Ok, so mom, to speak to your comment, I have not seen a donkey yet, but lots of cows which often frequent the area outside the Pro Peru gates and little lamb which walked outside of someone´s house. Ok, so, I went from Cuzco to Urubamba( which despite all of my practice, I may have just learned how to say) today, it about an hour drive away, is quite close to Machu Pichu, but is at a lower altitude that cuzco. In theory, it´s warmer here, but I am ever the chilly-willy.

Urubamba is quite small, in fact you can wal from one end to anohter in well under an hour. It´s quite different from Cuzco, as Cuzco is near swarming with tourists and gringos (a nickname for North Americans or white people) . The streets are very narrow and always full of activity with children approaching you to sell hand woven finger puppets, cigarettes, post cards, native woman (presumably quechua k-ch-wha) selling clothes the have woven; merchandise and markets everywhere as well as dogs that belong to the streets, mainly.

Cuzco does however have a beautiful square the al Paco (lama) is delicious. Couldn´t tlee you about the guinea pig dish, though. My favorite food so far here is the quinoa soup - the creme of pumpkin is pretty good, too, it´s a shame (que lastima) that we don´t make it with our ample pumpkin crop in Canada. And, I cannot tell you how muc the Mate de Coca saved my life. I have been aclimatizing really well.


Today, one of my several fears where amplified and thenquickly dissapated as a solution presented itself. I hadn´t had a shower in three days because I was experiencing nothing but cold water comming out of the shower heads. But I thought that my home stay would be a good start. I was shown very quickly how to use the shower, howver my spanish is very limited, and so when I attempted my first shower, I once again experienced water that chilled me to the bone. When I tried to adjust the temprature (which is not posssibe anyway) I got a shock. Not a little static shock, but quite a bit more of a sizzling experience on my wet skin. Of course, confused as I was, I got shocked 2 more times before I surrendered to the fact that trying to turn the knob would not be a successful solution. My hands were tingling for the better part of an hour. I did get some help From Elena, though, the woman who works in the household ( she is also quite a good artist and weaves a slew of things) and was shown how to ensure nice, hot water comes out of the shower. That makes me happy. I will eventually post pictures, but esta todos por ahora.

hasta luego and take care,