day one :)

The first few days of my trip have been great. The traveling, although it took over 24 hours of being in airports and I was exhausted, was hospitable and we had no problems.

 

Upon our arrival a woman from the Sammi Wassi hostel, where we are staying, picked us up. She drove us to the hostel, and during the trip we got our first taste of Cuzco. All of the buildings are made out of a white plaster-type substance with clay roofs. The roads are almost all one way and are very narrow, so there was lots of honking at the pedestrians. I also didn’t see a posted speed limit anywhere, and in some more open areas, I felt we were going to fast for our own good.

 

Upon our arrival at the hostel, which was up on a hill overlooking the city, I just wanted to sleep. It was about 7am but I laid down for a nap and when I woke up, the power and water were out. I figured out the power pretty quickly, but the water… well the woman had told us to wait to take a shower until after 3PM, but I didn’t know that meant not to use the toilet either and when I flushed it, it just started making horrible noises because it couldn’t refill the back. We ended up trying to fill it up ourselves from the sink, but then the sink ran out, so we put an empty water bottle in it back to raise the water level and make it shut up. I thought I was going to get in trouble my first day here!

 

Mike and I went to diner at this place called Café Puchayami, famous for well potatoes. I am not a huge potato fan, but I got a baguette with avocado and egg and garlic, and it was mighty tasty (after not eating much for the past day). At the restaurant was a gringo (aka white) couple who started conversation with us about our travels and their trip here and to the Amazon. She scolded Mike for not knowing what a tea ball was and just seemed to be very pompous. When the couple left we took over their table which was overlooking the street to have some more space and started talking about the fact that she was enforcing the “Americans are rich and rude abroad” stereotype, but little did we know the Peruvian-looking man across the porch was in-fact not Peruvian at all, but a professor at Penn State. He eventually made conversation with us and explained he had come down to set up an exchange program here. I think he was chuckling about our comments. He didn’t even know a lick of Spanish, so we learned lesson one: Don’t judge people by what they look like and you can’t guess what language ANYONE knows so keep your mouth shut unless you are saying something nice. In the end, we think he agreed with us about the other couple and that is why he wasn’t conversing with them, but all the same it was a good lesson before we go on our hike and our going to be with the same people for four days.

 

Today we have some things to do: pack our backpacks for the hike, buy sunglasses (we both forgot ours) and go to an introduction meeting at the travel agents around 6PM.  I need to wake Mike up so we don’t miss the continental breakfast, and we will be off.  The Internet is not working as planned, (they said they had wireless) so I have to connect to another resident’s Ethernet cord or use the provided computer, which has no sound, and therefore isn’t compatible with Skype. That is all for now, I will update again after my hike on the Inca Trail next Monday.