Mount Picol

After another week of classes and our typical routine of chilling in cafes, we decided to tackle the highest mountain in the Cusco Valley at 4,600m. This peak would offer a challenging ascent that would afford amazing views of Cusco and the Sacred Valley. We planned our trip with Norman and opted for an early start to beat any incoming afternoon weather and also to allow enough time to complete the 1,400m ascent. It took about 3.5 hours to reach the main ridge followed by an intense but short traverse to the main peak. Considering our lazy activities during the week, we did quite well as far as physical strength. The vistas from the top were absolutely breath taking and well worth the journey.

From the peak we spotted a village in the opposite direction from which we had started that had a more reasonable descent leading towards it... so we chose our path from the birds view and headed that way hoping that a bus could take us back to Cusco. We made it to the very quiet village and found a small tienda selling cold beer. We decided to sit back and enjoy our refreshments while watching pigs and locals meander past us on the road. After we polished off our Cusqueña beers we flagged down a bus, squished our way in, and rode back ¨home¨to Cusco.

We spent our Sunday riding on random bus routes in an attempt to arrive at the Inca ruins in Tipón. We did eventually arrive at our desired destination, but by then we only had enough energy to eat asap. While our stomachs craved a hamburger (Cullen) and salad (Melissa), we were surprised and chagrined to find out that every eatery in town only offered the local specialty... cuy del horno (roasted guinea pig). We couldn´t muster up the courage to try the ¨delicacy¨this time, because they were served with heads and paws included, belly up as if in surrender. We had, instead, roasted gallina (rooster) which is like pollo but a lot more chewy... and washed it down with some more Cusqueña cerveza. After another random bus ride home and a walk to get us back on route, we are here in an internet cafe surrounded by gamers (Andy, you would love it- it´s an online game hub and everyone sounds like they´re in an intense duel of some sort... lots of screaming in Spanish...) and as another weekend comes to an end we are definitely thinking of all of you at home. Lots of love from both of us! M&C

Weekend Adventures

After a week of studying, lounging in cafes, and watching another fútbol game, we left with four other extranjeros for the hills. Friday night we raced to catch the last bus headed for Pisac and successfully grabbed the last seats to begin our journey. A friendly hostel owner met us at the bus stop and led us to our new home at the foot of the mountains.

On Saturday we arose to a breakfast of fresh fruit and bread then leaped onto another bus heading for the countryside. We got off at a small farm town (three buildings and about six people to mark the spot) and started climbing. Five hours later we made it to a small village with waterfalls, rock walls, and homes with grass roofs. Along the way we followed a path that led us along a river and by many llamas and locals. It rained for several hours of our climb and we reached over 4000 meters (a gain of 1000 meters) which made for an epic day. For our friends who recently came from sea level, it was especially challenging- and rewarding. Our littlest friend (Stephanie) is from New York City and has been traveling for about four months here in South America. The rest of our traveling companions are from Scotland, England, and Holland (Norman, Rebecca, and Vanessa respectively!)- we made a great weekend warrior team! After our return downward trek, we endulged in gourmet Peruvian cuisine (happily, for the price of a McDonald´s value meal!)... Cullen savored the flavor of alpaca ribs while I feasted my taste buds on alpaca raviolis in a passion fruit-white wine sauce.

We crashed early that night and woke up again to a fantastic breakfast and breathtaking hike. We meandered up and down steep trails to visit the several Inca ruins that overlook the valley. We came back down to another scrumptuous meal, shopped at the sprawling colorful outdoor market, then caught our bus home. The scenery and company made for an unforgettable couple of days...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

Cheers Dad! We are drinking fine wine and eating chocolate today in your honor! Hope you had an awesome day of skiing, relaxing, and perfecting the art of happy hour! Wish we could be there to share the epic snow day with you, but we are thinking of you and sending you lots of love! The tradition here is to eat birthday cake for breakfast- they think eating it after dinner is crazy. I think you would like their style of eating dessert first... who knew that the Schneider style is Peruvian? Hope your day is great... we love you!!!

Cooking for the Family, Maxim, Mountain Biking, and Carnivales

We had a great week which included cooking a meal for our host family. It turned out to be very difficult due to the size of the kitchen, different cooking utensils, and the lack of ingredients. Our meal consisted of breaded and fried pork, along with steamed vegetables, rice, and bruschetta. The best part was the desert however, which was chocolate chip cookies that the family loved and even fought over.
The dinner was also a goodbye gesture for our friend Maxim who left to travel through Bolivia and Argentina before heading back to his home country, Belgium. The spanish teachers and the host family also threw a party for Maxim and partied late into the night.
Today we went mountain biking behind our home here. It is a quick ride since we get bused to the top of the mountain and only have to coast to the bottom. Today is also Carnivales day where you get sprayed with spuma or water which is the white foam on our faces in one of the pictures. They also have a weird tradition of chopping down a large tree in the mountains and then propping it up in the middle of a road covered with balloons and gifts. They then dance around it and hack at it with a macheti until it falls over. They alternate hacking at the tree and the person who makes the final chop receives the gifts and is responsible for hosting the party next year and supply drinks.

Plaza de Armas, Cooking Class, Conversational Class

Here a few shots of our daily routine. The main plaza is beautiful right now with flowers, the fountain, and several surrounding churches. We like to take in the view from a second-floor cafe, because when we´re in the plaza we are walking targets for vendors and spuma (foam). We spend two hours in class and the next two hours meandering around town with our practical teachers working on conversational Spanish. We have had less rain this week and we are soaking in the sun while it lasts! KC, we have an address for you! The problem is we might be gone by the time anything could arrive- bummer! Thanks for thinking of us and in case you need it, here is an address that would work for us until March 9th and again in June...

South American Explorers
P/a Cullen and Melissa Jones
Apartado 500
Cusco, Peru

Laundry

So you my have wondered how we clean our clothes here in Peru. Well life is very simple here and even though there are laundromats here for the tourist we choose to wash our clothes like the locals. It takes some serious time to finish a whole load of laundry because you have to hand scrub each piece of clothing and then hang it out to dry which can take several days since it tends to rain here in the afternoon. When the sun is out the clothes can dry quite fast but that is rare during their summer time here in Cusco.

Carnivales

That´s Norman from Scotland and he´s holding a can of ¨Spuma¨the crazy white foam that keeps blasting our faces. His face is white from flour which is another interesting tradition that surrounds this hilarious holiday of Carnivales.

The custom is to have a national water fight for most of February and also squirt foam from a can at innocent bystanders. Girls attack boys and boys attack girls. It seems that there are always more boys in the street with pails of water, because I am getting a lot more wet than Cullen! On Sunday, we ate a traditional meal with all of the family in the patio. It was a special dish they only eat once a year that included a zillion varieties of potatoes, a few carrots, some lamb, and a topping of cabbage. The whole meal is boiled and served with a little spicy green sauce. It was very dry and a bit hard to swallow, which must be why they always serve a bowl of broth afterwards to wash it down. Later we had a water fight with water balloons and buckets of water before heading to town where it was impossible to stay dry for more than one minute. We bolted to a cafe to relax with some friends for most of the evening then returned home for dinner... later, the women in the family attacked the men by smearing flour on their faces and we called it a night.

Mountain Biking

Back on our bikes! Well, not our bikes, but it sure felt good to be back on the trail with a couple of mountain bikes and seeing the terrain from a whole different angle. Finding good bikes was half of our adventure. After checking several bike shops, we were still in search of bikes with better gears and safer helmets. Someone had given us the name and number of a local guy who will occasionally rent out his own bike, so after days of procrastination we made the call in our best effort of Spanish. To our joy and surprise, he understood us, met us in the plaza to make plans, took us to his house to see the 2 bikes he had, and one of his friends even made plans to join us the following day for a long ride. We rode a bus with the bikes piled on top to a nondescript farm deep in the hills. The bus made a pit stop to drop us off on the side of the road, and we took off from there between women and children hurding cows and men hunched over in the fields. We passed piglets, roosters, cows, burrows, pigs all roaming freely beside us (except the burrows which are usually tied up and sometimes the large pigs). The entire ride was one giant descent for well over two hours. We came to a small, empty town where me met a few children playing in the street who loved eating our animal crackers and looking at the pictures we took of them. Later we descended to a natural salt deposit. In one of the pictures you can see burrows being hurded up a trail with blocks of natural salt strapped to their backs. The ride was rough in places and included a lot of single track, but the scarriest part of the ride was the final stretch along a paved road where we had to dodge traffic and buckets of water being tossed at us. I got soaked by a group of kids in the street and it felt great after the long and hot slight ascent to Urubamba where we ate lunch (mine included fried bananas, rice, and two fried eggs... hmmmm)and caught a bus back to Cusco... more about the water fights later!

Cusco Soccer Game

First we are sorry for taking so long to update the blog. We had a jam packed week saying goodbye to our friend Vanessa... It seemed like every afternoon was filled with activities and before we knew it, it was time to go to bed.
So with that being said, the pictures above are from a professional soccer game here in Cusco. It was quite exciting seeing how the locals react for their team, who won by the way! It was a bit nerve racking when we arrived because there was a ton of riot police to control any problems but since it rained the entire game and everyone was completely soaked, no one had the energy to cause a problem. The food we ate at the game was a bit risky but very tasty. It is alpaca meat which the locals grill inside the stadium. After the game everyone herded out of the stadium, there were so many people that you couldn't walk but some how were still moving forward, which was absolutly hillarious to us.

Thats all for this post. We look forward to hearing your comments.