My New Home…..
As I
walked out of the airport, I was greeted with tons of people calling for loved
ones that have returned home from other travels. I, on the other hand was being welcomed by a
stranger whom I only communicated with through Facebook and only seen pictures.
My assistant manager is tall with brown hair and from England. I figured how difficult will it be to pick out
a tall, brown hair, white English guy in the middle of a crowd of
Peruvians. Most of the Peruvians there
were about my height, and I am only about 5’ 4”, so of course he should stick
out, right? Wrong, I probably looked
around for about 15 minutes till I spotted a tall white man with brown hair
looking right at me. Bingo, this must be
him. We introduced ourselves and started
making our way to find a cab.
*Here is a little
tip for anyone who’s traveling to Cusco.
Hail a taxi outside of the airport parking lot not one within. The taxis within the airport charge an
additional fee just for leaving the airport parking lot.
My
new home was in the San Blas neighborhood located higher up the mountain from
the center of Cusco and is considered a pedestrian neighborhood. There is a certain point where the roads stop
and turn into sidewalks. We were dropped
off in the center and had to make our climb up, I swear, a hundred stairs or
more just to get to my house. (This is
where the backpack would have been a better choice over a suitcase.) We made it
to the top of the stairs, but we weren’t done with the stairs just yet. After being let in to the house, I find my
room was on the top floor. The view,
however, made all that climbing worth it.
My adventurous side smiled as if to say “I told you it would be worth it, and this is just the first day. It can only get better.”
The House…
The Blue House was
made up of four open levels with 7 bedrooms, two public bathrooms, one public
shower, a kitchen, a TV room, and a dining room. Now about three of those bedrooms had private
bathrooms with a shower, mine was one of those.
Sounds pretty sweet right? Until
I found out that my bathroom was out of order and remained out of order during my
whole stay. Oh well, I still had a great
view, a decent size bedroom and breakfast provided every morning.
Figuring
out the shower schedule wasn’t as difficult as it would seem. We all had different work schedules and
different times of the day we showered.
You weren’t always guaranteed a hot shower but at least you were able to
shower. There was a trick to finding out
if it was going to be hot or cold. After
turning the shower on run back outside to the water heater. If there was a flame it was going to be warm
if there was no flame than it was cold. Other
than the conditions of the water temperature some of the perks of the house
were the two balconies with sitting areas and free Wi-Fi throughout the
house. The balcony quickly became my
favorite spot to sit and read or just sit to look over the beautiful city.
South American Explorers…
SAE
was down the hill from my house, which meant I had to walk up and down those monstrous
stairs every day. SAE was easy to miss
considering the wall separating SAE from the street didn’t bare any signs that
said “South American Explorers” other than a fly hanging on the wooden door. The only indication was the butterflies that
were painted on the wall leading to this door.
The SAE logo contains a butterfly with South American on the left wing
and a pattern on the right wing.
Then
after using the intercom to request entrance, you walk in to see a beautiful
garden on the left side and apartments on the right. Passed the apartments was the little
courtyard with chairs circled around a fire pit, a shaded sitting area, and a
grill made out of bricks. The clubhouse
is one the second floor. Inside to the
right there are books of all kinds, DVDs to rent, couches, maps, a couple
computers, and a small kitchen. To the left is for employees only, this is
where I spent most of my days. My
position with SAE was Social Event and Marketing Coordinator. My duties were to plan weekly events, create
the flyers, and post the flyers around Cusco.
Events consisted of, weekly Pub Quizzes, a charity Pub Crawl,
documentary showings, BBQs, holiday celebrations, bonfires, and grill outs for
soccer games. There were other miscellaneous
duties I did but there is no need to discuss the details.
My New City…
The
first couple weeks I walked around posting flyers I was a little nervous about getting
lost in all the alleys and streets of Cusco.
But eventually I came to know the streets and short cuts through town as
if I were home in St. Cloud. The clearer
Cusco got the more blurry St. Cloud became. Then parts of home started disappearing from
my mind, as though to make room for the cities and places in Peru I would soon
visit. I felt like a local all of a
sudden, like I had been there most of my life instead of just a month. People selling things on the streets I walked
every day had stopped trying to sell jewelry, paintings, or postcards to me. Even children carrying goats or walking
llamas stopped asking if I would like a picture with them. I had met so many people from all over the
world and experienced so much in only a month’s time. I smiled to myself thinking that my
adventurous side was only half right.
Yes this was going to be a long walk but it was not a lonely one.
Thank you for reading!! Next week: Festivals, Music,
and Colors.. Oh my! Happy Travels!!
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