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After our exhausting exploits to Machu Picchu, particularly for me (Katy) we had a day of chilling out on the Sunday before our Spanish lessons began on the Monday. We pretty much did nothing apart from venture out for lunch, dinner and hot chocolate.
Spanish lessons began at 8.30 on Monday, for four hours each morning for five days with our individual teachers. My teacher was Renzo who is a similar age to me and was a good teacher. As conversation is my weakest element, we spent a lot of time practicing this. We went out of the classroom three times in the week, just to practice this: once to a cafe and twice out on walks in the area to miradors and past nearby Inca ruins. It was definitely nice to get out of the classroom although not so good that I spent the entire week coughing and croaking my way through these lessons! I feel like I learnt quite a lot: of Spanish and about Peruvian life. It was also helped by Renzo being able to speak a reasonable amount of English, although the most he gave me was two or three words at a time, mostly just to translate verbs to save us looking them up or if they were difficult to explain.
Simon's teacher, Frank, spoke good English so Simon found the lessons easier to get through than in Guatemala, although this is partly also because he now knows more Spanish! Simon enjoyed talking to Frank and it turns out he has travelled a bit. Unfortunately Simon didn't get to leave the classroom but didn't seem to mind too much.
The lessons were more expensive than Guatemala but I think maybe the quality was better. I may be wrong and it might just be that because I've improved, I didn't have to spend hours writing out verb conjugations. It was really handy that it was only a few minutes from our hostel and in the nice neighbourhood of San Blas. However it wasn't as sociable as the Guatemala school with the social activities seeming to be non-existent the week we were there, and there was no tea, coffee and snacks at break time!
During my lessons, we talked about issues in Peru, including the cocaine industry. The US is trying to halt growing of coca crops however this causes a lot of issues, similar to ones in Afghanistan with poppy crops. Coca is a big part of Peruvian culture and you can find it in leaf, tea and sweet form everywhere. In the rural areas, the campesinos (farm workers) chew the leaves all day long as a stimulant to get them through the days of hard work on the land (throughout all of Peru we saw cows pulling ploughs through fields; there is not much machinery). However, much more coca is grown than could possibly be consumed in the traditional way and all sorts of "accidents" occur with crops when in actual fact they are sold to the drug barons, who buy the crop for a lot more than it can be sold in leaf form. If all the Peruvian farmers were to be stopped from growing this, they would be even poorer than they are now. So there needs to be a solution to this before the US once more meddles with Latin American countries, making them worse off. In addition, huge pieces of Amazon are being destroyed to make way for more crops, but also as a result of the chemicals used to convert the leaves to a paste.
I also learnt that it is compulsory to vote in Peru, although you can pay 5 Soles (just over £1) to not vote. In addition, it is illegal to drink or sell alcohol the day before voting, although I think a lot of people do anyway. Renzo also told me about One Direction's visit to Cusco which was supposed to be incognito but somehow got leaked and accidently a limousine of Chinese business men got swamped by screaming teenage girls.
After Spanish classes, we didn't do too much, mostly because I wasn't feeling well all week. However we did manage to try lots more yummy food. For breakfast each morning, we had our breakfast crepe (as we were staying in a hostel attached to a creperie) - not so healthy, but good. We also went back to the creperie of an evening, and back to the excellent vegan place. In addition, we also went to an excellent burger restaurant, complete with crayons to draw on the placemats! We began to frequent an excellent bakery, (Pantastico!) recommended to us by my teacher where I fed my cold large slabs of cake. One lunch time we ventured down to the local market for a pretty reasonable meal for the price, followed by some excellent juice from one of the many juice bars (probably better for my cold than cake).
For our last culinary adventure of Peru, before we were to venture to Bolivia which is not renowned for its cuisine, we headed off to a local restaurant recommended by both our teachers, to finally try the local delicacy of Peru, and Ecuador: Cuy (guinea pig). It's only taken us 10 weeks to get round to it and with hindsight, the last lunchtime before a night bus was not the best opportunity! The cuy appeared in front of us, whilst we were watching a display of local dancing (it was pretty much all locals or local tourists in the restaurant), splayed out still with head, feet and teeth. He was well fried and was quite tasty although really not much meat to be had. Unfortunately, my stomach was not at its best that day, possibly from over exhaustion from a long walk in the sun with Renzo, and the remnants of being ill, so my share of the cuy made a reappearance not long after we arrived back at the hostel. Our good friend Mike, and lover of guinea pigs, might describe this as poetic justice. Luckily there's two countries between us now so there is no fear of reprisals.
A lot of our time was spent in our hostel so it was good that we were in a really nice one. The staff were great: friendly and helpful. The communal spaces were really good to relax in and there was an open fire in the evenings and tea available all the time. The French owner had said she had wanted to create a home away from home for people and she had certainly achieved that with a cosy space.
We did make it out of the hostel occasionally other than to eat or speak Spanish. We finally managed to get a picture of the famous 12-sided Inca stone, down a narrow street. Simon went to an Inca Museum one afternoon which he thought was good, but disappointing that the battles with the Spanish weren't mentioned. He also went into the San Blas church to view the intricate carvings and the (believed to be) skull of the carver on top. I finally got round to getting my hair cut for which I paid about 1/10th of the cost back home. It was also the first time my hair has seen a hairdryer in over six months!! Simon also spent some time emailing many people in the UK about work next year as unfortunately his job may no longer be secure since Rolls-Royce has announced 2,600 job cuts across the world.
We really enjoyed our time in Cusco, and could have found things to do if we'd have stayed longer. It was easy to walk around, pretty, and with some good food (this seems to be becoming more important as the trip goes on). So it was a bit sad when we left on the Friday evening on a night bus destined for Lake Titicaca and eventually Bolivia the following morning. Peru in general has been a good country. It has surprised us as we had heard some negative things about it, due to the amount of tourism. But we found in the most part, the people to be friendly and it not to be as touristy as we had thought.
Katy
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