Well, it’s 1:00 in the morning here, and we just got back from a night of salsa dancing – and for anyone who knows me even slightly, they know I don’t typically dance, pero when in Peru…! We had so much fun, and when Caroline and I were walking back to the hotel, it just hit me – we are just living here in Peru. Crazy.
Today included a very full morning of sight-seeing, and I heard so much information, I’m not sure how much I can even relay it at this point. We started out the day with breakfast at the hotel, which included coffee (SO strong), eggs, toast, and fruit, and then left at 9 am to start our tour of Cusco, where the Incas had many settlements that are now tourist sites. We went to Tambomachay, Pukapukara, Q’enquo, y Saqsayhuamán (which when pronounced, sounds almost like “sexy woman”), and finally, el Convento de Santo Domingo del Cusco. To give any details of these places would be probably boring to read, and quite honestly, I don’t remember a lot of it at this point anyway. Our tour guide spoke in Spanish all morning, and my brain seriously hurt after 7 straight hours of it. I did, however, get some good stuff for my scrapbook :)
After a 3pm lunch in our hotel (I have never been hungrier), all of the girls on the trip went shopping in the markets in Cusco. I started the souvenir shopping early and got a few people knocked out already. With some bargaining help from Lisa (another student here from UGA), I got some really good things for so cheap.
We walked past a high school on our trip, and the front doors were open, so we decided to go inside to check it out – SO cool to see a school here compared to ones in the United States. Some of the girls in one of the classrooms saw us and were so happy, waving and smiling and asking us how we were doing. After that, we went to a little cafe near our hotel; it was very nice inside and the workers were polite, so I’ll probably go back a few times before we leave.
Following dinner tonight were some hilarious conversations and making up secret phrases for if we didn’t like a club we went to, and then we left for salsa lessons and a night of dancing. I learned to salsa and danced with someone from Germany – it’s so difficult being in a tourist town like Cusco, because you have no idea what language to speak to anybody.
Tomorrow we leave for Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu, so I’m not sure if we’ll have Internet there. If I don’t update for a few days, that’s why.
always, lauren 