Fun times

---

I had my first training session in Calca which is about 30 minutes by bus from pisac. It was one of my favourite sessions so far despite the children having the attention spans of a gold fish. I suppose I’ll let them off though seeing as they were only 5 and 6. Anyway, me and Nico were in charge of 10 kids and we organised a few dribbling, shooting and passing drills with various levels of success although the kids seemed to enjoy themselves whatever which was good. That evening I went out with Jose (a brother) and his wife Suzy and daughter Ariana to a chicken restaurant owned by his cousin. Was really nice apart from the chicken foot in my soup which I did not particularly enjoy. Slimy outside crunchy inside. Weird! Don’t recommend it.
I have found a place to eat Guinea pigs though, and you get to choose them just the same a lobsters in a fancy restaurant. One day I’ll go there I think.
The weekend was really good. I went to Cusco on the Saturday and met Jesus (another brother) and he took me to a football match in Cusco with his wife Sharda and son Adriano. The third brother Mario was there too. He is affiliated with club somehow, but not quite sure how. Anyway, the match was really good. Our team, Real Garcilaso, came back from 2-0 down to win 4-2. We all went for lunch afterwards. The restaurant had really good lemonade! There was a really cool market just not far from the stadium and I wandered around that for a while and then looked at some of the more touristy stuff around Cusco near the Plaza de Armas after Jesus and his family went home. In the evening I met up with some other volunteers and we booked onto a trekking trip for next weekend. Looks really good. We went for Pizza and then to a bar/salsa club. It offered free salsa instructions from 9-11 and then turned into a club with the standard party music. Was an excellent night. I stayed in a Hostel overnight.
In the morning before heading back to Cusco I went to another market in Cusco that did amazing fruit smoothies for only 5 soles. Definitely need to go back. On Monday I had coaching in the morning in Pisac but this time I was being filmed for the website. I was interviewed at the start and then he filmed what I was doing. Fortunately it was one of the better sessions I think.
On Tuesday coaching was quite good fun. I joined in with a 5 v 5 game at the end which was a good laugh. In the afternoon Peru were playing Ecuador in a world cup qualifier so I watched that with my family. It was a decent game. Ecuador deservedly won 2-0 though so my family was not very happy.
I had my first spanish lessons this week. It turns out Sharda is teaching me spanish which is good. She is very nice and very flexible with lesson times because she is a family member. Was fairly basic to start with but it will get more complex I'm sure. In Cusco I worked with the youngest kids, the youngest being 3. It was quite difficult to organise them but was a fun challenge.
Thursday of this week was one of my best days so far. My spanish lesson started late because Sharda had a problem with a car. After my lesson I went to the plaza in Pisac. It was the anniversary of Pisac so there was a big Parade! I took a some photos and watched for about 2 hours. There were some cool outfits. In the afternoon I had coaching in Calca. Nico's dad was visiting him in Peru. He was working in Brazil the week after so stopped off in Peru. Nico is here for a year though. In the evening there was loads of traditional dances. It lasted for about 5 hours. Really interesting though. One of my brothers was in one of the dances. After I had a few beers with my host brother and his friends. I planned to go home at 12 but in the end I was out drinking till 3 in the morning. At that point I think I was the only non peruvian there. Was pretty drunk! They have this really sociable way of drinking where you buy a large bottle and a glass. You pour yourself a glass, drink it and pass it on. Hard to keep track of how much you are drinking I discovered. I have a bunch of photos with random drunk peruvians.
Over the weekend I went on a horse riding and hiking trek with two other volunteers. It was really good fun. It was quite cloudy the first day but that mean't it was not too hot. We rode the horses behind a guide through the mountains. Some of it was a bit sketchy with big drops to the side but the horses were try sure footed. We were slightly less so when we started hiking. Really tiring but good fun. We spent the night in a really nice lodge with hammocks outside. We played cards by candle light because we only had two hours of electricity. In the morning we went condor watching and after a fairly long wait saw some condors really close up flying above us. Today has been really relaxing because my football and spanish lessons have been cancelled. I bought a few things in the market and now relaxing in a cafe. Although I did have guinea pig for breakfast this morning. Not much meet on it but it tasted ok. Had trouble getting internet last week so this is a bit of a mission of a post. 😊

---