Cusco
I have been living in Cusco, Peru since May and having been really enjoying my stay here. I initially worked as part of the Mountain Fund which is a charity set up to help Porters in Nepal and Peru get fair rights. The Mountain fund organised my accommodation with Yuri and his family and also found me work with an Orphanage, Juan Pablo 11. My accommodation suited me for a while as I was very comfortable in Yuri’s house and had a large bedroom all to myself filled with stuffed toys and decorated for their young son. My bed covers were Winnie the Pooh or Jungle book characters. I had cable TV and also internet access and all my meals were made for me. I also had to speak Spanish all the time so it was very good for my confidence in speaking Spanish. I did find that I got very lazy and hardly went out at night except to events organised by fellow volunteers at the orphanage or by the South American Explorers club so I moved to a flat in town and my social life has improved greatly but more about that later.
I have found a great deal of voluntary work here and much that could last me a lifetime.
I met a girl only the other day who helps with young mothers who have been abused. The age range is from 11 to 16 very very sad!
I also visited a living museum where they take Art out to the Children of the very poor communities. Every child is entitled to schooling but many cannot go as they live in the mountains too far away and some of the schools near them do not even have a roof or a teacher. This group take art materials out to the remote villages and set out to teach by drawing and painting. They try not to influence the children and their drawings but they do have to show them how to hold a brush and how things work. They gave them mirrors so that they could see what they looked like and then got them to draw themselves. The youngest kids got a large sheet of paper and they drew an outline round another child lying down and then this was coloured in. The children also had to draw their surroundings. The most amazing pictures were where the drawings were of patterns that resembled the textiles patterns of the weaving families and those influences were very obviously patterns that had been handed down over the centuries and were drawn very accurately by these young artists.
My life in Cusco was really fun. I realised in Bolivia that I saw very little of the place as I was working quite hard whereas here I had free weekends. I took up Yoga and went to the gym (sometimes). During the week I went to dance salsa. It is no mean feat dancing at 11,000 feet. One place is run by a group called the Inka team and they dance mainly Cuban Rueda. The dancers are fantastic and have a great verve and enjoyment of the dance. Another place was called Roots and the teacher is a good dancer but there are normally only beginners going to his class and usually the place is empty until 11pm so I got the teacher all to myself. He told me he enjoyed our dances too as he usually only got to dance with beginners. I am also a member of SAE and they organised things like a pub quiz, dining out once a fortnight and games nights so that took up my evenings. I made friends with some of the SAE crew and the people who go to the events.
My weekends were the best of all.
My plan had always been to travel round the little villages near Cusco and to appreciate the many Inca sites along the way. I always envisaged doing this by motor bike and did a motor bike test to learn how to ride one. It proved too expensive a venture to hire a bike for me here but I teamed up with a few people and we took local buses to villages and then hike round the area over a weekend. The scenery has been stunning and we find lovely little cafe’s and hostels. Sometimes the village was so small it did not even have a cafe and we had to rely on the market for our food. There are lots of fresh fruit and vegetables in Peru and many fruits you will probably never have heard of as the Incas were amazing agriculturists and tried many experimental ways of growing foods. There are 300 variety of potatoes for example. The months of May and June are the months of the fiestas and I have been to some wonderful festivals. The festivals are a fascinating mix of religion and superstition. We were in
Cusco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It has magnificent Spanish Churches, with Gilt altars, sitting on hilltops, in the main square and every other square. The Spanish builders were masters and obviously out to impress their conquests. Most of the streets are cobbled and many were built by the Incas and everywhere there are Inca walls where the Spanish have built their churches using the Inca bases. It is quite hard to tell the fake from the real wall. Whenever there has been an earthquake the Inca walls stay standing and the Spanish walls fall down. Cusco has abundant cafe’s and you can have a three course meal for under £1 or you can pay £20 for a slap up dinner in a five star restaurant. I ate in a restaurant called the Fallen Angel where the tables were glass covered bath tubs, which were full of live goldfish, and the toilets were made of barbed wire and the decor was almost pornographic! I went their big party dressed as an angel but with KISS style makeup.
All the time you are approached by ladies dressed in colourful local costumes with a real live llama attached for a photo opportunity and at every street corner you are sold hats, gloves, rocks and silver jewellery. There are monasteries in abundance as the Spanish tried to conquer both the people and their minds. Shops are everywhere and tour companies as well. The walk up to my apartment was very steep and all the streets are steep whichever way you want to get out of the valley as Cusco is surrounded by mountains. June was the month of the big festival Into Raymi where we went to Sacsayhuamán which is my favourite Inca site.
I am gathering ideas of how I can help and Cusco is certainly one place I could be very useful and go back to.
