orientation and toilets

Loki, the hostel in Cusco


The view from the top of the hill


Dorm


Water babies, our new best friends

We were awakened at 11 am this morning by the hostel manager, who informed us that our guide was there to greet us. Yay! Richard seemed very cool and we finally learned what project we'd be working on. Turns out we're going to build...toilets. Hahaha. This is a bit ironic since Maren has been wondering where we'll be doing our "business" during this shindig. Guess it won't be in a potty!

Anyway, Richard left us to go get some sleep and recommended that I drink some Coco tea for my blinding headache. The altitude had me seeing stars. Luckily the tea really worked and we were able to re-join the land of the living in time to get some Soles (local currency) from the ATM and meet up with our group for orientation. These are the people I'll be hanging with for the next two weeks:

Richard - UK - our fearless leader, who has lived in Peru for the last two years running projects of this type

Parker - Boulder, CO - college student

Ralph - Scotland - college student

Brendan - Ireland - marine engineer

Vienna - UK - college student (starting in the Fall)

Claire - UK - college student

And of course Maren, who will also be a college student this Fall. I am the oldest one here. :-)

After a quick meeting on Richard's patio (he lives across from Loki), the whole group went back to the hostel for drinks before heading out to dinner. Can't remember the name of the restaurant but we all got to try Peruvian cuisine...can't remember the names of what we were eating either.
:-P I think I had pork?

After dinner we went to a pub for more drinks and the boys in our group made fun of Maren and me for carrying around everything we own. I mean, really, we might NEED a power adapter, clean underwear, or duct tape at any given moment, so we felt it best to bring our bags everywhere. Ha ha. We finished the night with the world's most expensive Jaeger bombs and another round of beers at Loki before crashing. Fun times.