Chao Cusco! We leave for the AMAZON tomorrow morning for ten days, yay! We will be working on a volunteer reforestation project and living in the jungle.
Cusco the past two weeks has been amazing and many of us have felt so at home here but we are stoked for a change of scenery.
Our two weeks of spanish practice and grammer flew by, and we were sad to leave our teachers- We had a little goodbye lunch with all of them yesterday and it was very fun. I showed my two teachers all my pictures from home and they loved them and said they wanted to come live with me in the mountains. It was really cute. We also had a talk with John the creator of Fairplay and he told us his goals and intiatives of the reason behind creating our spanish school. It was to help single mothers create an income and better their livilihoods. It was so cool hearing the difficulities that our teachers had overcome and how after becoming a part of Fairplay their confidenc,self esteem, health, and so many other components of their lives had felt so improved. John told us that friendship and happiness for others is really uncommon here and that jealousy and distrust overrule all other feelings, and that we are an example for these women that there is such things as friendship and the sharing of happiness
We had another cooking class this week and we made Causa rellenos which is a traditional cold Peruvian dish of potates, celery, egg, avocado and a few other ingredients. It was awesome to make but definitall not as good as our Rocoto Rellenos we made last week! We also had more salsa lessons and the moves started getting pretty complicated but it was still so much fun!
Last weekend was AMAZING! I arranged a canyoning/repelling trip to Pisaq a town about a tour and a half from Cusco, and it was so incredible. After driving through the mountains we had a beautiful hike up to the top of the canyon/gorge. It felt so good to hike again and my ankle held up just fine! The repelling itself was so fun and so scary. We did 5 different repelles all through waterfalls and it was such an adrenaline rush! I could not stop smiling the whole time, and I did not want it to end at all.
It was such an unforgettable experience in such a beautiful place. The drive there and back was breathtaking as well, we saw multiple ruin sites and above the town of Pisaq are original terraces in the side of this beautiful peak. It was something I will never forget.
I miss everyone and hope you are doing well and I will be thinking of you all when I´m wrestling anacondas in the AMAZON!
CHAO CUSCO!
Kelsey King