Hablo un poco de español...

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¡Hola! We finally started spanish lessons this morning after a nice 3 days off to aclimatise and explore. 4 hours of speaking spanish made me realise quite how much i´ve forgotten in 6 years... We stumbled upon a festival in the plaza de armas this evening which was a perfect opportunity to practice our new phrases with the locals, especially the cutest 5 year old peruvian girl who wanted to sing ´head, shoulders, knees and toes´with us! There is a festival in town literally every night through june with the locals dancing and playing music in their traditional dress as they are celebrating 100 years of machu picchu this month. The festival lead up to a huge festival on the 24th of june, which all the locals (and us!) are getting very excited about.

We weren´t sure what the food was going to be like in Peru before we came after hearing mixed views but what we have eaten in the last 4 days has been amazing! Alpacha is delicious and literally everywhere you look there´s another stall selling something that smells amazing. We´re still yet to try guinepig but I think I´ll give in and try it this weekend!

We met our hospital supervisor yesterday, a doctor called Pamela, who seemed very nice and explained how the hospital we´re going to be working in works. It sounds like its going to pretty basic but should mean that we are able to get more involved and help out. We´re making the most of having a few days doing not too much before placement starts on monday!

However much we try not to we stand out massively in Cuzco. Rohan and Sarah being very blonde and me being taller than most men is not easy to hide! There´s a lot of locals selling different things in the main square and they swarm around us everytime we walk there. ´No gracias´ is becoming a commonly used word! There are also traditional peruvian women in the street with baby llamas, which me and rohan gave in and paid the 10sol to have a photo taken with. The llamas were very cute.

Nearly bed time here so I´m going to go as we have to be up at half 6 for spanish lessons!
Speak soon
Claire xxx

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