December 11 - friends and volunteering

Drinking "Chicha Morada" - a drink
made from purple corn 

This was another great week in Cusco and halfway through the week we realized how much we really love it here and we decided to cancel two weeks of travel around Peru and stay here until Jan. 1st. This way we will have a chance to be here for the holidays. We will take a side trip next week to Puno and Lake Titicaca (next week's blog) and will still go to see the Nazca Lines on the first of the new year. Most of the pictures this week are of friends. We are so lucky that wherever we go we seem to find a circle of good friends to spend time with. Here again we have friends of all ages and from so many different parts of the world. Cusco is much more of an international city than San Miguel and also many are much younger than we are.

Our 20 year old friend Tess from Holland
(and Peru)

My new home away from home with
Yeni at the bead store. We are enjoying
teaching each other - in Spanish only!

Friends along the way during our
7 hour hike in the countryside

More friends - Chantal from France and
Cathy from Berkeley, CA. This is a very
transient community but somehow we have
met some great people to share time with

Fredy and his wife Monica. Fredy was our
guide on the Inca trail 6 years ago. We
had the chance to spend the whole day with
the family today.

Catching up again with Fredy and his family has been great. We loved our hike of the Inca Trail 6 years ago to Machu Piccu and that's why we did not do it again - we wanted to keep the memory of the first time alive because it was so special. We are still in touch through email and facebook with many of the folks from that trip and they are also so happy that we reunited with Fredy. Today we spent the whole day with him and his family and visited his mother as well - we traveled to several small villages and ruins that we had not seen. Really it would be possible to see ruins every day in different parts of the countryside,

The street up to San Blas where we walk
every day for our yoga classes. Rare
to see the street with no cars.

The valley of Cusco - surrounded by mountains

The Plaza de Armas - decorated for Navidad

Fredy's mother grinding dandelions -
making a special drink for Fredy for
his health

My new best friend and spanish teacher -
Fredy's youngest daughter

Proud store owner - this hat is typical
of a small town outside Cusco.

Another big adventure this week was joining some folks from the local Indian Restaurant in Cusco who provide food for children several days each week. Driving in a police truck the many volunteers headed to a local school on the outskirts of the Cusco - high up on the mountain overlooking the city. The kids were so grateful and sweet and so happy to say a few English words to us of thanks or hello as they ate their large plates of rice with stew. In Cusco, just like in SMA, there are many volunteers and many volunteer opportunities.

With a police escort we head to a
school on the outskirts of Cusco to
feed 250 kids.

high - fives!

They may not have much in the way of food
but they have a great view of Cusco!

Everyone is happy!