Good Day Sunshine

After having written a fairly emotional last entry I thought it was about time to reassure everyone that I am OKAY as well as share some photos of my life here in Cusco. I have made some good progress on research as well as some good friends who will be sticking around Cusco for a while and who like to explore almost as much as I do!

Saying goodbye to Lima was difficult. I have really come to love it there, to the point that it feels like my home away from home. I think that this was one source of my feeling so sad during my first week in Cusco. It is now sunny and warm in Lima while here in Cusco it rains everyday for variable amounts of time and it is COLD... I know I shouldn't be complaining since all of you at home are up to your red, runny noses in snow, but I was so ready for summer break! And now its difficult to spend too much time outside.

But Cusco is a beautiful place! In the central plaza there are 2 colonial style cathedrals which sit on cobblestone roads that spider around the districts of San Blas and Central- the main tourist districts and the most beautiful that the city has to offer. There are Incan walls that still stand at the base of several of the white walls that make up the structure of most of the city buildings. The Incan walls can be distinguished from the ones that are newer because the rocks have been formed into blocks and sit one on top of the other without any kind of cement holding them together. The Incas were famous for having carved their rocks and placed them to fit together perfectly, as well as for having developed an anti-seismic strategy in which the edges of the blocks are not exactly square with one another but slanted slightly.

Notice how the sides of the windows are also turned slightly inward...this is a classic Inca structure that has been the reason that the Inca structures have outlasted both colonial and modern structures through the years which have seen several devastating earthquakes.

I took advantage of this moment in the central plaza to snap a picture of what it looks like on a sunny day. This is a spot where lots of backpackers gather to sit around on benches, on the ground, on the steps of the fountain to chat, meet, play music, kill time before departing to other parts, and in the case of the young Argentinians (of which there are many) sit and drink mate.

But usually it looks like this.

Here are a couple of views of the street and hills from the top of the stairs that lead to my hostal. These stairs are killer at this altitude! I get a few workouts each day hiking up them.

And there are spiders in Cusco... something I had not experienced much of in Lima. This one was HUGE and was crawling along the wall in my room. I had to swipe a broom and sweep the sucker out the door... a feat which took a great deal of mental preparation on my part including several deep breaths and positive self talk... "you can do this... it's probably not poisonous... it's more afraid of you than you are of it."

Here are a couple of girls from a province of Cusco. They come into the city everyday to hold their goat and offer to pose for photos in exchange for a fairly large sum of money. They are only one group of many people who do this. I usually walk by them as they call out, "una foto senorita? One picture?" but today I stopped and took their photo because I wanted to chat with them. I sat down beside them to pet their goat (whose name is Josafina) and talk to them about what they do. They told me that mostly tourists like to take their picture. They say they use the money for their schooling - to buy notebooks and pens. This made me wonder if they were telling me the truth as the number one complaint from most tourists when they see these children working this way in the city is that they are not in school.

I also spend a good amount of time here at this central market. Here you can buy fresh fruits, veggies, nuts, bread... and if you are brave, meat, fish and cheese which sit out all day in the muggy marketplace. I often sit on one of those stools sipping a freshly squeezed juice of any type of fruit while writing observation fieldnotes or interviewing foreigners. Ok I'll be honest I have only interviewed one foreigner and two locals but I am making progress!

So thats life in Cusco! Pacing around markets, wandering the streets when they are dry and exploring the different dynamics of the ancient city of Cusco.

rain drops keep fallin' on my head...

Life in Cusco has been quite a change. My first days here alone were some of the hardest yet. I had a breakdown every day for a while. The biggest problem was where I lived - I was living in the home of a man from Cusco and felt extremely dirty, without my personal space and far from the center of town where I spend the majority of my time. I have now moved to a room in a hostal where I have my own space and privacy, clean bathroom and lovely staff who let me use their kitchen. I would say moving has made be feel 70% better.

The other part of the struggle was feeling very alone in a new city. I don't know anyone here. My family had just left from visiting to go back home and all of a sudden I was on my own. In the mornings I would wander around the city aimlessly looking for something without knowing what I was looking for and not being able to find what I though I might be looking for. This is one of the coolest cities in the world with so much to offer and so many interesting people to meet but I could not even find a place to sit and read a book and drink a coffee. I have now come to terms that this may be an introspective time for me and a time to focus on my research. It is interesting for me to see and feel the changes in my emotions as I make adjustments in my life. I am clearly very affected by my surroundings - being in a small, dark, messy space in an area of town that sold car parts made me feel very uncomfortable while having my own clean space with lots of windows makes me feel more at home and far happier.

I struggled with the decision to leave the apartment for several days. Why should I get to live in a comfortable living situation when the majority of the people in this country live in far worse conditions than that apartment? I should live among the people who live in the country where I am living. I also really liked Anthony (the man) and his 11 year old son Gonzalo. One night Gonzalo taught me how to make banana wrapped in a pancake with condensed milk. We all watched a movie together and I felt that maybe I could handle living there. However, the next afternoon when I returned after spending the morning in the center, armed with cleaning supplies, I could not keep it together and immediately decided to take a couple of days at the hostal to make my decision as to whether or not to leave. As soon as I got there I cried for a long time and then began to feel a lot better. That night I went to a cafe lounge right beside my hostal to read and relax a bit. I met a couple of Argentinians with whom I sat and talked for quite a while. We went out for dinner and dancing that night. My first friends. Unfortunately they will be leaving Peru soon to go home. I think that I will meet a lot of people passing through Cusco as it's definately a tourist destination and a stop that most people make before visiting Machu Picchu. But I'm feeling ok about it since I am not exactly permanent here either and it will give me a chance to really focus on research. At least once in a while I will have people to go out with.

I decided after a couple days of staying at the hostal that this was going to work out much better for me. While I feel that I can handle living in a humble space, I would not choose to live where Anthony lives. I would not choose to live the way that he does and while he may be comfortable there, I was not. Now I have joined a gym, am getting to know the combi system and I'm enjoying the crazy markets where I buy my fresh fruits and veggies. I am planning to take yoga classes and get out into spaces where I can meet cool people and make some friends.