Cusco, Peru

Our last day in Cusco, Thirnan joined us today. Cusco is a lovely city high up in the mountains (3200m i think) After our aformentioned issues with the elevation and food, things have been great. The school we great, we had some really good teachers, and picked up enough spanish to get by pretty well, and hopefully improve upon as we travel more. The family we stayed with was also great, very freindly and always helping us improve our Spanish. The mom (Marina) would always give us shit if we tried to speak in English, which was pretty hard at first, but is definately the way to learn. Before we left we made her a sign for the wall the read ¨Ingles es Prohibido¨so for the next students she can just point.

Very few of the houses here have hot water or any form of heating. Despite this, almost every house has hired help to cook, clean, etc. Kind of strange.

Mark tried to go for a run up a hill behind our house one day, and got chased by stray dogs. He was helped out by an old lady who litterally threw a log at one of them. We also had a standoff with a psycho dog parked right outside our friends house. While most dogs will back off if you step towards them, this one just barked louder and stepped closer. The standoff ended with my throwing a piece of rock hard bread at it and us booking it.
The city has a population of about 300,000 and runs largely on tourism as it´s the jumpoff point for Machu Picchu. If you can make it off the ´gringo trail´, the food, booze, and entertainment are cheap. And you can catch a cab anywhere in the city for 2 soles, which is about 70 cents. We went out with some of our teachers one night to a funky bar with some great live music from a local band. Very cool.

The center of the city is Plaza de Armas, which is a beautiful plaza surrounded by bars, restaurants, and hostels, and also has the largest church is town. After moving out of our house we spent 2 days in a hostel called The Pointe (a couple blocks for the plaza), which is basically known for as a party hostel. And it did not disappoint. They threw a massive Halloween party...probably about 200 people there I would guess. Mark and I found a store that rented traditional Pervian outfits for 7 Soles, and we dressed up as Peruvian women. Priceless costumes for about $2.50. We walked the streets for a little bit which was halarious, nobody really dresses up here, so the locals got a bigger kick out of it than anyone. If we stood still for more than 10 minutes, a crowd would gather just to see what the hell we were up to.

Another very different thing here is there cemetaries, which look almost like an outdoor morge. All the sites are in walls, outdoors, and each row has names like streets. Your family may be in San Juan, E-3. Very different. In the front of each is a small shrine in which they put small items which symbolize things in the persons life. For example, for anyone who was a lush, they had tiny little beer bottles, or for a kid their favourite toys. On the 2nd of novemeber, it´s day of the dead, and they have a big party IN the cemetary to honor those who are burried there.

Tomorrow heading to a town called Aguas Calientes (hot waters) which got its name for its natural hot springs. From there Machu PIcchu is a day trip, after which we´ll be heading to Puno.