Wow, what a week. It seems like it just flew by. (Well, for Peru time, anyway. There were still plenty of slow moments.) I finished up my teaching in Chucuito with a little fiesta with my class. We ate junk food, we danced, and, to my surprise, they gave me little gifts. It was so sweet because I know they gave me things that belonged to them, like stuffed animals and a necklace that has a chip out of it. I was seriously touched.

On my last day in town, we went to Hilda's house to have lunch. She and her sister made what I like to call "poop potatoes" but is really called guarachi. It is made by making a fire in the ground but with animal dung instead of coal or wood. They let it burn a while so it's really hot and then they bury a bunch of potatoes underneath it and let it cook for a half-hour or so. Then we sat down outside for our little picnic. We had to peel our potatoes by hand which kind of reminded me of how in the south they sit around peeling crawdads and it's so much work for so little meat. They were covered in dirt and poo and there were no napkins so it was inevitable that we ingested some of it since it got all over our hands as we were peeling. We ate them with cheese and they were actually quite tasty. I also got to see the ladies working on the farm in their very old-fashioned manner. They piled up a bunch of grain stalks and them beat the crap out of them with a stick to make the wheat fall off.

Now I'm in Cusco, the gateway to Machu Picchu. My time here has been relatively uneventful, but my trip here was quite an adventure. Let me tell you about it. I left Chucuito early in the morning in order to catch a bus to Cusco. I took a colectivo to Puno, just like normal. But this one, I swear, was trying to transport something illegal. Before we left, these guys put a bunch of plastic containers of some liquid underneath the seats and they put some on the driver's seat and covered them with a blanket that he then sat on. And one guy asked me if I wanted to put a bottle in my bag. Uh, no thanks. Then after we left they seemed nervous until we got to the checkpoint. I think it's some kind of customs (even though it's not on a border) where they search our car and check the driver's license. Obviously they don't do a very good job, because they didn't find anything out of the ordinary in our van. When I got to the bus terminal, I attempted to buy a ticket to Cusco, but every company told me that buses couldn't take the road to Cusco because there was a paro going on (again) that would not let anyone pass. So, feeling defeated and wondering what to do, I walked down the street where I found a minibus whose driver told me they were going to attempt to get to Cusco via a different route. It seemed like my only option, so I hopped aboard. Then a guy came along and wanted to rent the whole bus, so the driver said "sure" and made us get off. That's when I met Karina, a Peruvian chica who was in the same predicament. We walked over to a travel agent, but they weren't open yet. Then a lady came up to us and asked us if we needed a hotel. Karina told her "no, we just want to go to Cusco." And the lady said a bus just left and maybe we could catch it. So she made a call to the driver and told him to stop and we took a taxi and raced to catch up with them. We made it, and thought, "Wow, that was lucky." Since the main road to Cusco was closed, we took a different route, which was actually a dirt road over a mountain pass. Boy, that was fun! We had to stop a few times and all get off because there were these little ditches that the bus couldn't get through (obviously, big tour buses don't normally take that route). All the men helped stack up rocks so the bus's big wheels could get through the ditch without bottoming out. When we made it to the paved road again, we all heaved a sigh of relief because we could breathe again without inhaling mouthfuls of dust. The second half of the journey was not as exciting, but we did stop at a few ruins to look around and we also stopped for a buffet lunch that was included in our tickets. (expensive first-class tickets--I'm glad something extra was included!) I'm glad I met Karina so I had someone to talk to on the looong trip and we also hung out last night while she was waiting for her friend to show up. She's actually from Arequipa, so I'm going to try to hang out with her when I'm visiting her city next week.

That's all I have time for now. I'm going to Machu Picchu on Sunday so I'll probably write about that next time!