The Unfinished House

Here are a couple pictures of our house that was supposed to be completed May 1st.

Well as you can tell the house isn't ready yet and it's almost June! Typical South America I guess. I find it rather comical. They told us they would have a room ready for us by midweek but thus far there are no doors, no windows, no bathrooms, no nada. Tyler is happy that he will get to spend some time working hard on the house. He likes working with the kids but will like working in the house much better. I enjoy helping out as well. It's always good to get your hands dirty...and who knows maybe we'll learn how to install a shower.

Fortunately the president of the community has a private room for us to stay in which is pretty nice. The only problem is there's no hot water! Living in Salcantay will pretty much be like camping until we can get that house finished.

Our room is the one on the far left. (The one attached to the house not the shed).

Potato Field Trip

In Salcantay it is tradition that during the potato harvest the villagers will cook up a bunch of potatoes on the hillside and eat them. During the last half of class we took a field trip with the kids to eat some potatoes!

This woman is preparing the potatoes to be cooked.
To cook the potatoes they build a fire in the field, put the potatoes inside the fire and then cover the fire with dirt to make a smoldering mound which cooks the potatoes. This woman is preparing a fire.
This is what the mound looks like when it's done. In this photo the president of the village is breaking out the potatoes and handing them out for everyone to eat.
I can honestly say they are the best potatoes I have ever eaten in my life! Bon appetite!

The School in Salcantay

This is a picture of the school with the kids outside. They will all line up on the cement outside of the classrooms and say a prayer before class begins.This is a small playground for the children. They rarely play on it though, they love to play marbles and hopscotch as well as jump rope.

Here is a picture of the kindergarten class brushing their teeth in the morning.
The darling kindergarten class

TYLER'S MCAT SCORES ARE IN!!!

He got a...33!

The City Tour

Saturday morning we went up to Salcantay. Wow...what a beautiful place it is! We are going to LOVE it up there! We didn't take the camera so I'll have to post pictures later, but it was amazing. The latter half of the day we went on The City Tour which is a bus tour to many of the ruins around Cusco. Again it was beautiful and we learned a lot!

The first place we visited is called Saqsaywaman. This was another fortress built by the Incans. They brought giant rocks down from the mountains and build three levels of walls. It's amazing to me how they could bring such big rocks so far and fit them together without mortar!

This is a view of Cusco from the top of the fortress at Saqsaywaman
Puka Pukara is Qetchua for Red Fortress
Tambomachay is Qetchua for "Place of Rest". In the Incan religion they had gods for water, fire, earth, rain, lightening, stars and rainbows. Tambomachay was a temple where the Incans worshiped water and fertility. Our tour guide told the women that if we would drink the water we would become fertile, regardless of our age.
The water which runs out of the fountains comes from somewhere underground and has been running for 600 years. There are no rivers, lakes or springs around this temple so archeologists don'w know exactly how the Incans found this under ground sorce of water. The water falls from the fountain and runs under the road...

...out of this aquaduct...
...and into this beautiful stream. Not bad for 13th century architecture.

The Sacred Valley

Today Tyler and I had to opportunity to travel around to many ruin sites around Cusco and in the Sacred Valley. It was so beautiful and we had a wonderful day.

The first stop on our tour was Pisaq. It was probably our favorite place of the day. We saw many awesome ruins and beautiful sightsThe giant step looking things behind us are actually agricultural terraces. That's right, the Incans carved massive terraces into the mountain so they could grow crops. The Peruvian people still grow crops such as corn up in these mountains. Amazing! Tyler was obsessed with the terraces.

The next place we visited was Ollantaytambo. This city is the only city in Peru that is still inhabited by Incans, many of the people living in Ollantaytambo are decendants of the Incans. The homes are built on the foundation of Incan ruins and the original urban planning is still in place.The Incans were also incredible architects. They didn't use mortar to fit their stones together they carved each individual stone so that it fit together almost seamlessly!The Incans set up irrigation systems which are still working today. These are pictures of some of the bathhouses that still have water flowing through them. This mountain at Ollantaytambo is incredible. There is a massive storehouse on top of the mountain where the people would store food. The Incans carved the face of their sun god into the mountain. The sun god is carved in such a way that it looks like he is carrying the storehouse on his back. We were at a bad angle but it's still pretty amazing!On the way home we stopped by Chinchero. This location doesn't have many ruins because the Peruvians built their churches and homes on the Incan foundations. While I was sitting on the grass taking pictures I was randomly surrounded by little children. I had read in a book that often children will surround you, distract you and try to steal things from you. Well as soon as they surrounded me I popped up and sure enough there was a little boy with his hand in the outside pocket of my backpack. Good thing I didn't put anything in there!

We Made It!

After 24 hours of sleepless travel we finally made it to Peru! We are living in the home of Hernan Carrasco, which is also the Eagle-Condor headquarters in Cusco. Hernan and his family are very involved in Eagle-Condor. They are all very generous and hospitable. We will be living in Cusco on the weekends and packing stuff up to Salcantay, a mountain village, during the week to work in the school there.

Our bedroom in Cuzco

Peru is beautiful an we are just loving it here!