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Published: July 10th 2008
Prame Yureth
This sign was waiting for us at the bus station in Puno. I spoke to the lady at the hotel in Spanish and spelled out my name IN SPANISH, or so i thought... clearly I need the spanish lessons.We are in Cusco, which the Incas referred to as the ´umbilicus´ of the world. We arrived about a week ago via bus from Puno. It was a nice bus ride and we stopped along the way at various Inca Ruins and a church in Andahuayllias. We were excited when we got to Cusco because it is such a cute town and has a beautiful Plaza. There are many churches built atop Inca Temples. Lots of stonework is left from Inca times. It is very sturdy and has survived earthquakes.
We will be here in Cusco for 4 weeks, living with a host family. We met them a day after we got here and were lucky be placed with a really nice host family. Our 'mom' Nancy, is a retired teacher. She has four kids. Her two daughters live down the street. One is married and has 2 adorable kids. One son lives in the house with us and the other son lives in Puno (by Lake Titicaca). Everyone is really nice and speaks slowly to us so we can understand.
Typically for breakfast we have rolls with butter and jelly, a hot drink and a fresh orange-papaya-banana smoothie
Cathedral
Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas in Cusco (yum!). At lunch, everyone comes to the house (from work) and we have soup and some sort of meat dish usually with rice. The food has been really good. Dinner is more low key, they don't eat much because they say digestion is difficult in high altitude and you can't sleep well if you eat too much.
During the day, we go to medical spanish classes. All of the other students are in med school and are really nice. It's a good group. We have done a lot of sightseeing with the program already and have seen lots of Inca ruins here in Cusco and in the Sacred Valley. We went to the town of Ollantaytambo which has an incredible Inca fortress and Pisac which had amazing agricultural terraces and a big market. Preetham enjoyed bargaining in Spanish and we made some good purchases.
This weekend we are heading into the Peruvian Amazon with some others in our class. We are going to the Manu biosphere reserve which apparently is one of the most untouched areas of rainforest in the Amazon. Should be interesting.... hopefully we don't run into too many scary critters at nighttime (ie snakes)!
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Ami
non-member comment
hi prame!
I'm glad your host fam seems really nice. How is the spanish coming along, you guys are going to be so good!