting ready to leave and they asked me to stay for a bit. Over all it was fun but I did end up getting home way later than I originally planned. No the sun was not up but the sky was getting lighter.

 Feb 24^th,

Today I went for a hike with a couple friends, (Annie & Gallia), from the house. It was a hike that Annie knew about and not a typical tourist hike. It was good but with it being the rainy season there have been a number of landslides. We had to cross 4 of them on our hike but it was ok as it was a sunny day with no rain and the landslides had dried out some, so they were not slippery or in danger of shifting more. If it had been raining we would have turned back and not attempted it.

It has been interesting here for the past week as this week has been the festival of carnival. One of the traditions is for people to run around with buckets of water, water balloons, and water guns trying to soak as many people as possible. As you can imagine it is very popular with the younger people. More than once I have been used as a shield on the street by the young girls hiding behind me. Apparently, frequently I am the biggest thing to hide behind. While normally no one is immune from getting wet, (tourist and local alike), I have been spared from getting wet. I guess the young boys/men don’t want to take the chance with me.

Over all I would not have cared and was fully expecting it to happen. Water does not matter, however in the last few years they have also started using silly string and a type of non-permanent aerosol paint to tag their victims with. I would not have been impressed with that as that can stain cloths.

There is a humorous story though, from early in the week when I was returning from lunch with my friend Mark, (Mark is tall but quite thin).

As we are walking down the street, this young girl, (about 14), grabs me to hide behind, and the young boy, (about 11), is running so fast he cannot stop or dodge me. He ends up bouncing off of me, falling to the ground with his bucket of water on top of him. Of course the girl thinks this is very funny and the boy rushes off to get more water and I am sure the chase was on again.

Since leaving the Spanish school I have been going to a different place for Salsa lessons and have met a nice group of people. We are trying to find an evening to go out to practice as a group. This Wednesday is our first attempt we shall see how it is to get a larger group together to go out.