Yowanna en PERU!!! Hola, mi amigos!!!

Hola, hola, hola!!!! Hola from PERU!!!

Barely surviving the 3 flights that finally took me into Lima, I made a fool of myself when I answered ¨Catholic¨ to the Immigration officer´s question...I had heard ¨Buddhist?¨ but he was actually asking me if I am a ¨Tourist¨!!! I blame it on the jet lag...

I was like a living corpse when I finally checked into Hotel Espana. This guesthouse is like a dream come true for me...I feel like I am living in a MUSEUM!!! The unassuming entrada did not prepare me for what lays behind the doors...walking up the stairs into the hallways and the airwell, the quirky statues, classic pinturas(paintings) that adorn the walls and with ivy spiralling down from the upper floors that seem to embrace you as you walk deeper into it....it all feels so surreal and magical! Nicked "cupboard on legs"¨, my 18kg backpack nearly killed me as we hauled it up 4 floors of narrow spiral staircase... The soft bed and pillow was the bonus of the entire day´s trip...

Now in Cusco and snuggly settled in with my Peruvian host family for the week, I enjoyed a home-cooked almuerzzo(lunch) by Juana, the madre(mother) of the family, with her two lovely daughters. They speak almost zero English and I felt like such a jack-ass when they had to look up the dictionary to explain to me that their father is ¨muerto¨, i.e. dead. *Gulp* Lo siento....(sorry) Lunch is always the main meal of the day since the ancient Incas discovered that having a light dinner helps to ease their digestion at such high altitude...Cusco is at 3326m high after all. Drinking lots of mate de coca(tea leaves of the coca tree) helps you to acclimatise to the altitude...though I still woke up this morning with a splitting headache and kept getting heart palpitations whenever I climb the stairs...

Juana is a maestro(teacher) and she supplements her meagre monthly wage of US$200 by opening her lovely house to Spanish students for US$10 per day, inclusive of meals. A really good deal for me as a student cos I get a really nice and big room fully furnished with an attached bathroom and hot shower, plus an immediate Peruvian family and delicious hot meals! My Spanish School, Amigos Spanish School, is great and already in my first day of class, I managed to distinguish and learn the 5 different metamorphorsis of each verb when it coms to the various usage! It´s good that the profits of this school goes to helping the poor local kids and giving them an opportunity to learn English and get a hearty nice lunch each day...probably the only meal they´ll get for the rest of the day.

Do you know that potatoes originate in Peru(not America as they claimed)? At present, there are almost 900 recorded species of potatoes... NASA uses a Peruvian cereal called Quina to prepare the food pills for their astronauts when they are in space, yet commercialization these days(esp from Amercia) plus advertising and what nots have changed the mindset of most local folks and they prefer to eat Nestle Cereal Crunch rather than good ol´quina. Local traditions are slowly disappearing in this country...what with strong influence from Giant Economies(like America) overpowering weaker countries like Peru, almost coercing Peru into giving everything that is valuable and useful to the bigger countries and draining Peru of their rights to survive. Natural Gas has been dicovered near to Macchu Picchu and around Cusco...and I can bet you one day Macchu Picchu and the Sacred Valley might just collapse into oblivion after ¨they¨ are done with the digging and contamination.

Cusco city is really lovely in the day and poetically romantic at night... The Andean mountains around the city are dotted with lighted houses at night and the very first time I saw, it simply took my heart away...such a classic M&M´s melting moment... I felt so cheated by buying the tourist ticket to enter the supposedly popular tourist attractions around Cusco(US$20 now, not US$10 as printed in Lonely Planet)...and ended up visiting crap n creepy museums and having to pay for the truly nice attractions like La Cathedral and Museo Inka. Such a rip-off!!! Do not buy this ticket if you may not even want to visit the list places affiliated with this ticket. Now I have to make the extra effort to go visit the places I may not even go in the 1st place...pfff!!!

I ate Chincharones(fried pork), a local specialty with gigantic maize(corn) and frito papa(fried potato) today with Melagros(my pretty host sista) at one of the best restaurant they have near Plaza de Armas. It was finger lickin´good, I say... =) Then it was shopping time for warm waterproof jackets, beanie hats and scarves to prepare for my upcoming trek to Salkantay and Machu Picchu on Sunday! Whooppee!!!

If anyone reading this wants to do the Classic 4D/3N Inca Trail to visit Machu Picchu, you HAVE to book at least 1-2 months ahead. It was full till November by the time I enquired. My Spanish classmate Elsa and I ended up booking the other option for the 5D/4N Salkantay Trek, including 1 day at Machu Picchu. It should be good too since there is a lot of scenery across snow peaked mountains and glacier lakes with temperature hovering around -8degrees with one of the pass snowing for SURE! Oh God...I think I am gonna freeze my butts off!!! Brrr....

Gotta split now...got a splitting heachache...not sure if it´s the Guns´N Roses song playing in the internet cafe or too much Spanish in 1 afternoon or the high altitude...(Cusco is about 1000m higher than Machu Picchu)