Duke in the House!

Well, folks, Duke University is officially in Cusco! On Thursday, 20 Duke students arrived in Cusco on three different flights, which, for me, meant a splendid morning hanging out at the Cusco Airport. I'm not even being sarcastic when I say that the morning was "splendid." Cusco doesn't allow people to enter the airport unless they're boarding or disembarking from a flight, so I got to sit in the sunshine and read my book in between collecting groups of students. Luckily, Laura also helped with the pickup process, as one flight brought a whopping 15 students all at once!

Now that Duke is here, things have been rather busy. We've had several orientation sessions, three group meals, and a trolley tour of the city. Things went smoothly for the most part, and one of our meals, at a place called Victor Victoria, was THE best meal I've had in Cusco. Seriously delectable. It was a three course menu, beginning with a bowl of sopa de semolina (basically chicken broth with semolina in it and little pieces of french fries on top), followed by some reeeally great arroz con pollo, and then a dessert of vanilla custard, which I gave to the guy next to me after one spoonful because it was texturally unappealing. For those who judge my pickiness, please note that I did taste before rejecting!

While on the trolley tour, I sat next to a guy named David, and in our short conversation about our families and hometowns and such, we realized that I happen to know David's mother because she and I worked together a little bit at Bryn Mawr College! Small world, eh? I obviously plan on ensuring David's good behavior by threatening to call his mother, but really, he's super nice and responsible, so it's pretty much an empty threat. While I haven't had the opportunity to really get to know all 20 students yet, I've met a few that I really like, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to form some lovely friendships since they'll be here for almost two months. I'm feeling the urge to have a dinner party while Laura and I still live in our spacious apartment! Yesterday, the students were collected by their homestay families. 10 students will remain here in Cusco, and the other 10 will be 45 minutes away in Urubamba. Laura will be working more closely with them than me as far as project completion goes, but I'm excited to partake in some of their social activities!

By the time Friday evening rolled around, I was exhausted from all of the activities and running around relevant to getting the Duke students settled. For that reason, I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in this morning until about 9 AM. Take THAT, Mom! (For those of you who do not know this, my parents raised my siblings and me in a household in which sleeping in was rarely permitted. In order to keep us from sleeping in, my mom has been known to unload the dishwasher at 8 AM on Saturday mornings, which she claims is unintentional...psssh.) Anyway, after my lazy morning, I decided to get out and enjoy the beautiful day. In an effort to avoid developing a big ol' potato belly, I've been trying to find ways to incorporate additional fitness into my life here in Cusco. With that in mind, I decided to hike myself up to Sacsayhuaman, an Incan ruin located at one of the highest points in the city of Cusco. Before beginning that adventure, I stopped at a very adorable little bakery on the Plaza de Regocijo. I'd been eyeing the place for a while, and I decided to go in and enjoy a nice vegetable omelette and some hot chocolate (which I ended up not drinking in its entirety because it wasn't the European-style melted chocolate bar stuff that I was craving). As I enjoyed my leisurely breakfast, I managed to finish my latest book, The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. Rather enjoyable, but not as good as The Samurai's Garden. My next read is The Life You Can Save, by Peter Singer, which I'll probably read simultaneously with something else that requires slightly less pondering...my version of a "beach read," you might say. The daytime weather here is just about perfect for sitting and reading books in various plazas, and I have to keep myself from reading for so long that I forget to walk around and explore more of the city!

After breakfast, I made my way to the foot of the road that leads to Sacsayhuaman. (And yes, it is indeed pronounced much like "sexy woman"--amusing, no?) The road to the ruin is actually not so much a road as a series of steps that climb rather steeply uphill. I definitely felt the altitude as I climbed, and I wasn't able to make it up very many steps before I'd have to stop and take a break. When I made it to the top of the "road," I discovered another set of steps that would take me to the actual site of the ruins. As I began the rather long ascent, I was joined by a young Peruvian guy, who struck up a conversation. At first, I thought he was another climber like myself, but it turned out that he was a trained guide, and wanted to see if I'd be interested in riding a horse up along a trail that would allow me to see several Incan sites and some beautiful mountain views. When he told me it would cost me 80 soles, I declined, but he then offered me a better price of 50 soles for a 1.5 hour ride, or 30 soles for a 40 minute ride. Eventually, I agreed to pay 40 soles for the 1.5 hour ride, which I thought was pretty decent (about $15) until I spoke with two English speakers on my way back down to Cusco who told me that they had just paid 20 soles each for the same thing! Foiled again. I'm a sucker. Despite this disappointing discovery, the ride on the horse was pretty beautiful, although I felt slightly weird to be doing it all by myself (with the exception of the 17-ish Peruvian boy who walked with me and kept the horse from dong anything wacky). The ride through the hills truly was beautiful, and the mountain views absolutely stunning. When we first began, I thought my horse (whom I've secretly named Percy) was going to fall on the rocky uphill paths we were following, but he clearly had experience carting other tourists along the same trail, so I pretty quickly felt confident that he wouldn't be the cause of my death.



After my guided tour was over, I hiked back down into Cusco and took a walk to the Mercado San Pedro. I restocked my fruit supply, buying some mangoes and oranges, and also bought some Peruvian chocolate, a little bag of almonds, and some wheat bread. I'm so tempted to buy tons of vegetables every time I go to the market, but I had to control myself today because this week, I'll be receiving nearly all of my meals from one of the homestay mothers who's been hired to cook for the student volunteers from The College of St. Scholastica. Nothing like a week of free food! (I just hope it doesn't involve much cheese...)

Here's a picture of a small section of the San Pedro Market by the way. Pretty ridonkulous.



Since I was tired and the sky looked rather ominous, I opted to take a cab back to my apartment, and after a little yoga routine, I got myself showered and clean and put in a load of laundry and sat myself down on the very couch where I am now typing this entry. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to go to church either at the Cusco Cathedral or at a church that I visited briefly today, called Santa Teresa, named after Saint Terese of Lisieux. Afterwards, I'm thinking of perhaps visiting a museum and then enjoying a peaceful afternoon in one of the plazas downtown. In the last few days, I've been thinking a lot about loneliness, mainly because I've been trying to figure myself out and determine whether or not I feel lonely here. Sometimes, I think to myself, "How nice it would be to have a companion to do 'x' with," but the feeling tends to be short-lived, and then I really appreciate the time that I'm able to spend in solitude. While I don't know exactly what these sentiments say about me, I do think that they're indicative of the likely frustration I would feel if I had a husband who wanted to spend every waking moment together. (aka if you're an eligible bachelor and you're reading this and you want to spend every minute with your significant other, I must sadly inform you that we cannot marry... :-)

Anyway, I bring up the subject of loneliness because it's caused me to ruminate a bit on one of my favorite poems, William Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey." I am going to post if for any interested paies in an entry directly following this one. For those of you who are generally averse to poetry, I would still suggest reading this particular work. Its implications are quite beautiful. Having read the poem by myself while standing just above Tintern Abbey (which is in Wales), the words have developed an even greater significance, and often come to mind when I encounter a beautiful sight while traveling solo.

In other super exciting news, Paul and Eileen Whitman have officially booked themselves tickets to CUSCO!!! They'll be here at the end of June, and while that's still a decent ways away, I'm already oh so excited to have them here! Does this inspire any of you other readers to come and visit? I again invite you all with open arms, and promise to spend whatever free time I have introducing you to the joys and quirks of Cusco!

Hasta pronto, amigos!