Making Mud Pies

Hey,

It´s been a LONG and BUSY week since I last wrote. I came down with the ¨Cusco Cold¨ around the time of my last journal entry, and since then have pretty much been either MIA from the interweb in general, or too tired and crooked from blowing my nose and coughing up parts of lung to do much writing lol. Daniel was nice enough to write a bit ago... but lots has happened since then so I´ll do my best to keep this as brief (but as vibrant) as possible:

Last friday was our last day at the orphanage. We spent a lot of it playing hopscotch or running around or with soccer balls.... whatever we could find... but later in the day, Freddie (child prodigy) myself and Daniel all got together in where the piano is and had a jam session. His favorite songs were RHCP By The Way and One republic´s Apologize so I brought my iPod and made a mini playlist with those (among other coldplay songs) so we could all sing and have a time. My voice has been on and off since the flu started, so I sounded mostly like a happy walrus or something... but it was great fun until we told freddie that it was our last day.

I´m not a huge fan of sadness or crying.... especially when its in that type of situation... so it ended up being a rough Goodbye... I was kind of upset about it after we left so Daniel and I went to normans for wine and fries to cheer me up. Hopefully, freddie will be happy with the new volunteers. I hear that one of the volunteers (the one that introduced him to the piano, I believe) has been fund raising to build a scholarship for him so that he can go to music school. So i guess.... never think that being only One person isn´t enough to make a difference.

Ít´s always hard to say goodbye though. . .

ANYWAY....

Sautrday morning we headed out on our two day excursion to Machu Picchu which ended up being the most awe inspiring, beautiful.... i don´t have enough adjectives.... place in the world. I got to ride a train for the first time ever (that I know of.... Trinity Loop doesn´t count haha) and we stayed in a hostel in the town Aguas Calientes. the hostel was SICk cuz it had THE SIMPSONS in ENGLISH on a TELEVISION .... aaannnd we had THREE beds in the room to ourselves as well as a private bathroom. Of course... we didn´t really use much of our amnemities(sp) because we had to get up at 3:30am to boot it out into the unknown to find the bus stop that would take us to Machu Picchu.

Turns out that even thouh the first bus leaves at 5:30, you need to be lined up before 4:30 or you´ll be too far back in the line to make the first round of buses and in turn end up missing the sunrise. Luckily there was  a third bus in the 1st series so we JUST made it!

Watching the sun rise in one of the biggest Wonders of the World through a metropolis of mountains while sitting amidsts thousands and thousands of steps carved by hand hundreds of years ago for pretty much unknown reasons.... I can´t explain to you how perfect that sun looked when it started sprouting the first few rays of light into the haze and a few minutes later its whole brilliance overtook everything .... everything was a golden color... It was perfect.

and then it got HOT (as balls) and after around 3 1/2 hrs of hiking on no sleep and no food (well... one bun for me and two buns for daniel that we rogued from the ¨breakfast¨at the hostel... breakfast being buns and jam . Daniel thinks she was going to cook us eggs. I was too tired to care. hahaha) we decided to Cheese it outta there onto the bus to take us down.... Careening down over the mountainside with reckless abandon, no guardrails and nothing but faith in dear Jesus to get us down in one piece.

There was a lot of religion found on that trip lol

BUT .... by the time we got back to Aguas Calientes it was like 11:30am.... so CLEARLY that was a good time to start bar hopping.

Later that day we caught a train that took four thousand years to get back to a place called Poroy (sp)..... actually it was about 4 1/2 hrs of train riding nonstop.... to course us through a Raging 92km.

.... yes. Ninety Two Kilometers.

I´m pretty sure I saw a sloth pass by us... and we all know how speedy those little buggers can be! (ba dum dum psssh).

Anyway Daniel fell asleep on the train like halfway through, leaving me to my own devices. My devices turned out to be me using the table in front of us, the window to my side, two cameras and my ipod as an imitation drum set and air-piano.... so for like an hour i was WAILING on this table like Beethoven or something havin a TIME and a half while the creepy non-english dude to my side stared incredulously at my complete insanity.

Then I decided to start taking pictures of myself throuhg my reflection in the window.... so here i was making all kinds of weird ole faces at myself with this camera perpetually flashing and me laughing away like a maniac...

I am pretty much the coolest person I know. ha.

THEN the guy that runs the tours picked us up in his family van (family included!)  from Poroy and drove us the hour or so back to Cusco.... Only we had a road block half way through ....

...only the road block consisted of what looked like Cirque du Soleil on some kind of strike as expressed through Interpretive Dance.... There was tubas and drums and glocks everywhere... sequins and people dressed like Can Can dancers, clowns... I think I saw a dragon at one point.... Rannnndom!

And see.... okay.... you really need to BE in Cusco to understand this... but the roads are like... seven feet wide and between massive buildings made of concrete and adobe.... the roads are cobblestone and from what I can gather the only Road Rules that exist are ¨honk the horn all the time for no reason and every reason possible¨HONK PEDESTRIAAN HONK IM ON A ROAD HONK I LOVE TRAINS .... etc.

Anyway.... the van that picked us up was, much like the Machu Picchu bus, CAREENING around town in the middle of the night as if the Feds were on our tails.... and what happened!?!?!?!?

We ran into a ... building!

So all you hear is this RA RUMP CHQQQDHHHHSHHHH BANG!!!! and I was SURE we lost the full tire into the wall or the curb or something.

.... but do you think that slowed us down???? F no! HONK HONK I HIT A BUILDING HONK BEEP BEEP THERES A UNIVERSITY HONK HONK DOG HONK.... excellent.


TODAY we had our first day on the construction site in the middle of no where... actually no.... where we live is basically the middle of no where... the site is kind of like the ¨¨out around the bay¨of the ghetto in that it has less of what little is here.... meaning its pretty much just dirt and some random buildings that MAY be houses .... not sure....

On the way to catch the Combi (like a minivan but with like... seventy two people rammed into it and probbably built in the 60s)... WHO HAPPENED TO BE AT THE BUS STOP ON THE WAY BACK!!!!

The Circus striker folk!!!

Great to see you again you random glittery people with your stilts and your drums !! whee!!!

.... We made concrete out of dirt and rocks and some concrete powder on the floor-to-be with shovels and water.... its all manual labor all the time hardcoreness here! but it´s awesome! reminds me very much of Making Mud Pies in grade 1!!!!  Tomorrow we´re plastering and I think us and the construction crew (80% of which are Canadian btw) are going out for Pisco Sours (the national drink... which has raw egg white in it... I haven´t had it yet because I don´t want worms or salmonella But hey.... when in rome!).

...Okay os this seems long enough. There´s UBER more to write about but seriously, I can´t expect anyone to read my ramblings when they trail on longer than what a short novel would be.

So, I guess in short, the main premise of this story is.... Daniel and I really miss the food at home.... and we can´t wait to show you our pictures!!!!!! YAYyAyyaYaYyYyy!!!!!!!

xoxoxo,

-A.


PS: I LOVE MY MOMMABEAR!!!!!!!!!!!  :-D