Itinerary? ha. But we´re here!

This is what the bread looks like when we go to buy it. Designs done by hand. So sweet and delicious, great with butter or just plain like it is. Snuck a photo last night when the guy went to find a bag!

Hello from Oropesa!

One thing I (Sara) have learned throughout the past two months is that very few things we have tried to plan go as planned. My parents wanted a detailed itinerary before we left, with dates and addresses and phone numbers of all our stops. I did my best to detail our 4+ month journey; however we followed the itinerary for about 3 days. I am pretty sure that for the first two weeks, we didn´t pass a day without something “bad” happening- from only receiving 60 days to be in the country, to a bus strike that set us back on our trip to Cusco, to horrible weather that prevented us from actually getting to Cusco once the busses were finally running, to getting our feet run over by a taxi… it was a tough beginning. But here we are, finally in Oropesa, one of our first planned stops.

Although things have turned out so much differently than I thought they´d be, I´m really glad that I´ve had to learn to be flexible. I like that we could arrive in Puno, knowing that we were heading to Cusco next, but not necessarily having a specific date of departure or anything. Just generalizations. Don´t get me wrong, I´m still the same control-freak, just toned down a bit. And things usually work out in a way that makes me happy. We didn´t make any calls or reservations for hostels in Cusco before arrival and I was really disappointed that many of the places were much more expensive or full when I called after grabbing our stuff from the bus. Once we finally found one that was alright, we ended up checking out after only one night because it was too expensive and just felt uncomfortable. We ended up going to a youth hostel and over 6 days met lots of great people from all over the world, and celebrated our last night in Cusco with some of them.

I would not describe Matthew and me as “club people.” Bars are not my favorite place, I don´t really like to dance in front of strangers, drinks are expensive…etc, etc, etc. Matthew and I were heading out to get some juice around 9 and and got talked into going to a salsa bar (good job, Paria). We took some free salsa lessons and headed next door to another bar for dancing. I was so surprised by how much fun I had. We danced until about 1, I think. It´s so much easier for me to chicken out and stay inside watching a movie, where I´m comfortable, where I feel safe. I´m really glad we went out, even though my legs were killing me yesterday.

So, finally, back to OROPESA (sorry no info in English, just a map). We´re living here in a lovely town known for it´s bread. We visited Monday and Tuesday, going to the school to figure out what we´re doing and have started volunteering. Lugged all our stuff here from Cusco (about ½ hour by taxi, 1 hour by bus) and moved in yesterday. I said I´d like to be with the younger children, so Tuesday I was learning my shapes (“figures geometricas”) with them.  Matthew is with the 5^th and 6^th graders. Right now, we´re just assisting in the classrooms as we are able and I´m not sure how our roles here will evolve. Maybe we´ll eventually be teaching English lessons, but I´m not sure. Beginnings are always hard for me, but once we get used to the schedule and the kids stop treating us like zoo animals, I think it will be great. And in case you´re wondering, the "plan" is to be here until the end of May/beginning of June.

(photo added April 3)