An Earthquake, an Alpaca, A Festival, and More!

Two posts in a day!

Just hours after our post last week, we had a mild earthquake here in Cusco. Fortunately, it was mild. But unfortunately, neither Jeremy nor I felt it! We were at Maximo Nivel, showing Heidy photos from our wedding. I guess we were so involved with that that we didn't even notice the earthquake. Others in the same room as us felt it. Someone said that one of the plants in the room was shaking.

Another thing that happened just after last week's post was that Jeremy and I ate alpaca ravioli at our favorite Italian restaurant. It was really good and supposedly has only half the fat of beef. An alpaca is an animal that looks a lot like a llama. There are lots of them in this area. Local artisans also make sweaters and scarves out of their wool.

Last Friday night, Maximo Nivel hosted a party for us TEFL graduates (though our course isn´t official over until Tuesday). There were tons of people there, including us TEFL students, many Peruvians who are studying English, and the staff of Maximo Nivel. We ate pizza, Jeremy played pool, and there was even a pinata and cake for some people with birthdays. Lots of fun. Though I´m glad I took the TEFL course and feel it was worth it, I´m glad it´s almost over. It´s been an intense past several months, and I´m really looking forward to some downtime! All that´s left to do is to turn in my portfolio, figure out my score on two international English exams I took, have a Quechua lesson (so that we can understand what it´s like to be a beginning language learner), and work on my resume for TEFL job searches. Yay!

Around Cusco, there are almost daily parades and firecrackers celebrating the numerous Catholic holidays and various political statements. Usually the parades are led by a few people carrying a model of a virgin, with a brass band and tons of school children in either traditional costumes or their school uniforms following. Often, there are also firecrackers preceding the parades. We have yet to take some good pictures of these parades, but when we do, we´ll add them to this post.

This past weekend, Jeremy and I also joined our Peruvian friend Heidy at a festival outside of Cusco. We also had the opportunity to meet her family (including her sister, parents, grandparents, some aunts and cousins!). The festival was to honor the Virgen of Rosario in a small village called San Salvador. To get there, we drove about an hour outside of Cusco, past Lucre (where Jeremy has been working at the orphanage), and then hiked up a hill for about 30 minutes to reach the festival. The festival was full of ritual, recognition of local leaders, lots of traditional dancing in traditional costumes, food, and beer! The food looked and tasted amazing (pork, large corn kernels, mint leaves, potatoes and aji - a spicy salsa), but we were a bit too nervous about getting sick to eat too much. Overall, the festival was beautiful and we feel lucky to have been invited there by Heidy. I did, however, start to feel a little sick after being in the sun so long, so Jeremy and I left a little early and took a bus back to Cusco. Jeremy took lots of pictures from the day, and here they are!

This album is powered by
BubbleShare
- Add to my blog

In the next few days, we will be moving (no more phone, but we think we´ll have a tv!), resting, and deciding upon our next steps. We have lots of possibilities in mind, but are still figuring out what will happen next!