Peru

On the real city tour of Cusco today, I had my first sip of real chicha. Most places in Peru serve chicha morada, which looks (and kinda tastes) like grape juice, and which has little or no alcohol content. Real chicha, on the other hand, can only be found in chicherias, and is much stronger in alcohol content. Tastes pretty good, and at the dodgy chicherias in the slums, it's only s/0.30 for a big cup's worth. But you don't want to drink too much of it, or you'll end up like the alcoholics that hang around there all day long.

If you don't have your own private transportation (e.g. car, bicycle), there are basically three ways to get around in Cusco: taxi; combi (minibus); or on foot (in order from most to least expensive). Being the parsimonious and aware-of-the-long-road-ahead traveller that I am, I prefer to take the final option whenever possble. I like the concept and the good value of the second option as well. However, local economics, local culture, and occasional lack of time mean that I've taken taxis in Cusco far more often than I would normally.

This afternoon, Juan Carlos took a gang of us Amigos students on what he calls a "real city tour" of Cusco. The sites on the tour are all various places where the poorer, less advantaged people of Cusco live, work, and study. Definitely not your average city tour. And after completing it, it became inescapably obvious to me that the tourist-infested city centre — the only area I really knew, up until now — is definitely not the real Cusco.

Juan Carlos is a young guy who really has a right to be proud of himself. He's the "director of activities" — basically the second-in-command — at Amigos. He was one of the first kids who went through the community English-learning program, which the school runs for disadvantaged kids in the local area. Now, he's a fluent English-speaker, he's an important part of the school's administration, and he's a great guy and a friend to everyone around him.

Straight after finishing my first classes at Amigos today, I got picked up by Flora and Mario Polar Covarrubias, the mother and father of the family that I'm staying with, for the duration of my four weeks of study. It seems that, as with the school, I've hit the jackpot with a great host family. They're very warm people; they live in a nice, safe area in Cusco; they only speak Spanish; and judging by today, I'd say they're going to be feeding me very well indeed.

Cusco is a great place to learn Spanish, and it has about 20 schools for the aspiring student to choose from. Today was my first day of classes at the Amigos Spanish school, where I'll be having classes from 8am-12pm, Monday to Friday, for the next four weeks. After today's lessons, I'm really looking forward to the rest.

I don't know what it was that we put in our home-made pasta tonight that was bad. But whatever it was, it was real bad. Jack and myself cooked up some quick pasta napolitana at Loki tonight, using ingredients that we'd bought at the San Pedro market. Pasta, tomatoes, packet sauce, cheese, avocado, onion, spinach, etc. A few minutes after finishing it, I felt sick. Then, later, I vomited it all right back up. Then, I had diarrhoea for two days. Talk about food poisoning. Something from that market was deadly.

After getting lost yesterday, Jack and I woke up this morning in Juan's house, feeling very grateful to have found a bed to sleep in, but also very eager to get back to Cusco. And, thankfully, after a bit of breakfast and a morning walk, make it back we did. Civilisation never smelt so good.

Yes, it was very stupid. Yes, we really were completely lost. Yes, we were lucky it didn't turn out very bad. Yes, it was fun and it was a good experience. And no, actually, we don't regret doing it one little bit.

Today, Jack and myself decided to explore some of the ruins north of Cusco. We made it (on the bus) to the first one; but we never reached any of the others. Instead, we became two Aussie bogans, lost in the mountains; and we had a grand adventure — one that we hadn't planned or anticipated at all.

It's great to catch up with people after not having seen them for a whole day. To see how they've aged, what they've done with their lives, how many children they've had, etc. :P Tonight, the Salkantay hike's Team Feliz (and some of Team Wilson) met up at the Mama Africa disco club here in Cusco, for something different. A bit of a change. Drinking!