Peru day 1

This past spring break I went to Peru with a group of others from NMU on an international service project. Saturday we arrived in the warm, sunny city of Cusco and were greeted a smiley face flag swung by our project manager form Maximo Nivel, the local organization we would be volunteering with. They took us to our homestays, nine others and I went to one homestay, our three leaders got a hotel room and the rest stayed in the second homestay across the street. Our host was Effrain, an exceptionally welcoming and kind man living with his wife Ruth and son Diego. when you entered the house it looked like a normal American home, thought the stacks of movies by the television were in Spanish. I later found this house to have many more stairwells, hallways, and rooms than I had originally thought, Including another family, presumably relatives living there that I only saw once. As we were shown into our tidy assigned rooms with bunk beds and warm clean blankets, altitude sickness slammed into me. Cusco is 12,000ft high; I felt light-headed, dizzy, my vision started spinning and blurring at the edges. The bed was a welcome place to lie down for a few minutes while the altitude sickness medication kicked in and I enjoyed not moving. I had been traveling for at least 17 hours; one bus and two planes. I normally don't get motion sick on planes, but we had hit a lot of turbulence over the Caribbean and my stomach was not happy.

Two hours after settling in, our program manager came and showed us how to call for taxis down by the main street, a short walk out of our quiet neighborhood. The main street had a beautiful tree bifurcation along the middle of it, almost like a garden. people were walking dogs and street vendors were selling food from carts along it. I remember glancing a newspaper stand and one of the covers standing out to me, the headline read "DICTATORS" (In Spanish) and the cover held the photos of several world leaders, the biggest one, front and center being the angry, finger-wagging face of Trump. I had no local money on me at the time, otherwise, I would have grabbed a copy, curious of what the other countries had to say on the subject.

After getting taxis we were off to orientation at the Maximo Nivel headquarters. we got our project assignment, we would be working with an animal shelter called "Colitas sin Techo" or "Tails without a home." Monday and Tuesday afternoon we would be building a fence for the shelter so the dogs had more room to roam, and Thursday we would split our group into two teams to run an animal campaign in a more impoverished area of Cusco. One team in the morning, one in the afternoon. The orientation also covered more general getting around the city tips, like how to know the difference between legitimately registered taxis and fake ones, some common need to know Spanish phrases, and other safety tips. During the orientation I drank a ton of Coca tea; not chocolate, this is the leaf they make cocaine out of but don't worry, unprocessed it's perfectly safe! (Just don't try to bring any back home, the TSA dogs will sniff you out.) Coca tea is drunk a lot by new arrivals because it helps with adjusting to the altitude. Incas used to chew the dried leaves to supplement vitamins in their diet, get an energy boost and suppress hunger.

Orientation was finished with a walking tour of the area of the city around the office which included where ATMs were, stores and the main Plaza De Armas (Probably spelled wrong but that's how I learned to say it). we went up a set of stone stairs and through a couple, back alleyways to get there. stairs are HARD at 12,000ft, I sure was sucking on my inhaler. the cobblestone streets made me feel like I was back in Europe. I looked through an archway in one of the alleys and saw a large grassy yard. I laughed to myself and remembered one of my favorite books as a kid, The Secret Garden. I found it, I had found the secret garden! Spoiler alert: it contains many colorful alpacas... glances through other similar archways reveled beer gardens, restaurants, basketball courts, and soccer fields.

 Plaza De Armas is the central square of Cusco; The cathedral and temple take two sides. It's close to a lot of nice shops and restaurants. the middle of the square has a giant fountain with I forgot who on top of it. locals wander around the plaza, trying to get tourists to buy hats and sweaters from them, artists wander with their portfolios to try and sell their art. The city is littered with stray dogs, one of which knew our program manager and adopted our group for the tour, following us around and rubbing his ears on our legs. at the end of the tour, he followed us back into the office. We named him Max, short for Maximo.

Max at Maximo

Back at the headquarters, we exchanged money and were free to do with the rest of the day what we pleased. Some people who weren't feeling so good took a taxi back to the homestays, the rest of us followed the lead of the guy who said, "Hey, let's walk back, It'll be fun! trust me, I downloaded Google Maps!" yeah, we got lost. For the record, I was prepared to talk and haggle with the taxis to get us to where we needed to go. But it wound up being one of those fun adventures where you explore the city while really fucking hungry because we didn't eat lunch. On the way, we stopped at a convenience store for snacks and I got to try the legendary Inca Cola soda that every travel guide told me to try. It tastes like pineapple bubble gum and was much too sweet for me. I also tried Inca Corn which was not the same as we get in the states, it was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. think inverse popcorn. I am glad we went through, I have always appreciated the road less traveled and this one got a baby alpaca shoved in my arms by a local who wanted me to take a picture with it for a sole ( 1 USD = 3.2 Soles).

Back at the homestay we entered through the garage door with the keys we were given. Through which was an area of the house I hadn't seen yet and It blew my mind. Their car was parked in the entryway to a beautiful restaurant. There was a stocked wooden bar in front of the car, the glasses covered in dust obviously hadn't been used in a while. the entry turned past a coca-cola cooler to a gorgeous high ceiling room filled with chairs stacked on tables. the floor was a simple blue mosaic and there was a professional kitchen to the side that hadn't seen use in a while. During my whole stay, the room remained dark and the chairs never left the tops of the tables. The house kitchen was also to the side of the restaurant and through it we accessed the rest of the house, going up a set of stairs in the entryway to get to my room I shared with two other girls. Going through the doorway into the rest of the house was like stepping through a portal. Throughout the whole house, I was made to feel safe and welcome.

Dinner was served at 7pm, an amazing meal of what could be described as a Peruvian tuna casserole on yucca fries and a side of rice. Our hosts never dined with us, but this was more due to custom and at orientation, we were told not to take offense. Peruvians have large lunches as the big meal of the day and eat little to no dinner. While our homestay provided us with breakfast and dinner, we were on our own for lunches during the week. Our hosts were careful to ask about dietary restrictions and they never had any problems accommodating my lactose intolerance. It mostly just meant that I needed my meals without cheese mixed in, and on the couple occasions we had yogurt at the breakfast table, I was provided with dairy-free yogurt.

After dinner, we all pretty much passed out in our rooms. Some people (not me) had a mountain to climb tomorrow. I was going to Carnival.

I will upload pictures later, I need sleeeeeeep.