First few days..

Day 1 and 2

March 24- 25, 2014

Left LAX at 1:50 on a five hour flight to San Salvador. 

The trip started off with me politely asking the woman in the aisle seat to excuse me so I could get to my comfy window seat. She promptly smiled, spread her legs a bit and motioned for me to climb over. So over I climbed and started to relax into the five hour flight. About two hours in the pilot came on the intercom and rambled off a long narrative in Spanish.. All I could understand were the words "problemas" and "mucho dificil". Not a good sign.. My neighbor in the aisle seat looked at me with wide eyes and then continued eating her meal so I figured there was no need to panic yet. The rest of the flight was smooth sailing and I changed planes in San Salvador without a hitch.

Arrived in Lima around 2am with a bad headache.. A sign of being up for too long I'm sure. Peruvian connections in Lima are a little interesting. Once you go through immigration and customs you are essentially outside of the airport again and are unable to check your bags you just picked up from customs until an hour before your flight's boarding time. Luckily I only had a four hour layover so by the time I got my luggage and my passport stamped I only had about an hour an a half to wait with my luggage. You can haul your bags upstairs and camp out where there is a nice food court complete with Pinkberry and Starbucks and other places to eat and shop or you can do what I did and find a seat directly in front of the check in gate and crash while waiting for that magical time to arrive. I figured if someone was bold enough to steal my bag in front of 20 workers and security guards then they probably need my 5 pairs of socks more than I do.  Thankfully that wasn't the case and after waking up to check the time every 15 minutes I was able to ditch the bags, go and find an overpriced but heaven sent cappuccino and once again sat hunched over with my face on my pack for another hours wait. It's about 5:30 when they announced we could board a packed bus to take us to the plane. My NY subway skills kicked in immediately even though the rest of my brain wasn't functioning at this point and I shoved my way into my back usually corner where it's never very crowded cause there is nothing to hold onto. We disembarked the crowded bus of backpacks and finally boarded the plane to Cusco. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep as soon as I buckled my seat belt. The man next to me did the same. In fact when I woke up awhile later I'm pretty certain no one on the plane was conscious. Looking out the window I caught the moon coming up on the horizon and the most perfectly clear sky full of stars so bright I've ever seen. I watched the crescent moon rise until my eyes failed and I woke again as we were descending into Cusco. There were snow capped mountains a ways out and beautiful green mountains all over. The only piece of land very flat at all was the runway at the airport. Definitely on my top list of most gorgeous places to fly into if not in first place. Cusco is a small airport with very friendly (eager to make a tip) staff. A man in an official uniform asked if I had a driver waking for me and after I told him yes he helped with my bags and took me I my driver who was outside holding a sign with my name on it. The drive took an hour and a half and the parts I was awake for looked beautiful once you get out of the busy city. The city near the airport is very old and very poor. Houses line the streets on top of each other and I'm not quite sure how some were still standing. Driving here is like most foreign countries and it is sometimes better to just close your eyes. My driver was cautious so I figured I was in good hands. We did slow down twice for trees that had fallen in the road and once for a slight mudslide blocking one lane. I was awake by the time I saw signs for Ollantaytambo and watched as we drove by ruins on the mountainside and ultimately onto the cobblestone streets of the city itself. The houses here seem in better condition than the ones near the Cusco airport. Many built on top of ancient stones left from centuries ago. I got dropped off at the Awamaki office where I met my coordinator and my homestay dad. We walked a whopping two blocks back to where I'll be living during my first month of my stay and possibly longer. The house is connected to the other casas on the block and the dining/ common area is partially open to the outside. My room is upstairs in the front if the house. There is a SMALL bathroom at the end of the hallway and about four other rooms. They have four girls ages 10-26 and one boy who is 3 years. The older girls do not live here all the time but 2 of them were here today. They are all very nice and welcoming. They don't speak any English and my Spanish is quite poor so it was an interesting first day of communication. We got the basics across but I look forward to starting Spanish classes soon. 

After a few naps and a tour of the town by another volunteer I was ready to call it quits. I ate dinner with my family and excused myself for bed. It's been a long 30-some hours since I slept for real! 

Landing in Cusco

My VERY bright room

Mi casa