Friday, July 23, 2010

Overdue update! Do I get a fine?

I have been going to write this ever since I got to Peru, but I have been both too busy and lazy to write it. As you know, I have finished my work for the summer in Kurdistan, Iraq, and I am now in Peru doing Spanish lessons. I am not sure what brought me to Peru perse, but I am glad I ended up here. I am specifically in the city of Cusco, which is where one first stops if they wish to travel to see Macchu Picchu. It is a nice city with lots to do, but it is also at such an altitude as to be troublesome to those not used to it. I think that my altitude problems have actually gotten worse since I have been here. I walk about an hour to school every morning, and the first week, I really had no problem. Lately I am really out of breath when I arrive. I am not sure why this is happening, but I was told that it is not really all that unusual.

Last weekend I went to Macchu Piccu and climbed up Hwina Picchu as well. I got an amazing overlook of the city itself. Getting up at 3am to hike there was well worth it (only 400 people a day are allowed to hike Hwiana Picchu)! Of course it was a long weekend for me as well. We hiked on Sunday, but left Cusco on Friday. Saturday, which was rainy, the two Russian girls I traveled with and I stayed in town and watched the festivities that were happening that particular weekend. They were celebrating the Virgen of Carmen. I am not really sure what it was all about, but they had bands (brass intruments and drums) playing outside the window of the hostel all night after having been playing all day!

The whole week to follow was not so good for my sleep. Having met 2 Ecuadorians, 2 Canadians, 2 Austrians, and 1 other American on the trip, I felt as if I were approaching the ark 2 X 2 (especially combined with myself and the 2 Russians). We spent the weekend together, ended up meeting each other again back in Cusco, and saying goodbye to each other when most left. This made for a lot of late nights combined with early mornings. The Ecuadorians left first, then the Austrians left. This made for a night that lasted until around 4:30am. Then the Russians were supposed to leave, and that made for a night that lasted until around 5:30am. They ended up getting stranded at the airport, however, and so we went out the following night to meet up with Couch Surfers from the community and commiserate the loss of thier trip to Brazil: 3:30am.
Tonight I will be on my way to Puno, a city on Lake Titticaca. It is about 500 meters higher that here, so I am not sure how that is going to effect me. I went ahead and paid to go on a tour (which I tend not to do) because the people from my Spanish class were going and asked me to go along. Hopefully I will finally take some pictures. There is so much more to write but so little time, and so little interest. Hopefully my next post will be more prompt....I am getting so bad at this!