A Website All About Jo

My Travels

Wednesday 23rd October 2002
Right, finally I have managed to get round to updating my website - will a little help from my friends (cheers Del).
For those of you that don´t know I am in Cusco in Peru for 6 weeks learning (or trying to learn) Spanish before heading off for 4 weeks travelling around the rest of Peru.

I am living with a couple at the moment who are just lovely. Not sure how old they are but they have grown up children and a few grandchildren. The one in the picture here and on the other page is the youngest, Claudia.
Their house is huge, they even have a room which noone goes in. I think it´s for special occasions which is a shame as it has what looks like a very comfy sofa and a sort of bar! The food is lovely and I´ve only had one bad meal so far which was pigs heart something I don´t think I could ever like. They even have a luke warm shower aswell although the electrics seem a little dangerous - apparently all showers are like this in Peru and aslong as you don´t touch the taps with wet hands you´ll be ok!!
The weather is lovely although as we´re so high up the moment the sun goes in it is freezing and so I spend my whole time with at least one jumper on and a scarf around my neck and sleep under 3 blankets.

To be honest I haven´t done a huge amount since I´ve been here as last week my lessons were in the afternoon and I never really got round to going out in the mornings after doing my homework. I did go to the cinema last week though with a couple of girls I´ve met. We went to see Lord of the Rings which thankfully was in English. The cinema was pretty small, it had about 7 rows of seats with 6 seats in each and before the film started we were all given a menu and you could order anything from tea to popcorn to a whole meal which you then had to eat in the dark. The whole thing cost 80p (it´s usually 60p but Lord of the Rings is a Long film).
I´ve been out to dinner a couple of times and thats a nice cheap thing to do aswell with a 3 course meal and a drink costing £2.50 and usually it´s difficult to finish as you get so much. Going out for an expensive meal tonight though which will cost us £6 and is supposedly the delicacy in Peru. I will let you know a little more with pictures soon!

I did go horse riding on Sunday with 3 friends which was a good laugh although it was very slow going and after the 4 hours we were all in quite a bit of pain and had nice sunburn too. Did see some ruins though of which I have pictures which I´ll put on the pictures page with some explanation of what they are. These pictures also prove that I haven´t made up my friends and they really exisit, and no I didn´t pay them to pose for pictures either.

The dogs in the pictures are just a small example of the hundreds of dogs which seem to roam the streets of Cusco, they all seem quite docile although I wouldn´t attempt to test that theory.

Along with dogs, Cusco is also full of taxis, and being a tourist every taxi seems to think that you need a lift somewhere and so will beep at you hopefully as you go past just incase you had forgotten that you wanted a taxi. Most of the taxis are ok though and appart from contributing heavily to the pollution in the city they seem quite safe, this is appart from the taxi we took on Sunday which smelt heavily of petrol and seemed to have had a lot of welding done on it (see picture), luckily it was only a short journey.
Thats all for now as I have to go and pay for my trip to the mountains next week and also pick up my laundry! Pictures will appear soon once I remember to bring my guide book to the internet cafe so I can spell the places I´ve been to.