No tengo las palabras en Español
Trip Start
Sep 04, 2008
1
5
33
Trip End
Jan 11, 2009
Cusco,
Peru
Monday, September 15, 2008
As well as Jane, I have met some good pals; Graham from London, Maria from Kent and Vanessa and Aimee. I´ve also met up with Tom the Tour Guide from my holiday back in March. He isn´t in Cusco often and plans to return to the UK at the end of the month - which is probably a good thing as he is a VERY bad influence. Met Tom and Peru Pals in Nortons, the sambuca came out and then ended up (again) in Mamma Africa´s until 3am. And on a school night too.
Only Thursday night we had Music Class which was essentially playing endless repetitions of El Condor Pasa on the pan pipes. Good fun, but if I never hear that song again it´ll be too soon. Then on Friday night the school puts on a Salsa Class. The teacher claimed it was to teach the basics but by the end of the night it was like the last scene of Dirty Dancing!
This weekend was really good. Jane and I met up to finally talk about The Plan after Cusco. It was daunting wading through the guide books and I wondered if maybe we should have thought a bit harder before we got here, but now I think we have a vague idea of what going to happen. I won´t reveal all here - you´ll have to keep reading! After that we took a ´combi´ back to Jane´s flat. A combi is like a camper van crammed full of people. You hail them off the street and shout ´down down down!´ when you want to get off. Jane lives a bit out of town, about 10 mins in a combi.
It´s been great hanging out with Jane, she speaks really good Spanish and now that she´s not studying she´s found a few Peruvian friends for us to hang out with. We went back into town to meet up with her tandem partner, Jackie, and her friend, Ilania at the theatre. A tandem partner is a spanish-speaker who will let you practice your Spanish whilst they practice their English with you. I´d like to get one, once I can say more converstaional than ´My cat is black and white´. We saw an am dram production of Locos de Amor (Crazy Love). It was based on a Sam Shepherd film ´Close My Eyes´ about a love affair between a brother and sister. I didn´t really get much of the plot but was very pleased that I recognised many words and got the gist of what was being said.
After that we went to Fallen Angel for dinner. Fallen Angel is camper than Christmas, I think if you are gay in Cusco it is mandatory to work there. Glitter balls on the ceiling, barbed wire in the bathroom, baths as fish tanks with a glass cover serve as tables. It serves the best food - beautiful steak, real vegatables and we shared a chocolate desert to die for. Topped off with the best mojito I have ever had. And all for 80 soles (just 15 pounds). It was Gringo-ville though; not a Peruvian in there bar Ilania (Jackie had to leave us after the play).
On Sunday planning of The Plan continued after a crackin´ Sunday roast at The Real McCoy, a British pub run by Al Murray (or his twin). Spent most of the afternoon doing that at Jane´s TEFL school, then got a taxi to El Molino, a huge black market. It is amazing, you can get anything you want there. As downloading photos to the internet takes ages I got a card reader to make the process easier: in town they wanted 200 soles for a card reader; at El Molino I got one for 50 soles (10 pounds). So now my photos are on Flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/bongo76) - I´m not going to put photos on here, you´ll have to take a swizz at Flickr instead.
Back at school today. I´m on afternoons this week, lunch is in a few minutes. Hot water in the flat is still limited and I think my housemate, Lisette, is annoyed she doesn´t get much hot water now there are three of us in the flat. Snooze, you lose - flatsharing is a dog-eat-dog world (or at least a dog-eats-other-dog´s-food-in-the-fridge.)
Chao.
