1st Entry -- 5/28 -- DFW to Cusco, Peru

1^st Entry  --  5/28

Ok, I guess I’ll just start from the beginning.  On May 19, 2012 I left Texas for a South American Adventure.  I left DFW at about 3:30 PM on Saturday.   I first landed in San Salvador, El Salvador.  As the plane was descending, I saw almost entirely forest and wasn’t sure there was actually going to be a runway for the plane to land on, luckily I was wrong.  The San Salvador airport was pretty small and was indeed surrounded by a forest so it was neat to look out the windows there.  I then flew from San Salvador to Lima the capital city of Peru.  I had a more lengthy lay over there and luckily found a Starbucks with wifi to help pass the time.  I then boarded my flight to Cusco (Cuzco, I’ve seen it spelled both ways even here in the city) at about 5:40 AM Sunday morning.   After taking my seat on the plane, an attendant called my name and said I had been upgraded to first class!  I’m not sure why or how it happened, but it was great.  Although by that time I was very tired, and slept pretty much the whole way.   I landed in Cusco at about 7 AM Sunday morning.  An employee from the school, Maximo Nivel, was there to meet me.  We first went to Maximo Nivel to get some paperwork taken care of then he took me to my homestay house.  I met my homestay parents, Osmar and Virginia.  They are older, Osmar being 80 and Virginia being a few years younger, and they are really great.  They are very nice and seem to really enjoy having people stay at their house.  They can host up to 6 people at a time.  When I first got here there were 4 other people, but there has been a lot of moving around since then already.  There are some new people that came in this weekend but are on a trip to Machu Picchu right now and one girl that came last Friday, so there are at least 4 students staying in the house right now with me being the only one that was here last week.  My house here is pretty nice.  I am the only one that has a room on the first floor which is fine with me although I think it is much colder in my room than the other rooms at night.   The bathroom, kitchen, and hallway all lead to the courtyard in the middle of the house.  The stairs leading to the second floor are also in the courtyard which is not covered, so when it rains, it rains into the house as well…. Interesting.

More to come soon!