After seven weeks of volunteering, taking some side trips and a grand adventure on the Inca Trail, it is time to say good-bye to Cusco and head back home to Houston.  Today (Friday) was my last day.  Tomorrow I am off to the airport for the marathon voyage home.  The time has flown by and I have had a wonderful time experiencing life here in Peru and meeting so many people.  The hardest thing about leaving was saying good-bye to the girls I have been working with for the last seven weeks. I promised myself that I would not cry and I almost made it…. They are a great group and had such enthusiasm for learning; it was so much fun to teach them and learn from them.  We will be in touch but it will be different than working with them every day.

The girls and I in a final picture. I had the older students, who in the picture, are in the back row with me.

I will miss the seniors too.  There is one particular woman who likes to draw so upon arriving at the home she follows us into the cafeteria where she sits in her assigned dinner seat.  We break out the colored pencils and paper and she sits and draws, the same thing, every day, for about two hours.  She and I have had interesting conversations together as she speaks to me, not so clearly, in Quechua, and I reply in English.  We have gone on in this conversational style for some 15 minutes and had a wonderful time even though neither of us knew what the other was saying!

Of course there is always last minute things to do no matter how much time you have at any place and I find myself scrambling to get some last minute gifts for friends and family.  I have had almost two months to look around and see what I might buy but waited until the last minute to make decisions.  There are so many handicraft/souvenir shops here in Cusco (and in Lima I found about four city blocks worth) that it all blends together and turns into background noise.  Nonetheless this week I have been trying to tackle the souvenir task.  Once February turned into March there was a noticeable increase of tourists and vendors on the streets so there is no shortage of possibilities to find the “one special thing” you just need to get before you leave.

Walking home one day this week I ran into a procession. About 20 young men were carrying this saint on their shoulders. It looked very heavy and very precarious.

Also it seems that it is just when you are leaving a place that you suddenly discover another ten things that you need to do before you go and simply won’t have the time to do.  In the surrounding area there are still many beautiful hikes left undiscovered. I would love to spend more time in the Sacred Valley, for example, in Ollantaytambo, just soaking in the scenery and the even slower pace of life there.  In Cusco I am still popping into random courtyards and finding incredible restaurants, yesterday a native herbal museum, artist studios and all kinds of random things.  Each courtyard brings a new surprise and I won’t have time to complete all of my explorations before it is time to go.  Tonight on the Plaza des Armes, coming home from dinner, I noticed that they were erecting a stage and there were several groups of young people practicing dance routines.  Clearly something is going to happen this weekend, but I have no idea what, and in any event, I won’t be here to see it.  Even with much left undiscovered, though, Cusco feels like home and it will be strange to return to Houston and a completely different lifestyle.

One of the costumed dancers ahead of the idol of the saint in the procession. Festivals are very colorful in Cusco!

Overall the trip has been very rewarding and fun.  I have met a lot of great and interesting people, both local Cuscaneans and fellow travelers.  Teaching English has been very rewarding and as I told my students today they have helped me learn Spanish too. With their help I have been able to become functional in Spanish from almost ground zero and am very happy about that.  Most of all the trip was simply just a great adventure.  I came here not knowing what to expect, not knowing anybody, to a place where I could not speak the language, to a lifestyle completely different than anything than I had ever done and basically expanded my horizons and learned new things about myself and this part of the world.  What more could you ask from an adventure?  It just goes to show, as I have mentioned before, how incredible adaptable we are as humans!

Now…..back to my normal reality, but with the knowledge it is easy to step out of it any time I want to and have other new exciting adventures (at least when I get enough vacation saved up to travel again!)

I popped through a doorway into a courtyard on Thursday and found this beautiful scene. If you visit Cusco and never check out the courtyards you are missing half the city's charm.

PS:  For those of you following the pastry of the day program, I have tried a passion fruit cheesecake and another Tres Leches.  After sampling a bunch of different Tres Leches cakes I have found one I like the best in a small cafe not far from Maximo Nivel on Ave del Sol but quite frankly, I like the one I bake at home the best….I also have frequently sampled the ice cream here, which is a bit more like gelatto, and terrific.  I think my favorite flavor, so far, has been “arroz con leche” which is actually a rice pudding ice cream.  Yummy!!  I also had a great carrot cake today, really moist.  I think it was so good because they used just a touch of ginger in the recipe.  The pastry of the day program definitely ended on a high note!