Arrived in Cusco after 4 days of travelling from Belfast - London - Madrid - Lima - Cusco. Back in the same house and the same bed. It's like home from home. So much for a nice easy first day back in school. I didn't even get the chance to fail my entrance test again. They had my notes from last October and decided to put me straight back into class. I'm in a class by myself with my teacher, Erwin and started with verbos irregulares. Classes and teachers change each week, so next week a new student could be in with me, depending on the numbers arriving.
My basic Spanish is really rusty. The first day, one of the teachers in the school said to me in Spanish, "Enjoy your lunch" - my reply was "Gracias, tengo hombre" (thanks, I'm men) instead of "Tengo hambre". They all pissed themselves laughing. In class I'm constantly mis-pronouncing words all the time and reading them like they were English words. There are listening, reading, writing and talking skills for the 4 hours of intense lessons. I'd be reading a passage of some really old and hard book, trying to pronounce and understand what it was saying and the next minute the teacher would be in stitches laughing. I look up, ask him why he's laughing so much, he replies.."Oh, you've just said a bad word" (with my mis pronunciation) - one was masturbation and the other was farting.
Just like the last time, the teachers all converse in Spanish for the whole 4 hours, so by the time I leave the school my brain is fried. But today, (Friday) was a good day - bit more relaxed and the student can go on walks around Cusco after breaktime, with their teacher (conversing in Spanish). The student gets to decide where to go, for example: el museo, el mercado etc. I chose the highest Irish bar on the planet - ´Paddy´s´, so we stopped there for one drink and I introduced Erwin to a pint of Guinness. Conversing in different languages always gets better with alcohol as it relaxes people!
The TV in the house has no English channels at all. My favourite programmes are in the morning before I go to school - kids TV, especially 'Bob le Constructor' (Bob the Builder)as I can understand it. I know what it's like for those children from foreign countries who came into my class with no English at all, or those children with special needs who can't read/write/understand properly. When someone speaks to me really quickly in Spanish, I stand there trying to pick up some words I know, look of confusion in my eyes, frozen in a trance like a complete dope. When they speak slowly I can understand them. I've got 120 days stamped on my passport for Peru, so by the end of that hopefully my Spanglish will turn into proper Spanish.
Cusco's weather is weird at the minute. The rainy season has finished, so sometimes it feels like being back in Thailand during the day (ok, not quite as hot but around 28 degrees)and the North Pole at night and in the early mornings. In one day I managed to get sunburnt (blisters on my lips and a peeling red face) and then at night wrapping myself up in hoodies, tracksuit bottoms, hat, extra 'frazadas' and two pairs of socks. It's baltic and there is no such thing as central heating systems in any of the houses/buildings here.
Cusco is 11 156 ft above sea level and people can experience a bit of altitude sickness when they arrive. Breathing is normally fine, but there are times when you could be walking up the street/lying sleeping in your bed when suddenly you start to gasp for breath. It's a bit like sticking your head out of a car window and opening your mouth and letting the wind catch your breath. The pollution doesn't help either. Every morning, so far without fail, my right eye (that took a paper cut to it last year in school) constantly weeps and is really sore, so sitting in class is slightly embarrassing as I can't keep it open. Any bottles of cream/anything with a lid expands (in fact, everything seems to expand at high altitude) and when you go to open it, it squirts out liquid. Training at high altitude is apparently the way to go to increase your fitness levels, so am giving myself to the weekend to acclimatise before I start running and spinning again. Have only managed to talk one friend into spin classes next week - the others would rather pull pins out of their toe-nails. Tomorrow is the weekend and a few of us are going to try out some salsa or maybe just watch the Latinos and see how it´s done properly - should be fun.
Cusco hasn't changed that much. Still the same busy place as always with lots of tourists around, either getting ready to go to Machu Picchu or just coming back from it and viewing all the historical sights around the city. Lots of fiestas are still going on every weekend, vendors selling everthing, lots of streets near where I live are being dug up and new paving stones being put down (sometimes you'd think a child paved the streets as some of the re-paving looks like they have just been thrown down in no order at all), people being squashed in combis on their way to work/school; chorlitas (who could do with a good bra fitting - hard to tell if their stomachs are their boobs and vice-versa) smiling with their tooth-less smiles shouting 'Pase, pase' (come in, come in); taxi drivers beeping at you to let you know they are available. The taxis would crumple in an accident - the metal on the doors are so thin you could use a tin-opener to cut through them.
Forgot about the wee security guard that goes around the streets/passages where I live; whistle in his mouth, blowing as hard as he can to let you know he's around. Not good when you're lying in bed sleeping and his whistle goes off at stupid o'clock giving you near heart failure. To enter the main house, there are 3 doors to unbolt and unlock first. In our house, there's a small whistle attached to the inside of the first door. If someone tries to break and enter into the house this little black whistle will apparently save our lives (?) No such thing as: a) defending yourself; b) calling the Police; c) getting the hell out of there. Oh, no - we've to blow this whistle as hard as we can and if we do this, the nice security guard will come and save the day. Only in Cusco. That's why I love it so much here - completely random!
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