Mister Esteve

One of the difficult things for Spanish speakers is to say is a word beginning with an s and a consonant afterward. There are no words in the Spanish dictionary that begin with s and a consonant unless it is an 'h' because they always put an e in the beginning. So, in order to say the words 'slow' or 'stop' or 'Steve', the kids really need to work hard at practicing the word without putting an 'e' before the word. It became a cute nickname Steve had here, Mister Esteve, even said by Bethany, the Shultz's youngest who can definitely say it correctly.
While Steve was here, we did a lot of touristy things. It was great considering I hadn't done anything touristy up to that point. We tried to go ride horses after school one day around some Incan ruins but we got there too late and ended up wandering around until we found "Cristo Blanco" which is this big white statue of Jesus that's lit up at night so that the city of Cusco sees this white Christ glowing on the hills. It gave us a really good view of things as well. Later that next week, my first graders put on their 'show' that we have each Wednesday-one grade a week. They sang If I Were a Butterfly in Spanish and I can't tell you how many times I caught myself singing that song for the past few weeks.

Well, we ended up going back to ride horses and this time it worked. We had a nice tour of some ruins called Sacsaywaman, which yes, sounds like a couple words in English. Our guide that walked around as we rode showed us hidden caves used by the Incans and some places where they made shelters and whatnot. It was only a short ride but very beautiful and educational.

After our horseback ride, we went on a hike, the muddy hike that we went on a month ago. Only this time, without the mud, we were able to travel what seemed to be a third of the time, maybe just half, but it was quick and of course just as beautiful. Exhausted and knowing we had to get up early, I went to bed at 8.

On the left, notice the doorway is in the shape of a llama head. Next to that picture, we climbed out of a cave with only a little light from the whole to get out. It was only this bright because of the flash.

I woke up at 2am, quickly got ready, and Steve and I were in a taxi for Machu Picchu by 2:15. We had to then get into a different taxi which is made for a long ride to a town called Ollantaytambo where we would get on our train. Our taxi had 8 people in a one station wagon and it was a bit difficult to take a nap because the whole ride was going over a windy (as in it winds a lot) mountain. We got to Ollantaytambo early and had an hour to hang out at a little place where we had hot chocolate. Finally at 5:30 we were ready to board the train. I'm considered a resident here as I mentioned in one of my first blogs so I was in the 'local' train and Steve was in the 'backpacker' train. I definitely got looks and all of the men working on the train thought I was confused and asked for my ticket and ID, then they'd apologize. Steve met a girl named Claire, with an English accent of course, on his train and she was traveling by herself so we hung out with her all day. Hanging out with British people makes you want to talk like them. It's just too fun. When we got off the train, we then needed a bus to get up to Macchu Picchu. It was only 7 something when we finally arrived and it was very foggy. We thought we'd wait it out with breakfast but it was still pretty thick fog and we decided to wander. We walked up to one part that was pretty high and that's where we got a really good view of the lost city. The place was absolutely beautiful but after eating a snack, I got really tired and stopped appreciating the beauty. We went and had lunch and then took a nap right there in Machu Picchu and thank goodness no one yelled at us. After we were energized, we just wandered a bit more and then headed back to the city with the train and bought some last minute souvenirs. Claire and Steve's train was an hour before me so I hung out at a restaurant and had dinner by myself. Very relaxing. I didn't get home until 11:00pm though. Moral of story: Don't buy the earliest train to Machu Picchu and latest train to Cusco because it's really not worth it. After 2 weeks, Steve just left today and I was finally able stop taking pictures but start sharing them. Cusco is beautiful.

In the top left picture, its to show how cloudy it was when you were high up. We were engulfed in clouds. In the picture directly above of some sort of statue that you can't tell what it is, we hung around for maybe 10 minutes waiting for tour groups to come around so we could know what it was for. We figured sacrificing. It looked perfect for it. Turns out in the airport today Steve read a book that said it just was some sort of sun dial for the times of the year. Below, the statue of the man, he's the Incan sun king. On the right of that, Clair in the city where we got our train.