Back to school

  Cusco, Peru
Friday, September 22, 2006

Friday 15th September

The day after we got back from the Inca Trail was supposed to be an easy one to let our knackered legs recover, but we ended up pottering around Cusco running little errands. It was during our pottering time that Tara decided that she wanted to do a week long Spanish course, so we spent some time trying to sort this out. We decided to go with Amauta so that Steve could also do some private classes in Quechua, and also the fact that the school was in the next street to the where our hostel was! Tara also got herself a well deserved massage.

Saturday 16th September
Finally! The lazy day we deserve! Our main achievement was to find a great Danish coffee house type place called The Film Movies & Lounge where you can watch films in a cinema-like room on big wall. Ace! We watched Scarface which Steve had never seen before (Steve: Along with many other classics: The Sound of Music, Casablanca, The Godfather... the list is endless)

Sunday 17th September
Yet another lazy day and another film - The Motorcycle Diaries this time which we thought would be a good one to watch in South America.

Steve has also started his new hobby. CLick here for video ->

Can you recognise the tune despite the slightly mangled song title on my music sheet?

This afternoon we did a walking tour of Cusco organised by Amauta which was fairly interesting, and ended up with about 35 people going to the Norton Rats pub en masse to get to know each other. Reminded Steve of his Santiago de Compostela days!

Monday 18th September
First day of school today. Steve's Quechua class was excellent; he's on individual classes with a teacher called Eliazar Solorzanogamarra who's a sound bloke. I would reccommend him for lessons - he can be contacted on elibrause29@yahoo.es. Tara's lessons didn't go so well however.
Hey! Tara here.... if you know me well you may be aware that me and foreign languages don't get along so well. Thanks to time living in Taiwan, and Hungary I can happily say I can count to 10 in both Chinese and Hungarian (sad really). I thought that this time might be different though. I figured being imersed in the language for 5 months might motivate me but the second I sat down in that classroom I knew I was doomed. First of all the rest of my classmates were learning Spanish as their 4th or 5th languages and were machines. Secondly I did not understand a single thing the very fast-speaking teacher was saying. It doesn't help that being a teacher, I have a great urge to just stand up and do it myself and find sitting still for 4 hours listening to someone else go through the finer parts of congugating verbs - painful! Blah! I also must have been spoiled knowing ESL teachers who are interesting and make their classes fun and useful... NO going to the market, or watching episodes of Friends for us. No, I spent 4 hours looking blankly at the teacher and praying she would not call on me to answer the next question. All in all not the best of days but I will stick it out and in no time be ordering for myself instead of listening to what Steve orders and saying "me too" (Yo Tambien...see I do know something!)

In the evening, we attended a lecture on Sacsayhuaman in preparation for a visit the next day and then went out for a (surprisingly nice) free meal laid on by Amauta, followed by the pub of course.

Tuesday 19th September
This morning we walked up to Sacsayhuaman to take in the sheer scale of the blocks used to construct it and also the cracking panoramic view of the whole of Cusco. We also met a Welsh bloke at the school from Neath originally who now lives in Cardiff and who, up until he was made redundant, was working in Llantrisant! He used to go for redundancy meetings at The Black Prince! Small world eh? We also went for free salsa lessons at a bar just off the Plaza de Armas (which Steve hated).

Wednesday 20th September
Just class today. How studious we are...

Thursday 21st September
Went out this evening for a (rare for us two these days) session with a load of people from the language school which was a good laugh. Had the worst Mojito I've ever tasted - the waitress even admitted they were watered down!

On the way home at 1.30am we saw the most bizarre sight. A couple of street kids were trying to get us to buy the ubiquitous finger puppets, which we refused. Then, from out of nowhere, three men dressed all in black came running around the corner, picked the kids up and whisked them away! It was exactly like that scene at the end of the film Ghost where the evil bloke is whisked away by the demons from hell. Tara and I just stood there gobsmacked. Another guy in the street explained that Cusco has its own little tourist police type people who are there to stop the tourists being bothered. Looked a like a vigilante group to us!

Friday 22nd September
The highlight of today as the story that Justin (American guy from Spanish classes) told us. He was sitting in the market minding his own business and enjoying a plate of food which comprised a whole chicken. Justin was therefore surprised when he felt an elbow in the side of the head at the same time as a bloke reached over his shoulder and ran off with his entire chicken! Justin is a massive bloke who used to play rugby when he lived in the UK so he's no pushover. The chicken rustler must have been mighty hungry!