A Summary of Cusco (Weeks 1-4)

I´ve spent 3 weeks in Cusco, Peru.

WHAT I´VE BEEN DOING:
- Learning Spanish! 20 hours per week of grammar and practice, walking around town with a teacher. Great language program with 1 to 1 classes: http:www.fairplay-peru.org
- Volunteering 12 hours a week for Fairplay - they´re training new teachers and I´ve been their ¨practice¨ student. It´s been a lot of fun, and I´ve gotten a lot of extra language practice in.
- Having fun with other travelers - visiting local sites like the Inca Museum and some ruins.
- Havnig fun with my host family! They are a hoot! Always curious about what´s up, always speaking Spanish - and always patient : ) A couple of family folks have gone on hikes with us, too, guiding us through lesser-traveled ruins. I´ve also been to the family farmfields one heck of a hike up a steep hill from our house.
- Learning how to order food, get my laundry done, use the internet - and the bathrooms...

WHAT I´VE BEEN LEARNING
- I create the fun in my life.
- Traveling is less about seeing things than knowing more of Life.
- Everybody´s wanting to connect.
- Every thing passes - my lost hat, stolen camera, whatever - it passes and I get to replace them with joy (the adventure of barganing for a new hat or camera in a local market). (The market may seem sketchy, but the camera works great, cost the same as in the US - which is saying a lot since other retail stores in tourist areas charge 2-3x US prices - and is better than the one stolen.)
- Everybody´s looking for love or expressing it.
- Welcoming people into my life is easier than being afraid of others or avoiding them - even when we can´t speak the same language. There are no strangers, just people we don´t know well yet or haven´t learned from yet!
- I really appreciate a warm home (literally - there´s no heating here, and it´s been chilly!), a hot bath (no bathtubs), homecooked food, and good conversation. I´ve been thinking about how my next home can be a place for people from different cultures...
- I LOVE helping people create the life they want, and becoming more of their authentic selves! I´ve had a few coaching sessions over the phone with people and I loved it, and also miss it. So more to come : )

WHAT´S NEXT
I´m headed to an organic farm near a tiny village near a small town with some intermittent internet access and a lot of tourists on Sundays for a traditional market. So it´ll be quiet, and I´m looking forward to some rest, meditation, yoga, wanderings in the hills and valley. The crops were planted recently and the corn is a foot tall spring green blanket across most of the valley. Time to rest is something I´ve not often gifted myself, so here I go - a new experience to learn from. And with a very sweet family that runs the farm - a Frenchman who speaks English and Spanish, and his Peruvian wife who speaks only Spanish. Spirituality is important to them, and I´m looking forward to some lovely meals and conversations with them (we already had one lunch when I visited last week).