Mr. and Mrs. Shara

Pictures from the fieldtrip are here and of the weekend are here.

Where to start? I think I will start with the nun I saw sleeping in a cab on my walk here. Better: a daiwoo cab. Dai woo's make me think of Double Dare on Nickolodeon and I appreciate that. Those are the contradictions in Cusco that I love.

I finally have a good friend here, Charlotte. Charlotte is 18 and a Projects Abroad volunteer too. We have bonded over the extortionary rate we paid to volunteer and our ridiculous families. We also bonded over our necessity for non-Peruvian food.

Friday during the day we had a field trip that was actually near Sacsaywyman... not actually with ruins. In a field. My kids were really happy to eat jello and chicken. Definitely a successful day. Also Gigi, a volunteer from France came to the school. She's not great with spanish or english, but its fun to have more friends.

Friday night me and Charlotte found a fantastic hole in the wall Thai place. It was awesome. The menu said words like "slid fried, star

fried and slir fried." Then we went to a very wonderful bar called Siete Angelitos which had a Buena Vista Social Club coverband. We also met a nice Canadian boy.

Saturday we managed to lose our families for lunch and explored Cusco some more. I bought a head scarf which will greatly reduce the amount of cold showers that I take here. We ate lunch at probably my favorite restaurant so far, Cross Keys. It is an English pub, as real as it gets (Charlotte assured me). It was a very, very good hamburger and coca-cola. We also explored an awesome church in the Plaza de Armas and snuck up into the restricted area to see the bell tower. I think thats why our thighs were sore Sunday.

Later, we went to Jacks for dinner, I ate bruschetta and it was awesome. Many more onions here though. We went to Norton's for Pisco happy hour, and then were too tired to make it to reggae night at Siete Angelitos.

We called Edgard for spontaneity's sake and found a Sacred Valley tour with open spots and free boleto turisticos (these are tickets that last for 10 days and are required to see all of the ruins nearby. value: $60).

We also happened to buy a lot of finger puppets this weekend. There are lots of little children selling them at night time in Cusco and it is very sad. They are also 1 sole each. We sacrifice for the children.

Sunday, our tour ended up free because somehow they thought we already paid. I liked that. We went to the famous Pisac market where we ran into Edgard on some down time from his tour and he showed us the best empanadas in the world from the oldest oven... ever? In Cusco? Not sure. We went to lunch in Urubamba, where I tried Alpaca (don't worry, I found out its different than llama), and ate the best cakes ever.

After Pisac was Ollantaytambo, some awesome ruins. I took a lot of pictures of the ruins, but then it appeared to be a lot of pictures of rocks, so you can find them on my Picasa sight... not my blog. We also took a lot of pictures of tourists' horrible outfits.

Chinchero was my favorite. We went to a weaving demonstration, so I could see just how my purse is made. They also dyed the wool in front of us with natural dyes. Mint leaves, onion, insects even. Then we hiked to an old old church which almost made me cry it was so beautiful and humble. Charlotte and I decided to return on a Sunday for mass.

We got back Sunday night and decided to go back to Jack's for 'dinner' (milk shakes and hummus) and played a card game called backpacker for about 6 rounds, where Charlotte won every round. We managed to stay out late enough to evade small talk before bed at home.

We loved this weekend for one main reason: we didn't have to pretend to be Peruvian. We whipped out our cameras and took silly pictures with llamas and cathedrals and inca ruins. Our tour was also flooded with old tourists, which are my favorite.

Today, Vivian was looking in the trash for a plastic bag to play with and found a bag of poop. Then she tried to eat the poop and we both ended up with poop all over us. I laughed very hard but my host mom did not. I went home and changed, etc. Now, poop free. I wonder if poop is as funny here as it is in the states...

Also, I don't know what Edgard told the tour guide on the phone, but we were called Mr. and Mrs. Shara. We didn't correct her.