peru: cusco & lake titicaca. may 2008.painting schools / volunteering. another journey down the rabbit hole, past the fireworks in miami, crossed hemispheres,
through the fog in lima, over the snowcap'd andes, into the final destination tuck'd deep in the mts.
cusco.
swarming with stray dogs.
3 soles to a dollar.
mild by day, chilly at nite.
and 11,000 ft above sea level.
hence the wheezing after 2 seconds of walking around the city.  if this is how it feels to be asthmatic ... shiii- a minor problem for someone who has lived their whole life at sea level, but an annoying one as the week progressed.
the family house was surprisingly comfortable, much more than any residencia i had lived in.
this 'hard life' consisted of 3 gourmet meals a day, unlimited access to tea/coffee,
a housekeeper who made the beds and cleaned the bathrooms ...
and hot water to shower in.
although most of the time it wasn't gauranteed.
~20 housemates = competition.
and the city shuts off the water at 10p.
but that didn't matter if you're the only one in the house boasting of their own room/bath.  suckers.
the some 20 housemates weren't as internationally diverse as those
whom i had lived with in spain. most were english speakers.
americans, canadians, british, scottish, new zealanders.
though the spanish spoken in peru had me in latin-american heaven.  none of this weird spain-spanish lingo i had to suffer through half a year ago!
mornings were spent volunteering at the nearby tankarpata school with 2 other volunteers up in the mts overlooking cusco. half the time i painted various doors/windows, the other half being mobbed by a bunch of 5 yr olds during arts&crafts. 
who were all very affectionate. 5-6 would pounce at a time. jump and climb all over you. constantly kiss your face. wanting you to carry them. all the time. and not letting go.
there's only so much "mamamita! cargame, por favor!!" that we could take, that eventually as the week went by, we ended up hiding and avoiding the kids as much as possible. that and when a kid steals another kid's pencil ... all hell breaks loose.  the unforeseen hazards of volunteering. i'd do it all over again. 
before i go any further, i must thank my long-time friend, miss amy wang,
for convincing me to volunteer in cusco instead of huancayo. with both
our busy travel schedules, catching up over coffee in the u.s. proved to be
near impossible ... but it took peru, of all places, to finally reunite after 15 yrs.
wow.
upon catching up (over our gourmet meals) and reminiscing about the middle-school dorchestra days, i've learned that this yale graduate is somewhat on the same path as i. roaming the world in search of something. but i digress.
   lesley: i want to see some pictures of you on a llama!!!!
believe it or not, i actually saw more dogs & sheep. and they could probably carry more weight than a llama. 
so aside from walking the streets of cusco while wheezing,
drinking in the incan-tinged influence ... while wheezing,
enjoying the mountain backdrop ... while wheezing,
and trampsying through various fruit/artesenal markets ... while wheezing,
i also feasted on peruvian culinary cuisine.
sipped on muña & mate de coca. guzzled down cusqueña, pisco sours, & inca colas. dined on cuy, anticucho, and llama.
(guinea pig, beef hearts, and ... llama. respectively.)
and i have never eaten so many different types of potato in my life.
weekends are usually saved for excursions around peru. cusco being a lil over 2 hrs away from machu picchu, you woulda thunk that i'd make a cameo. esp with the lil time i had, thnx to my great planning skills.
instead, i traveled 6 miserable hrs by bus to lake titicaca with
5 other housemates. but that was quickly forgotten when,
at 12,507 ft above sea level, i gazed out the bus window and was
greeted with a bajillion glittering stars across the nite sky.
the heavens so vivid that the constellations and milky way were easily discernible.
lake titicaca is filled with a bunch of islands, 3 of which we visited: islas de los uros (42 man-made floating reed islands),
isla de amantani (devoid of any modern conveniences),
& isla de taquile.
sometimes it took hrs by boat to get from one island to another.
to pass the time we hung out at the stern: reading, drinking cusqueña,
enjoying the grand mountains of bolivia in the distance.
then we made the mistake of falling asleep in that spot. under the sun. with no sunscreen. at 12,507 ft above sea level. d'oh.
once on an island, we would spend a great amount of time hiking ... and wheezing,
occasionally picking muña off the side of the mt for future tea. i found out the hard
way that we were to spend a nite with a host family on isla de amantani.
which is practically like camping.
the upside was that we got to experience life as a quechuan indian and party with the locals.
the downside: no running water, electricity, or cars.
imagine walking to an outhouse in the dark with a flashlight in hand, constantly kicking to fend off an attacking cat , and being spooked by unknown noises only to find out it was a sheep.
and it was like that throughout the 3 day excursion:
not showering, nor brushing the teeth, nor changing clothes.
i ain't gonna lie.
i was a bit uncomfortable.
but so worth it in the end.
in hindsight, i poorly misjudged the amount of time spent in peru. why is it always afterwards that one realizes this? but then again i had planned this adventure on a whim without getting into details. that's how you do it.
these gas prices are cramping my style.
if i had known the airline tix were on the rise, my ass would've stayed in peru!
peru, among a few countries, has my heart.  *
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