My 'Round the World' travels!: All Clear

Thankfully, I was given the all clear by the specialist today. The virus has gone from my eye, but she told me that it will return again - could be weeks, months, maybe longer, but when it does I've to seek medical help at once. Here's hoping I'm not in the arse end of nowhere. If that does happen, then I'll happily take a flight to the 'The First World' rather than losing my sight altogether here in some Third World country in South America. The specialist who was looking after me was lovely. I've never come across a nicer doctor. Each time I went, she gave me a kiss and a hug goodbye - nice doctors over here - the doctors at home could learn a thing or two!!!

Next week is my last week of Spanish classes here in Cusco. Two weeks ago I think I hit a brick wall as the poor teacher was nearly pulling her hair out trying to make me understand complemento directos and indirectos. They had me in a class with another student from France, who was clearly fluent in Spanish and who could speak, understand and basically could have taught the teacher.

I asked nicely to be moved to another class the following week to revise some of the things I learnt prior as all these verbs that need conjugated were confusing me. This week, I'm with an American student who has been learning Spanish since Grade 8 and who is taking Spanish as a minor at University. There are so many past tenses in Spanish (so far, I've been taught the preterito simple, presente perfecto, pluscamperfecto and the preterito imperfecto - there are probably more which I'll gladly never learn). Why can't it just be easy and only have one -it's doing my nut in.

Since my last blog, Grainne, my friend from Ireland, arrived in a complete dump for her volunteering miles outside Cusco city. No sooner had the poor girl arrived in her homestay, she was looking out of it. Grainne, no sooner had she put her bags in her room, just left her house and came to mine. She decided she wanted out, so thought it was a good idea to go and collect her bags from her homestay. Two hours later in a taxi, the two of us were driving around Cusco to find her home - we had no idea where it was; neither did the taxi driver or the vagabonds on the street, so we made our way back to my house; decided to google a map and directions to her house to give to another taxi driver.

Ok, great stuff - or so we thought. We got into a taxi, showed the taxi the directions from my house to hers. The taxi driver took off, turned the car around the block and hey presto...he brought us both to my house. Grainne, at this stage was in the back saying 'what the bleep' - two of us arriving back to where we were in the first place, practically outside my door (the two of us in stitches at this stage). Eventually we got there, took her bags and flitted in the early evening. She is now safe and sound in the same residence as myself and two others (she's in the Presidential Suite at the top of the house - own double bed, bathroom etc and the rest of us are slumming it and sharing at the plebian level below) and volunteering with the Spanish school that I'm in here in Cusco.

The altitude is being a wee shite as per usual. I'm blaming it for being baltic here at night, breaking my phone, computer, charger and now my straighteners along with my dodgy eye. Here in Peru, people don't tend to throw things out - they get them fixed again and again. Found a little set of electrical shops down the back streets of Cusco and the wee man in the tin shed of a shop of his (no bigger than about 2m x 2m) said he could fix them. He told me to come back that afternoon.

I arrived back at the time only to find he wasn't there and my straighteners were lying there with the wires everywhere. I sat and watched the TV with a couple of the other men in the 'electric shed' and still no sign of him. I was thinking that he hadn't a clue, knew when I was arriving and scarpered. 1.5 hours later I said I'd return the next day. Lo and behold, he wasn't there again, straighteners still lying in the same place. Finally, on the third day, I cornered him and found out that my little straighteners couldn't be fixed. Obviously the circuit was way too advanced for his techinical skills (which involved him using 2 screwdrivers and some kind of outdated ohmmeter to tell him if it was working).

During the weekend, myself and Grainne decided to get into the spirit of Euro 2012 and support Ireland in their first match against Croatia. Grainne brought over the Irish flag and some t-shirts from home to wear. We found some face paint here in Cusco and I bought the Peru flag (as Peru were playing Uruguay in a World Cup Qualifier for Brazil). Off we went, dressed in our colours and headed to the local Irish bar.

We left our house with our flags in hand; faces painted and Grainne singing 'You'll never beat the Irish'. As soon as we left the passage to our house, we ran into what we thought was some type of funeral.There was a crowd of people walking slowly past us: priests, altar boys etc. looking at us dressed like eejits. It was slightly awkward situation alright! Luckily, it wasn't a funeral, it was some sort of procession for Corpus Christi. So, happily we continued onto Paddy's Irish bar here. The two of us were the only ones dressed in our finery - after a couple of drinks, we didn't care. In the end, Ireland lost miserably and Peru lost also - both teams at the bottom of their respective tables. It didn't take long for Grainne to take out her baby wipes and remove the flags from her face. Me, I slept in mine.

Cusco is renowned for all of its fiestas. There isn't a weekend that goes by without the people singing and dancing in the street, full of lots of colour. Corpus Christi was absolutely huge here. Never seen so many people in the Plaza del Aramas and have never seen so many holy statues (and scary looking ones at that) being paraded through the city with the local Cusquenans drinking and eating guinea pig - any excuse for a party.

The biggest fiesta of all here is on 24th June - Cusco Day/'Dia del Cusco', or more famously 'Inti Raymi' which is massive over here. It is the 'Festival of the Sun' which is a religious Inca festival in honour of the god 'Inti' and takes place in the winter solstice when the sun is furthest from the earth (tell me about it - damn freezing here at night, the cold is ridiculous!). Apparently, it's the second largest festival here in South America, after the Rio Carnival. Have timed my classes perfectly as they finish on the Friday of that weekend. Myself and Grainne have decided to leave Cusco after Inti Raymi and head to lower grounds.