Nothing much has been going on in the past week, I’ve sent out a couple of resumes. We’ve narrowed down destinations to Montevideo Uruguay, or several cities on the northern coast of Chile: Antofagasta, La Serena or Concepion. Of course there are some cities in Bolivia: La Paz, Cochabamba, or maybe Sucre, but we are focusing more on beaches right now. It’s been slow moving since we don’t have a great internet connection no matter where we go with free wi-fi, and it’s getting the fact that our schedule is so different from regular business hours it’s complicated. I’m guessing that drinking coffee at 1 am isn’t really helping, so this week I’m going to try to start getting into a regular sleeping pattern that doesn’t include waking up half way through the day. The whole household is getting excited about Christmas, especially the candy and sweets aspect! I am definitely missing Kali’s ginger snap cookies right now… we’ve been planning parts to the menu, and Jason’s girlfriend is coming down so we are thinking up things to remember to ask her to bring. Kentucky Gentlemen is on the list because I am going to attempt to make bourbon balls, I’ll keep everyone posted on how terrible they turn out. We have also been making some additions to the tree. Terry’s mum sent a card with some Merry Christmas confetti, and we put most of it on the tree, it adds some really nice reflection and color, and then Terry drew a Santa drinking Pisco for our tree topper, it looks great. I’ve been busy this weekend doing lesson plans because…. Drum roll please… I GOT A JOB! It starts tonight, I’ll be teaching a doctor couple at this nice clinic in Cusco the English that they need to know to deal with tourist patients as well as basic English because they don’t speak at all. It’ll pay about 9 dollars an hour which isn’t bad, but it doesn’t matter, I’m just excited about having a job, getting some more practice, and boosting my resume un poco. It’s strange having to make my own curriculum for these clients, as well as learning more about doctors vocabulary than I’m comfortable with. I’m already kind of nervous about teaching in a manner I am completely not used to, and on top of that having to teach information I have no clue about! I haven’t the foggiest about what doctors have to say to patients, I can’t even remember the last time I went to the doctors! EEK. So, I’ve been looking at charts of organs to help illustrate the vocab because the husband is a surgeon; it’s just gross. Not to mention a pain in the ass to find the information that I want. Why is google search failing me now?! Maybe it will be more advantageous than I think, overall, in the long run. It’ll also be fun to dress up and walk around in business clothes like all the other Peruvians. However I did walk back from the interview in cute flats and got these two wicked blisters on my heels. And then proceeded to make them bleed by going out Saturday night in HighTops, so I am bound to my flip flops for now. I am forever grateful to Onja right now! They have been a lifesaver for me! Unfortunately the pharamacies here don’t have moleskin, so I’m stuck with these cheap looking bandaids. I’m just not going to wear them unless I’ve absolutely GOT to. I've gotta run and finish up my last minute lesson plans for tonight! Procrastination is my best attribute?
hugs, and LOVE!

Festivus for the Rest of us!

So in the spirit of the season, even though it’s about 70 degrees on a regular basis and always raining, we went on a hiking excursion to find a Christmas tree in the woods way up above our apartment in the area called Villa San Blas. It is to the right of Sacsayhuaman and Cristo Blanco if you are standing in the Plaza de Armas. It was a lot of fun and took a good long while. I still am having some trouble breathing, nothing serious I just get short of breathe fast (shocking considering how healthy I was while back home…) so climbing up the developed side of this mountain was not easy for me. Eventually we got to areas without inclines and found this awesome ruin site. First it was a wall that had been revealed, and we followed it around (it’s in a square shape) to the opposite side and climbed on top of the wall and found some really awesome chairs and various right degree angles carved into the rock debris. It was really cool. After hanging out for quite some time exploring and rock jumping we got down, climbed up some more and found ourselves at the back entrance to Q’enqo, which is another ruin site right outside of Sacsayhuaman. However this one you have to pay to enter, and there was some guy in a jacket who looked like he would stop us if we crossed the line any further into the site, so we turned back, found a cool group of small evergreen shrubs and Terry cut off a nice branch for our Christmas tree. On the walk back we went a different way and I started collecting the pretty dead blossoms off of various bushes. Of course Jason and Terry didn’t really understand what pretty dead was and started to crack jokes about the rotting dead cactus, and would I like that, or the fact that some of the stuff I was cutting off wasn’t quite dead yet… needless to say after some good natured harassment reciprocated with sweet smelling branch beatings there was enough of a collection of tree decorations we started home. It was a really nice relaxing Sunday. We had an early-ish dinner, played cards, experimented with coca tea and pisco then watched Life Aquatic. I decorated the tree today while it rained. Unfortunately it wasn’t the same as previous Christmases. The only Christmas music I currently have on my computer includes: Tom Waits song Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis, and the Neko Case cover of this song; The Kinks’ Father Christmas; Run-DMC’s Christmas in Hollis; the They Might Be Giants album HolidayLand; of Montreal’s Christmas isn’t Safe for Animals; John Prine’s Christmas in Prison; Richard Cheese lounge music Christmas covers (e.i. Christmas in Las Vegas) and then lastly the David Sedaris book on tape of Holiday’s on Ice. But no need to worry! I am currently downloading several different Christmas compilations, as well as the Charlie Brown Christmas album and that Disney Christmas album from the 80s that has been in the Conover household since the dawn of it’s creation (it being either the cd or the household, both work).

So, here is the rundown of what is currently decorating the Asnoqch'utun Alley gringo apartment Christmas tree of 2009: (3) beaded bracelets collected from various Cusco markets; (3) full pairs of earrings: large purple circles, ohm symbols, and cheap silver plated club danglies; (1) Saint Christopher keyring; (1) Buddha earring; (1) broken earring of the red and black seed for good luck from Peru persuasion (the name of which I’ve never been able to understand when told by merchants); (4) strands of blue-turquoise dyed wool; (1) bunch of dying orange flowers; (many) clusters of two different types of dead blooms. This tree is also being held up in and ingenious tree stand compromising of: (1) plant potter currently being occupied by some pretty plant with pink blooms and some grass and (2) several beer bottles with left over dead bloom branches to camouflage.

Unfortunately i can't upload to this website right now, but the pics are all on facebook, so look up that album! LOVE!

xoxo.

back in action.

Having spent a whole two months state-side I’m now back in Cusco! So far the weather has been sun, rain, wind, sun, rain, rain, night. It’s some great thunder storms, but otherwise a bit of a drag. Anyway, after a couple of days I’m back to the old habits of living in a third world country. It’s amazing how you can forget to flush TP, but you don’t forget to not flush it. All of the random food I brought has been much appreciated, Cheese toast is now a part of our daily diets in the apartment! I even rolled some sushi for dinner a few nights ago! It was very yummy (I thought). Then of course the junk food is also being devoured! Oatmeal pies are almost gone, the gallon jug of goldfish has been demolished and I think the slim jims disappeared the second I took them out of my suitcase… I swear this stuff is even better in a place it’s not readily available, and probably healthier for you too… Our days have been very relaxing, pretty much the same routine I had back in VA: staying up late watching movies, waking up in the afternoon, however I’ve been busting my behind to get my resume prefect and look up places to live/work. So far it’s narrowed down to anywhere except: Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil. If there are any suggestions, please feel free to share! Otherwise there isn’t much to speak of. The flight here was pretty uneventful. Mom and I drove to D.C. in the middle of the night, I caught my lay over in Panama City, the two flights from D.C. to Lima had more little kids on them than I think I’ve seen on the total of other flights I’ve been on. The first flight had this really cute little kid and his mom sitting next to me, and I was in the window seat. Each time they were asleep the mom would fall into my seat, as would the kid, so I was up against the window trying to give them enough space, but they were really nice, and anything to keep that little 2 year old from screaming was fine by me! When I got to Lima I found my flight to Cusco was 6 am, not pm, so that was fun. But thanks to Grandma Linda I knew of a great little hostel to stay in, and they even gave me a ride the next morning at 3:30 AM to catch my flight. I made it safely to Cusco, and Terry was waiting for me at the airport. And the rest has been nothing but relaxing. Right now we're watching futbol in a pub of sorts, with free wi fi. I'm not sure why we haven't been doing this earlier. Anyway, I'm off! The food just showed up! LOVE!

xoxo.

No more excuses.

Here is the Astronaut at the Nazca Lines, and possibly my next tattoo, which I am thinking about putting somewhere on my scalp....always scheming....
Two crazy girls jamming out in a tiny aircraft. Oh my how we rock it.
The Nazca take on the Tree of Life. I also really like this....hmmm.
This is the oasis of Huacachina, there was some serious paddleboating taking place in this little watering hole. It was quite awesome.
The end of an awesome day. 
So here is the sand angel that I made, VA's is right next to it. We had a whirl wind bus tour of the Southern Coast of Peru, including Nazca, Ica, Huacachina, and then Arequipa. However there was a huge protest going on because of a lot of terrible things happening to people living in the jungle right now because of bad policies and practices of the President of Peru, Alan Garcia, so we were on the bus a lot trying to get back to Cusco and it rendered my three travel companions and myself very sick. We have been coughing for quite a while now and even though it's a hilarious broken record at night, we are all ready to be on the mend. So, back to the pics...This sand angel was left in Huacachina, were we went paddleboating, dunebuggying, and sandboarding. It was such an amazing and fantastic day. Almost worth the flu.
The missing party of our caravan took this pic, but she only managed to capture VA airborne. Drats.  From Left to Right: VA, me, Meagan (my good friend from ASU who came down)
This is in the Arequipa Plaza de Armas, and this is VA and Shannon (my friend from Cusco) rocking out with the pigeons. We suspect they could be the culprits of our sickness. However we TOTALLY cleaned up and de-pigeoned right after we finished feeding...
CHECK OUT THE MOHAWK! I went all the way this time...
Christmas greeting card 2009.

VA and I have had an interesting time together in Cusco. We started off traveling and where stopping in a different town each day, traveling by bus at night to the next stop. We got caught in Arequipa because of protests going on blocking Sucwani and Juliaca (I think I spelled those cities correctly) so we had to back to Nazca and then to Cusco, so there was a period where we were on a bus for 27 hours. It was terrible. After that we all developed a nasty cough and lost all our energy. There were four girls in one apartment completely incapacitated and bedridden. However it was pretty funny to hear the rounds of coughs we would have in the middle of the night. It was like the yawn effect. Once one started you could hear coughs for the next ten or so minutes. Eventually everyone regained enough energy to be able to take short outings around Cusco and fit in some tourist shit. VA and I went to Machupicchu on Tuesday and then these Hot Springs in Santa Teresa, they were very nice and warm after a cold day on the mountain, it was so nice. Machupicchu was beautiful but VERY cold, it was drizzly and foggy, which complements the stone of the ruins so well, it was exquisite. We then walked along the train tracks, hitched a cab ride in the middle of nowhere, and spent a very long time relaxing in these hot springs pools. It was a wonderful and much needed end to the day.  

Arequipaness Round 2

So I know these are really late, but thanks to a huge lack of computer knowledge, I wasn't able to access these photos for quite some time... But now, here they are. The weekend in Arequipa was pretty awesome, and I have been polite enough to exclude the incredible meat department in the Mercado that we went to, but if you feel you have the stomach, let me know, I can send them your way.  Anyway, the fruit section is PG, and wicked, so there's that. It's also a huge bummer that none of these pictures were rotated. I'm not sure why, once again my lack of computer competence steps up. Just tilt your head.  This honkin' plate of food was quite delicious, unfortunately I could only finish two thirds of it. It was two thirds of something closely resembling Patti food, though, which I did not think was possible here! So tasty!
These are the two people I went to Arequipa with, and three Peruvians were nice enough to capture this moment on film.
This is what happens on the nice buses in Peru. At least the smell wasn't bad, but Greyhound has nuthin' on this shit. In addition, at one stop I was woken up to a woman yelling something with a meat cleaver the size of Jay Leno's face hacking away at some enormous cooked leg meat and I thought I was having a nightmare.  I was not conscious enough to ask for a serving before she disembarked the bus, but I heard from others that the meat was quite tasty, and it did smell good.

Mannequien?

So this is what litters the streets of commercial Cusco. Aren't you disgusted about what you are missing out on?  LOVE IT! And I just noticed too there is a little bit of XYZ going on, too.  Fabulous!  

Unfortunately there isn't much new going on, another TEFL party has come and gone, this one a little bit more of a show stopper than the last one.  I sported a llama fur hat like something straight out of Siberia, and sunglasses to boot.  Unfortunately I did not capture this on my own camera, and once I find a picture worthy of this blog, I will try to post it on here. It was quite a fun night, as was the entire weekend.  I tried to hike up into the community above me, Villa San Blas to check out this Temple of the Moon cave labyrinth, however I didn't really know where I was going and got seriously lost, and decided to walk back down so next time I will bring a map or a knowledgeable guide for assistance.  

This is the last week for classes this month, so there is a lot of review and fun games, candy, and then of course, being the holy day that it is, Friday is going to be fan-tas-tic. We are throwing a Iowa Legalized Gay Marriage Party which should be pretty intense, it's costume based, and so far the other teachers I've talked to are really getting into it.  We'll see what really happens, as I will be sure to post all appropriate pictures.  Enough procrastination, I have to get ready for my next class. only three more to go today!  CHAO!

Raise your skinny fists like antennae into heaven (when you hear the siren)

This is the backside of the awesome Senor de Temblores. He is a black saint who, while helping clean the wreckage from the 1950 Earthquake, somehow stopped some of the aftermath tremors. Or something like that.  There were so many people in the Plaza for this parade of the humongous Saint to be carried along the street by a bunch of men, one of which I found out is in my Intermediate 1-2 class at night. Six degrees everybody!  That's hot shit... So anyway, it took an hour for the Saint to move one city block, and then he started heading up into San Blas... We decided to try to duck out, HA!  That was incredible trying to move past people who weren't willing to shift to the side simply because.  It was awesome. And then we met up with some TEFLers, and luckily they were hulks, so we latched onto that band wagon and just mauled the crowd over, including little kids that couldn't stand up in time... muahahahah! 

Suddenly, mere steps from freedom (we were so close we could feel the air and got cold again) these sirens went off and everyone raised their right hand up toward the cathedral, and that was the end of that. Cold and stuck I had an awesome time making faces at the adorable kids resting their heads on their parents shoulders. We finally got free and it was so much fun walking away watching the mass exodus of people, talk about a wave!  

CUY!

So these pictures uploaded backward...Here is my attempt at a Seinfeld episode!

Above is the empty plate of cuy bones and a recoto relleno that I couldn't handle two bites off.  I am a disgrace to the Alves side, I know.  My deepest apologies! 

Below is me biting into one of the first tasty morsels that make up a cuy.  It is choice meat.

Aren't the adorable?!
This is when we were hot on the trail!  By the time they started dumping the cuy fur in the street I knew we were getting close!

Below, the first scent we caught. This only egged on the hunt!

Ollantaytambo!

These are ruins, up close. Interesting that these are the ruins of homes.  Some of the rooms didn't have doors.... 
A CAVE!  We couldn't get very far inside, which was good, because I was starting to get freaked out at this point... Couldn't blow my cool, but I did climb out fast as possible.
Me and my roommate, Amanda. We were the slow pokes of the group for real!
Here is the market and Ruins you pay for.
These are the ruins we scaled a mountain to check out.  It was an awesome hike and a chill moment on the side of a mountain. One of the people in our group brought his Ipod, so we enjoyed a soundtrack with our meditative moment.
Here are the ruinas gratis!  (Free Ruins) of Ollantaytambo.  These were houses for Inca. Below is the Plaza of Ollantaytambo.
I am Queen of the Andes!  Recognize.
The entire time we were here, the clouds were on the mountains, it was so beautiful.  And this is a lower elevation than Cusco.  Ollantaytambo is en route to Machupicchu. There were always bus tours stopping in the Plaza with tourists going to the Ruins you pay for, I'm sure they were on their way to the Mac daddy of Inca awesomeness ruin-style.
This tiny van is called a combi. About 15 people will get crammed into this bad boy without shocks, it's madness!  This particular combi had it's tranny drop on our way out of Ollantaytambo, so we had a second to run and and catch this other bus, it was so fabulously Peruvian. 

International Travel 101...

Since I haven't been putting the ¨party pictures¨ up, I thought this particular party would be a good start. Two of the teachers at Maximo finished their contracts in March, so they threw a going away party at one of the Spanish teacher's restuarants in San Blas. It was themed: Dress as a Crazy Peruvian! So I went out and got this fabulous neon blue skirt with sky blue embroidery, and I'm slightly pissed it did not make it into any of the photos, but don't worry. When I show up in the states I WILL be wearing that bad boy on the regular. So, anyway, with that skirt, bombass tights (from the God of department stores) and that awesome strand of dyed llama fur, I represented.
Above: My friend Shannon, who volunteers for Maximo; and Owen, the tutor for Maximo.
Below: Shannon again, and Gabe, who was my TEFL training roomate and current coworker, and Montse, a fellow Maximo teacher.

Above: Nilten, Montse's boyfriend and my tandem partner (we practice Spanish and English together) Vaila, one of the teacher's leaving, Sally, a fellow teacher, and Amanda, a roomate and fellow teacher. I have no clue who that guy who's sticking his head into the photo is, and am curious as to why he is in the picture....

Below: Owen and I did a trade off, that mask was wicked hot. His sister who was visiting is wearing a llama fur hat that I totally want!

I just really like this picture.

Wandrin' Round

This is the Catedral outside of the San Pedro Market, which has become one of my most favorite places... I just haven't taken pictures inside yet...Don't worry, there is plenty of time for images causing you to become vegetarian! EEK!


The picture above is the alley that my apartment is on. All of the streets are so narrow around here. The street leading to this alley does not have sidewalks.  Below is the street my school is on at 6:30 AM.  Avenida el Sol is normally packed. But it's awesome walking into work when there is no one else around.  It's madness trying to maneuver around Peruvians while walking on the sidewalks, so I take this time to enjoy the little things...

Here are just some pictures taken while walking around Cusco.

Stick that in your beltstrap.

So! Starting off the third week, and I might (shockingly) know enough vocabulary and grammar to be able to teach English to second language learners! Go Heather!!! whoot whoot. But really, my classes have improved greatly since the first week, so if this scale continues exponentially, then by the end of the third month I will be super teacher and have a great relationship with my students. We´ll see if the Inca idea for tomb building and the after life can translate into my job in the here and now. Maximo could be seen by some as a tomb, so it is possible, sí? Funny side-note: I just realized the key I had been using as an apostrophe is IN FACT an accent symbol. The apostrophe is somewhere completely different on the keyboard. One more for technology; God only knows what the score is at now, technology something astromonical, Heather 0... Moving along now. Of course there are enough factors keeping my classes like a roller coaster, it will be good or bad, but never constant. Maybe next month I can be the substitute, that is a lot of fun, just coming into classes and having a good time without having to be planning lame lessons. Granted you don't really build up the rapport with students, but anyway.

(This was Monday) Today marks my first pay day! It's awesome! Granted I'm not sure what my check will be since I hit up the snack bar at least once a day, and my spanish classes are deducted. However I did teach something like 7 extra hours this week. It should equal out...ehhhh.

Saving money is not possible at this altitude, I'm convinced.

I made lentil concoction last night (Sunday)! It was awesome! The spice section at the San Pedro Market was so incredible, I loaded up on cumin, black pepper kerns, fresh ginger, and I threw a little bit of all that into a pot of lentils, carrots, onions, sweet potatoes, and it looked and smelled awesome until the sketch cooking supplies at my disposal started malfunctioning... The pot was way too small for my endeavor, and so things started boiling over and then burning... But it was cooked enough to have a small portion microwaved and eaten. awesome. Nothing comprable to Angus' soups, which I would kill for right now, but it was something that left me nostalgic for home. I wonder how fast the next six months will go by, not that I want them to end anytime soon, but there's such a confusion of time here, I'm not sure how that will take a toll on my mental spirits. I have noticed that the only days to drag by are Mondays and Tuesdays. So if that's only two days a week, for however many weeks are in the six months I shall be working for Maximo.... do the math ... it's not that bad! Whoo hoo.

Bury me here.

Above is the main Inca tomb at the Sullistani ruins site. Below are the ruins from the Colla period.  There were about five different styles of tomb construction here, but two varieties were tombs buried in the ground, so we didn't see those (they were also several miles away) and then there were the Colla, some other group that started with a T that I couldn't pronounce, and last were the Inca.  
Here is a close up of what the outside of the Inca tomb looks like.  There was a lizard etched on the side, the stone that is directly above and to the right of the stone with burn marks on it.  It's a dark stone inbetween two paler stones.  The lizard has the same representation as the snake, they are the underworld animals in Inca beliefs. 

These stones were part of one of the tombs, and they littered the landscape, it was pretty cool. Unfortunately for the kid in me it was not acceptable to climb around on them and act like an explorer or a monkey.  Phooey.

That's supposed to be a skull, it looked very badass next to the huge Inca tomb. Below is the inside of the tomb, The diameter is larger on top than at the bottom, that's because the Incas believed the spirit ascended into heaven, and if you extend the top so it keeps getting wider as it rises, there is a lot of heaven available for the spirit to be a part of.  The previous tomb constructions were the same diameter at the top and bottom, so the deceased was limited to the amount of heaven they experienced in the afterlife.

This island is a national park.
On the way back into Puno we stopped at this home, they had a different building for each "room" and there was a large compound where they had a guinea pig area, and out back there were pigs and more llamas.  Below is the traditional diet, there were two different types of dehydrated potatoes, one kind was just dried and the other they dried after soaking in the river for a long time period.  Apparently if you boil the potatoes for a while they return to whatever consistency they were originally.  There was also this type of clay they used as a flavor, it was really salty, and is added to boiled potatoes for some kick.  It kinda tasted like dirt, but was a soupy texture. They also had some cheese, but that went fast.  It was fun getting a chance to experience what a lifestyle in the middle of nowhere, Peru involves.  The beds were a stone frame with a few reed mats and blankets.  It looked rough.  The kitchen was a nicer area than I've seen in some other places; there was an outdoor oven and then an indoor area for when the weather is bad. This family had really nice pottery, I think the wife made most of it. Overall this compound was more developed than a lot of the ones we passed going to and from Sullistani.