Around-the-World with Drew & Erin: Peru

Join The Blogging Post as we head around-the-world with our friends Drew & Erin. They’ll be sending us regular dispatches and updates from around, across, and all over the globe. This is their first post from Peru…

The Final Frontier

After almost a year on the road, Erin and I crossed the border from Bolivia and entered Peru, the final frontier in our world travels. We were headed to Cusco where we were eager to settle into one place for a few weeks and take some Spanish classes. We were a bit worn down from our illnesses and hard travels in Bolivia and looked forward to our stay in Cusco as an opportunity for learning, relaxing, and recuperating. Cusco is known as the archaeological capital of South American due to its history as the center of the pre-Columbian Incan culture. It’s also known as the “gringo” capital of the continent due to all of the world travelers it attracts. But we hoped to get a somewhat authentic experience by taking classes and staying with a Peruvian family during our time there.

Immediately upon arriving in the city, we were struck by its amazing architecture and cityscape. The central Plaza de Armas is a beautiful historic square that features well-manicured green grass and flower gardens in the center, two huge and historic Spanish-style cathedrals that overlook the square, and lots of white colonial buildings with balconies lining the perimeter. The plaza in particular and the city in general are buzzing with natives and travelers all day and night which adds a feeling of vitality. The city boasts an attractive assortment of colorful plazas, Spanish churches, and colonial buildings centered around picture-perfect courtyards. In addition, there are Incan sites sprinkled throughout the city and many of the present buildings are constructed on Incan foundations or with giant, carved Incan stones. We were also charmed by the historic Barrio San Blas that is perched on a hill just above the plaza. It’s a maze of steep, narrow, cobble-stone streets filled with artisans, restaurants, cafes, and hostels. The neighborhood – like the city – feels historic and classic, yet alive and vibrant as well.

Our main order of business in town was studying Spanish at the Excel Language School. Our Spanish has improved significantly over the few months we have been in South America, but we hoped to enhance it by expanding our vocabulary, learning proper grammar, and understanding additional verb tenses. We were very pleased with the learning experience Excel provided both in the classroom and out. Monday through Friday we had four hours of personal instruction a day with just the two of us and our teacher Lyda. Lyda proved to be an excellent teacher and taught at just the level we wanted while also providing us with valuable insights about her own life in Peru.

Then in the afternoons, we did our homework (a first in many years for me), studied, explored the city, and took advantage of the extracurricular activities the school offered. To supplement our language studies, we got a great slice of Peruvian culture through salsa dancing lessons, field trips to the Inca museum and a coca shop, lectures on Pre-Incan Peruvian history, and even a singing and dancing performance of local songs put on by all the classes, including us. The latter was not one of our prouder moments but turned out to be quite fun as we belted out “Corazon Espinado” and danced alongside Lyda. One of the most interesting trips was a jaunt to the campo (countryside) to make earth hornos (ovens) out of clods of soil in the fields which we used to bake potatoes in a style that has been used for ages by the local people and continues today. The earth oven we made was the first to be completed but, unfortunately, the first to fall as well. But the potatoes we sampled from the other ovens were a tasty treat and a good taste of life in the campo.

Aside from our Spanish school, our other main source of learning came from living with a Peruvian family. Through Excel, we arranged to stay and eat three meals a day in the home of a local family. We were fortunate to find a place in the Vargas-Pinto household, and they made our stay in Cusco a pleasant and comfortable experience. We spent most of our time with the father Julio Cesar, a cardiologist and patriarch of the clan; the housekeeper Fortunata; and the family’s adopted six-year-old daughter Liliana. Julio Cesar is a jovial man who would always greet us with a smile and would take every opportunity to teach us Spanish over meals or tea. Fortunata was equally as kind and treated us like her own children, even getting sad when it was time for us to leave. We enjoyed three meals a day of her hearty Peruvian cooking which was a safe-to-eat and delicious respite from the gamble that is eating in third-world restaurants. Our favorite Peruvian meal that she served included lomo and pollo saltado – meals of beef or chicken mixed with grilled onions, tomatoes, and French fries – as well as verdura tortillas, which are a medley of vegetables in a thick tortilla of egg and flour. Perhaps the most fun person in the household was Liliana, a spunky character of six with whom we played countless games of rock-paper-scissors and to whom we taught some English words and numbers.

In addition to the family, there were also as many as six other students staying at the house at one time. It was a jam-packed international scene with other students from the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States. We all talked in a combination of English and Spanish to either a) communicate clearly and easily or b) work on our new language, depending on what was most important at the moment. During our time in the home, there were various major sporting events taking place throughout the world in which one or another of us was always interested – the major European soccer championship of Euro 2008, featuring the national teams of both the Netherlands and Germany, a World Cup Soccer qualifying game for the Peruvian national team, the South American club soccer championship called Copa Libertadores, and the NBA Finals featuring my favorite squad the Boston Celtics versus the Los Angeles Lakers. Sports proved to be both a bonding element and a learning opportunity as I learned the ropes of world soccer from Julio Cesar and the European students and, in return, got them up to speed on professional sports at home in the U.S. It was a fun and animated cultural exchange for all of us.

Our language studies and home stay in Cusco each proved to be fruitful and met all of our expectations. In addition, our prolonged stay in one comfortable place provided the much-needed rest, relaxation, and recovery of our health that we sorely needed. There is one last key aspect of our stay in Cusco that I will recap in my next post – our exploration of the amazing Incan sites in and around the city, including famed Maccu Picchu.

PHOTOS

Photo #1 – Cusco’s Plaza de Armas
Photo #2 – An Indigenous Artisan
Photo #3 – “El Horno en El Campo”
Photo #4 – With Julio Cesar, Liliana, and Fortunata
Photo #5 – With our teacher Lyda