Today has been my second to last day of work, and while I've managed to get approximately nothing done, it has been a lovely Tuesday. Mila, the Peru Program Director for ProWorld, arranged for all of the Cusco staff to take a little jaunt to the Sacred Valley today to lunch and relax for a bit with the Urubamba ProWorld staff. This required us to pile into a bus for the 1.5 hour drive, which was both beautiful and entertaining (the latter the result of my teaching Lalo how to play "Hangman"!).
Being in Urubamba was a breath of fresh air, as it's a much smaller city than Cusco, and less polluted by vehicles puffing out black smoke. The ProWorld office there is the first ProWorld office that ever existed, and it's a pretty cool place. Very spacious and lots of places to sit outdoors.
I had thought that our lunch was to be something simple cooked in the office kitchen, but it turned out that we had reserved space at a rather swanky/touristy buffet called La Alhambra. We ate some darned good food, including some really yummy fava beans with a tomato and onion sauce and a banana cream pie that just beat all!
After lunch, we returned to the Urubamba office and enjoyed some nice conversation during which several staff members shared humorous stories from their summers. Eliza presented Laura and me with thank you gifts for our work this summer, and my gift was the BEAUTIFUL purple poncho that I've been watching now for weeks! I probably wouldn't have bought it for myself, so it was a super nice surprise, and I'm excited to wear it!
At night, Laura and I made an impressive effort to eat some pizza with Colleen and Max, and also attempted to make pisco sours for the four of us. This was rather harder to do than I expected, but I think I've gained some valuable experience now, and will be able to make them for my family using the pisco I'm transporting home in my bag. :-) The real obstacle will be making the drink without having Peruvian limes. I think that the US should consider cultivating these fine fruits on our home soil so that we don't have to fly on four airplanes to get to them! I would bring home some seeds and plant them myself, but I'm pretty sure that's grounds for them to arrest me, and I don't want to delay my trip to the Adirondacks!
It is now Wednesday, and I am finishing this blog during my last morning of work here in Peru! Tomorrow and Friday are feriados to celebrate Peru's independence, and I plan on frolicking in and around Cusco before I leave this fine country and return home! Tomorrow, Laura, Brennan, and I are off to Pisac for what will hopefully be our final day of shopping!
And since I've been slacking on pictures lately, here's a beautiful view of the mountains from Ollantaytambo...
Until very soon, amigos!
No comments:
Post a Comment