hace tres semanas y una mas

tomorrow marks the end of week three in mis clases de espanol and i reward myself with (hopefully) a remarkable trip 200 miles east to the peruvian rain forest. mi amiga, christine, y yo will fly tomorrow (yes, playing hooky from school! - that´s the best part of going to school, right?) and will enjoy three days in a jungle lodge that is accessible only by boat up the river. i´m not going to talk it up just yet, for fear of returning with only tales of bird-sized mosquitoes and brand new bouncing babies named malaria and yellow fever.

tomorrow also marks the end of my time with mama and papa cusco (yoni & fernando). my dreams of entering a lively and crowded latin american household were dashed by this fairly quiet home. it was only me and yoni for every meal this week...except for my final lunch today! there, in the living room decked out in black trousers, a black button-up shirt and a black sport coat, was fernando...or, as i called him then, fernando el mysterioso.
he was a fairly intimidating sight at first. someone i quickly likened to a latin american mafia boss, but after a moment or two with him, i found that he´s actually fairly good natured and absolutely cracks himself up. appropriately sexist and bold, he certainly made for interesting and lively conversation! we chatted for an hour and a half over lunch and the icing on the cake was his final question to me...¨La ultima pregunta, si, la ultima pregunta,¨ he kept repeating (before and after asking more and more questions) but the absolute ultima pregunta was this: "why do you think there are gays in the world?"
ha! delightful. i asked if they were unfamiliar with homosexuality here in peru and he answered no, they exist here, but he´s interested in my thoughts.
what a question for a liberal-minded people-lover from seattle! oh, fernando...
he did tell me something interesting though, if you´ve looked through my photos on flickr, you might have seen the cusco flag (it´s a striped rainbow flag) well, as one could imagine, many foreigners come here and mistake the city flag for the similarly rainbow-striped gay & lesbian flag. the city is actually considering altering their flag slightly to try and alleviate the confusion. i say they should join forces and cusco could become the main vacation spot for the gay and lesbian vacation tours out there. it really is a great vacation destination! and that way, los pobrecitos como fernando might be able to get some answers to their burning questions.

next week i have decided to switch up my housing once again and am going to study my last week of spanish in my school´s sacred valley location. just a 20 minute walk from my beloved pisac, the new home looks pretty amazing, with a comfortable living room with a fireplace and a big bonfire area outside. it´s very quiet there and nestled in amongst those awe-inspiring mountains. i have a couple new good friends who have also chose to study there and we plan to hike every day, read, listen to music and work on our spanish. it will be a wonderful change of pace from cusco. sadly, the rabid pack of yonggins at my school have signed up to go as well. we older, wiser, and far more fabulous ones are rolling our eyes and hoping that we will survive a week in the same house as these voracious partiers. and by voracious, i am not exaggerating...we´re talking up partying and dancing until 7 in the morning every day. needless to say, spanish is far from their first priority here in cusco. none of us can figure out why these creatures are interested in going to a house in the middle of nowhere...near no real towns...with no discotecas and no bars... perhaps i am judging them too quickly. perhaps, in the more subdued environs i will get to know these humans more intimately and they will expose to me some humanity...their sensitive and intelligent underbellies.
or, perhaps i will kill them in a sleep-starved rage.

update in one week.
(which, incidentally, will be two days before i head to buenos aires...oh my!)