Speaking of settling stomachs brings me to Saturday. Our family decided to surprise us, and they made cuy (guinea pig) for lunch on Saturday. IT WAS SOOO AWFUL. Mike and I both got legs, but get this: the little foot and claws were still on there. There was barely any meat, and I thought it would taste like chicken, but it tasted like really really fatty really really gross chicken. Most of it was skin and fat, so I picked it and pretended to like it. I had wanted to try it, but I was going to do it in a restaurant so that I could not eat it and not feel rude. It was broiled with some spices, but all I could taste was ick! I am not a very picky eater, and guinea pig is a delicacy here, like the most expensive meal you can buy, but I would not recommend it. We couldn't get the taste out of our mouth after lunch, even with tea and brushing our teeth, so we snuck out and bought some oreos. That didn't help, it just made it taste like toothpaste, oreos and guinea pig. Becca, I am guessing that this was your fault. All our your little guinea pigs are haunting me from their graves.
Saturday night we watched Marley and Me in Spanish. I obviously cried a little at the end, and thought about calling my Liberty up, and I probably would have if it wasn't so late! I think she may beat him as the best worst dog in the world. She pulled some stunts in her prime, that is for sure. I think Ty is still looking for that $50 dollar bill....
Sunday I went white water rafting (for the first time) and it was so much fun! We went on the Urabumba river, about 2 hours from Cusco. Of course, fifteen minutes into the bus ride, we got a flat tire. How convenient was it that not two hundred feet in front of where our tire popped there was a tire changing place? A little too convenient if you catch my drift. There were also vendors just waiting for us to get off the bus and wait while the tire was changed. I had some Lays, for the first time since I've been here as they always eat fries instead, and decided I was missing out. I don't even like fries very much and our family serves them once a week, but those lays were good.. Anyways, can you tell i'm hungry? So we continued until we got to our camp and they gave us our wetsuits, lifejackets, helmets and coats, and guess what? They were still wet! I struggled to jump in to the suit and then realized I hadn't gone to the bathroom, and I was wearing a one piece suit! Ick. So of course I was the last one ready to leave and when I came back to the bus a bunch of english guys were peeing in their wetsuits, and talking, loudly about it! I got a little upset just thinking about the last person to wear my wetsuit and the reason it could be still wet, but at that point, it wasn't going to do any good complaining. We then had to get on the bus and drive 12 km up the river to our starting point. We made teams, me with 4 other girls from school and piled in our boats with a guide. Carlos, our first guide, seemed very nice and then after about five minutes of our training he signaled another boat over and said we needed 2 guys in our boat and we needed to switch. I thought that this wasn't fair, and apparently the other guide, who was also named Carlos, thought the same. So the two guides switched boats and Carlos II retrained us. He switched us around, having me move to the front because I was a little stronger than some of the other girls, and we ended up having the best team there was! We were a little lighter, so we glided over some of the rocks where other groups got stuck, and we worked very well together, so take that Carlos...
Today I took a walk to the main plaza (an hour or so from my house) and bought some of the pics from the rafting trip. I also went to Yujuu, this juice place that is really yummy. I got orange banana juice, and they make it fresh. Our host family actually makes fresh juice every morning too, that will be something I will miss for sure. We got papaya, orange, carrot, peach or some combination of the four almost everyday! This week we are going to Tipon (famous for their cuy, about an hour from Cusco... boy am I excited...) and to another traditional village during class! We are done on Friday and leave Saturday morning for Quito! 34 days until home, and Wednesday is the halfway mark, it is going pretty quickly. I probably won't update until I get to Ecuador, so have a good week!
ps - This week I started dreaming in spanish - it is kind of big step in becoming "bilingual" so I was happy about that! The hard work is paying off. I decided not to read Pillares del Tierra, as it was so big, but I did read "the World to Come" in english this week and think that everyone should read it. It has a lot of symbolism and was a really good story! It is by Dana Horn. This morning I bought Little Women and another small book in spanish, so we will see if I can handle something not quite as intimidating! Adios!
pps - white water rafting pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012325&id=1259370099&l=62c8ef3ec8
No comments:
Post a Comment