A Full House in San Blas

This week, one of my best friends, Susie, arrived and so did Niki´s best friend, Megan. That means at any given time there are at least 7-8 people living in our house and it´s been awesome. Megan is fantastic (she spent some significant time here in Cusco last year so she knows a lot of people) and Susie fits right in, too. She´s suffering some major altitude sickness, though, and I got her on a bus to Machu Picchu this morning with a little hesitation. Fortunately, she´s not hiking the Inca Trail (and the altitude is lower there), so I think she´ll be OK.

This week and next is a big period of transition in the house. Celia, one of our beloved housemates is finished with her 6-month internship and is heading home tomorrow. Jessica, a new friend and fellow Reiki practioner/traveler is taking her space. So last Wednesday all of us in the house made a beautiful veggie lunch of chickpea tacos (you can´t find a single damn canned bean here that doesn´t have carne in it other than chickpeas or lima beans), homemade guacamole, mango salsa and bread pudding. The spread was gorgeous and delicious. We stuffed ourselves stupid (something we do often here).




Celia


The gang

On Thursday mornings, Niki offers a ¨Yoga Hike¨up to the Temple of the Moon and then an hour of amazing yoga in a truly magical place. The hike is about 1/2 hour from our house and quite steep -- especially if you haven´t been exercising much since you got here (ahem, that would be me). I finally went with them on the hike and while it wasn´t easy, the rewarding views and connection with the earth were worth it. We hung out there for a while after yoga and then made our way down to Mercado San Blas (our local market) for fresh juice from our juice lady (I have juice ladies at Mercado San Blas and Mercado San Pedro -- depends on where I am that day).





My friend Alfredo was home last week so we were able to see each other a few times while he was here. Hanging out with him brings back a lot of memories from February when he was my Spanish teacher and we spent most days walking around the city. This time we hung out at my house with my housemates, Inkaria (our favorite little bar that his friend, Lucho, owns) and my new favorite restaurant, thanks to him. He took me there for ceviche on Friday and it was amazing. You can order full plates or half plates (the half plate was HUGE) and it comes with fresh fish, octopus and squid in a lemon juice/onion mixture. You also get a slice of cold sweet potato and a small bowl of dry roasted corn (the kernels are as big as my finger) that you mix with the ceviche. It rocked my world. I can´t wait to go back.

I picked up a bunch of bootleg movies at El Molino last week and started watching them. Humberto bought August Rush, a movie he claims as one of his favorites. I´m now a little skeptical of his taste in movies but I´ll let it slide for now. I also got the first 2 seasons of True Blood and am enthralled. I don´t have a TV (or a fridge, oven and sometimes hot water), but I do have my laptop, so as long as Molino keeps selling movies and TV series for 4 soles each (about $1.25), then I´m good to go.

Speaking of Humberto, he and his friend Wauldir have a small travel agency business (Humberto also works reception at a hotel on the main square) and they are building their Website. It needs work. A lot of it. Especially the English. So, I´m stepping in to make it look good. We´ll see how it goes. We spent 4 hours analyzing it yesterday and I think we made some good progress. I´ll spread the word when it´s ready.


Working hard (on my laptop, of course)