Cusco: Week 1

Greetings from Cusco! We arrived here a week ago and have sort of found our rhythm.

For our 8-week stay in Cusco we are doing a homestay where we live and dine for two meals a day with a local host family. We have a pretty unique living situation as we sort of have our own apartment on the bottom floor of the family home, complete with three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom and shower, and a washing machine (better than boat life!). En español...nuestro apartamento tiene tres dormitorios, una sala, una cocina, un baño y una ducha, y una lavador! Some things about homes in Cusco:

• They don't have heat. Our place gets really cold sometimes and we tend to pad around in coats and socks and wrap up in lots of wool blankets.
• The tap water isn't safe to drink. You must boil the water before drinking it (pretty easy with our setup). 
• There isn't hot water. You want to wash the dishes with hot water? You need to boil it. The shower? It's an instant-heat shower head that doesn't always heat consistently and you absolutely cannot touch it when the breaker for it is on and the water is flowing or you WILL get shocked (ask us how we know!).
• Speaking of water...you might not always have it. This weekend our neighborhood was short on water and it impacted Frank's shower and breakfast. 

But...we have great wifi and cable, plenty of room to do school, and a really sweet host family! The home is in the suburbs so we aren't right in the thick of touristy old Cusco (but our school is), but we are experiencing middle-class Peruvian life.

Our home is pretty great (albeit COLD!).

The weekdays start at 0650 with breakfast with out host mum and then we are off on a 35-40 minute commute via foot and public bus each way to Amauta Spanish School for four hours of class. School is legit and we are finding ourselves challenged and learning. We rush back for lunch with our host family at 1300 and after that the kids get to work on their "normal" school subjects. It's really a busy and exhausting time for us all, but we are adjusting our homeschool schedule to try to make it a little more fun for everyone. In the evenings we usually just head out into the surrounding neighborhood for dinner as it's pretty affordable to eat out (we spend $20-$40 US for amazing dinners with cocktails/beer and an app).

Our school is in the San Blas neighborhood in the heart of old Cusco and we all love our instructors. The busses to get there are usually crammed for at least half of the ride in and it can be an adventure to get on and off and pay!

Outside of school we've had a little fun, too! Our school hosted a welcome dinner Monday and a Lomo Saltado cooking class on Thursday so we went back into the city for both of those. While our crew is the oldest and youngest of the students this week, we have really enjoyed hanging out with our fellow students (Katreina even met a girl from France to chat with!). We started the weekend at the local mall as we wanted to see what suburban Peruvians do on a Friday night and we needed to get Trent a raincoat since his was somehow misplaced between the US and here. It was pretty much a normal mall experience--there were even some recognizable stores!

Welcome dinner and Lomo Saltado class with our schoolmates! Trent was one of the chefs!

Friday night in the 'burbs.

We decided to spend some time Saturday in the busy, touristy city center of Cusco. Wow, lots of folks trying to sell you stuff (like it's very hard to sit on a bench and just have a conversation), but it was also some fun people-watching and the architecture around the main Plaza de Armas is lovely. We toured the Museo Inka for some Incan history, had an awesome lunch in the San Blas neighborhood, walked through the local food market, and picked up our tickets for how we will leave Cusco in 7 weeks (more on that later!). Then we decided to walk all the way home (about an hour) via some new streets and we found more local markets, a weekend market in Tupac Amaru Square, and the soccer stadium that we will be going to later today for a game! 

Plaza de Armas and Museo Inka.

Walking through San Blas and Wanchaq areas.

We have been trying street food, experiencing lots of new dishes with our host family, and generally doing well. The next three weeks will be just like this one for the most part...school, school, a little afternoon/evening/weekend touristing, and hopefully a lot of learning and fun!

~Jo, Nomadic Momma