No gracias
Trip Start
Sep 04, 2008
1
6
33
Trip End
Jan 11, 2009
Cusco,
Peru
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Since last writing Iīve given up on the flat-share battle and have moved into a single room back at the school. I now have my own desk and long(er) guilt-free hot showers. I was also on afternoon lessons which worked out well for lying in, Facebook chats with the UK and catching the morning sunshine before the afternoon rain starts. The rainy season is definitly on its way - the weather is warmer than last week but the showers are more regular. School was really quiet this week; most of the people from last week went to Amautaīs school bases in Manu (the jungle) or Taray (the Sacred Valley), and there were only 10 new starters at Cusco.
Spanish class was much harder this week too. No longer a total novice I was in a class with some who are streets ahead of me. The school also rotate the teachers so this week we had two other teachers, Giovanna and Rodolpho. Giovanna was very sweet, I liked her a lot. On Friday she brought in her mp3 player, played us tunes to help us learn some vocab and practice using the verb To Like. The best song was Manu Chauīs Me Gustas Tu, itīs such a ssweet song:
Me gusta cena, me gustas tu (I like dinner, I like you)
Me gusta vecino, me gustas tu (I like neighbours, I like you)
Me gustas su cocina, me gustas tu (I like her cooking, I like you)
Me gusta camelar, me gustas tu (I like to chat, I like you)
etc
I liked it so much I bought two knock-off albums of Manu Chaoīs at El Molino, the dodgy market on the edge of town.
Rodolpho, on the other hand, was not such a good teacher; didnīt have a lesson plan and was reluctant to write anything on the board. But really he just highlighted to me that I need to study harder. So Richard, a newbie Brit, and I spent a morning at a cafe in San Blas practicing vocab and verbs over coffee. Chantal, lovely dutch girl, has also been speaking to me in Spanish which is really helpful. Iīve found my spanish is a little like my pool playing - much better after a couple of drinks, dreadful after one too many. Have chatted to some locals in bars but the conversation is mostly, "Where are you from?" (Soy Inglesa), "Do you like Cusco?" (Me gusta mucho Cusco) and "Have you been to Machu Picchu yet?" (I went in April on an earlier trip which is hard to say when I only know the present tense - I go in April? What next year? Anyway...)
Already fed up of eating out, Chantal and James cooked dinner at the school on Friday for James, Marcel, me and Jane. It was just spagetti and sauce but it was so good to have crunchy vegtables. Jane and I then went to Indigo to chat with Caesar, the owner/Janeīs mate, while the others went to Mythology at the ridiculous hour of 10pm. Jane, Caesar and I played some Jenga, supped Mojitos and were in bed by midnight. The others got in about 4am I think. Glad I didnīt stay out as yesterday morning I woke to a banging head cold and sore throat. Great.
Yesterday I joined Jane at Asociacion Civil pasa la voz (Kids Making the Difference) a vounteer project show-and-tell by local kids. Some had done some cooking, or produced a magazine, some had made films, others did a skit or sang a song - it was very sweet.
And then this morning Dos Manos, the in-house travel agency, took some of us to the Warachikuy festival up at `Sexy Womanī. The festival was a homage to an old tradition of a rite of passage for young Inka men, thourgh physical tests of skill, value and ability, to determine there place (or not) in the Inka military. It looked much like an edition of Gladiators, men in teams swinging from rope bridges and trying to top the other teams. The festival started at 10am with some dancing and was supposed to finish at 1pm. But in Peruvian time this meant that by 12.30 we were still on Part Four of Six, still a long way to go. The pan pipes and drums were much like water torture, so Jenny and I left early and walked back to school.
Jenny, another lovely dutch girl, and pals returned from the jungle and Sacred Valley yesterday - Iīm so glad they are back, it was quiet without them. Iīve realised I havenīt taken many pictures of people Iīve met so far, but hopefully more will be up on Flickr in the next week or so (www.flickr.com/photos/bongo76)
