i made it

soo, i´m in peru. this is my second day of orientation, im sitting in an internet cafe in ollaytantambo. ollaytantambo is about an hour an a half from cuzco, where my homestay will be. we are here for the week of orientation, and to acclimate to the high altitude. altitude sickness is really common, but i have been drinking a ton of water and mate de coca (tea made from coca leaves) so i have been fine. the town that im in is really old and beautiful, all of the streets are made with cobblestones. the mountains are huge and are very close, you can practically touch them. we are staying in this cool house/hotel that has a courtyard full of flores and hummingbirds! there are 15 kids in my program, and so far i think they are all pretty cool. margaret reiley is here too (for you kenyon kids), and is sitting a few computers away. today we had a "drop-off", we were broken up into groups of three and had to travel to nearby towns and buy typical peruvian foods, ask a local for a good recipe, and prepare it for dinner. i was in the frutas group (yess) and we traveled to the town of calca. We bought blankilas (small green fruit, tastes sortof like a pear), tunas (green spiky fruits with thorns and orangey seedy stuff inside) and pepinas (which is also a name for a cucumber, but this is a yellow round fruit with purple stripes, juicy and delicious), and we made a dessert called compote with the blankilas. the other groups made salsa, soup, frijoles, and a potato dish. delicioso. the food has been great so far, lots of corn, beans, rice, chicken, and frutas. everything has been relatively cheap so far. using the internet for an hour will cost me one sol (the currency here), which is about 33 cents. i have been talking to as many as peruvians as possible, the majority of them being under the age of 10. i will be in ollaytantambo for the rest of the week. On Friday we are going to hike up Macchu Picchu, and i think we go to Cusco on Sunday to meet our host families. speaking in spanish has been good so far, and the majority of the group talks to eachother in spanish all of the time, which is good. Well my hour is almost up... time to go to bed (its 10) and see what tomorrow has in store.