Today began by us waking up at Señora Josefina’s house to Richard arriving from the airport after several travel delays. We all had bread, jam, avocadoes, yogurt, cereal, and fried eggs prepared by our lovely host mother. Megan, the volunteer who has been living there for the past 2 weeks, then led us on a 15-minute walk through Cusco to Maximo Nivel. We then had orientation with the volunteer coordinator, Derek, who walked us through our roles and responsibilities at the Panthera reserve. After about 2 hours, we took a city bus to a shopping mall, which was the most modern building we had been in so far. They even had a Chili’s and a Pinkberry frozen yogurt place. Several people on the trip needed to buy head-lamps and batteries, so we stopped at a radio shack. We also went to the Peruvian equivalent of a Walmart, which was packed, to pick up snacks and bug spray. Afterwards, we took another bus to a Peruvian restaurant with Derek, where we had “authentic Peruvian food at a good price.”
I had bistec montaña, which was steak with potatoes and rice with a potato soup. After lunch, we took taxis back to our host family’s house, where we met Rahul who had just arrived after his travel ordeal. Several people decided to take naps while a couple people went to hike up to Cristo Blanco. Rahul and I went to explore more of Cusco, exchanging money and buying food. After everyone returned from their mini excursions, we played board games and rested until dinner. For dinner, we split between a pizza and a chicken place. Many Peruvian people tend to eat a heavy dinner and a light dinner, if they eat dinner at all. Therefore, we had to find restaurants that were still open. At the pizza place, we shared a “famial” pizza and a “gigante” pizza. After dinner, we returned to Josefina’s to grab our stuff and head to the bus station. There we boarded a bus to take us 10 hours towards the jungle.
-Jason Kertayasa
EGL Family Abroad 