Peru: Spanish Intensive and Cultural Immersion

For weeks my Practica teacher Carmen has been raving about ¨Sexy Woman¨, a monument high in the hills of Cuzco.  We ventured there Friday morning, and I realized my interpretation of the location had been misinterpreted.  Behold, ¨Sexy Woman¨:

Boy was I wrong.

Saqsaywaman is a park that houses a group of ruins high above Cuzco.  Frames of giant stone complexes dot the landscape in the hills.  A more modern creation is a giant statue of Jesus that dominates the hillside, and is visible from downtown Cuzco.

Carmen and I meandered around the ruins for our two hour  class, reviewing vocabulary and holes in my conversational Spanish.  I had my grammar class immediately after my visit to Saqsaywaman, after which my other profesora, Nayut, helped me purchase a ticket to Arequipa for that same night.

I do not like night buses.  I find them to be unsafe and a terrible nights sleep, but  they are economical as you combine the cost of transport and the assumed cost of a hotel room into one easy package.  Nonetheless we all arrived safely into Arequipa at 5;00 in the morning.

Arequipa is a modern city with a beautiful downtown square.  Almost identical to the Plaza de Armas in Cuzco, the Plaza de Armas in Arequipa is a bit more polished, as is the city in general.  The city boasts a variety of touristical sights;  an ancient monastery that is a city unto itself, an Ice Queen museum featuring an ancient mummy, and countless others I did not visit.  I spent a day wandering through the clean streets and seeing the sights, then continued on to Puno the next day.

Puno is on the west bank of Lake Titikaka, the worlds highest navigable lake.  When I arrived at the block of hotels in downtown, it was raining so hard that I took the first one I looked at.  When the rain let up, I ventured into the streets looking for food.

Street food is always delicious, and always cheap.  The local specialties in Peru are beef or chicken shishkabob, with a whole potato.  What kind of potato I am not sure, there are over 5000 varieties in Peru.  On the hunt for local cuisine, I decided to follow the billows of smoke that escaped into the sky above the buildings.  A sure sign of street vendors. 

What I stumbled upon was a huge party.  The single billows of smoke I saw were actually at least a dozen; noble vendors cooking for hungry (and drunk) party go-ers. 

I ate my dinner, drank a beer, and danced with the locals.  I was thrown in the middle of every dance circle I entered, and paired with very traditionally dressed women from Puno.  When the rain began to pick up to the point of discomfort, most people filed out, though the band played on. 

This video is taken just outside the gates of  the official party, though obviously the fun could not be contained.  If I were to call it anything, this is the parade portion of the night.

Tomorrow morning I shall head to the dock at Lake Titikaka, and find a boat for Isla Taquile, where I shall spend the night.  From what I understand there are no hotels on the island, only homestays.   

The air is thin at this altitude, and it is nice to soak up.  After Taquile, I shall return to Cuzco where I will finish my last two days of spanish courses before flying to Lima and exploring the north of Peru.  The adventure continues… Ciao.