progress + field trip

before we started digging this morning


after


lovin' life in the hole


put your back into it...


more of our housemates, doing chores


friends of Richard who came by to sell us handmade hats, mittens and other goodies

So, we have decided that Wednesday is officially swimming and shower day. No classes this afternoon, so once we wrapped at the site, had some lunch, and bought a few souvenirs, we were off on a field trip to Pisac where we were told they had a giant swimming pool and hot showers!

The local strike was over, which meant we could catch a transport out of Orquillos then get a bus down at the main road. The transport had an insane amount of people on it and the bus wasn't much better.


As Maren would say, this ain't no school bus


an Olympic-sized pool, just for us!

Upon arrival in Pisac, we discovered that the swimming pool had closed 45 minutes earlier. However, Richard is quite the charmer and convinced the guards to let us swim, so we had the place to ourselves. The water was not much warmer than the Urubamba pool last week, but it was way cleaner AND it had diving platforms. We were of course inspired to race, only to find that racing 50 meters at 9,000 feet is kind of strenuous. We moved into the kiddie pool in hopes that it would be warmer...nope. I gave up and took the longest, hottest shower in the history of bathing. Afterwards we wandered around the hotel surrounding the pool, which was like a creepy magical village in the middle of Peru. Seemed a little out of place honestly.

Swimming made us very hungry and what we really wanted was Pizzawasi. Urubamba was too far away though, so we hunted unsuccessfully around Pisac for ANY pizza before giving up. It was hard to find a restaurant period because a horse show was going on and there were people EVERYWHERE. For some reason, there were two chickens tied way up high on a wire suspended between two phone poles. Not a big fan of this.

We ended up at a random restaurant where we all ordered beer and fried chicken. Everyone was beat, so we grabbed one small cab for the twelve of us back to Orquillos. I had to sit on Ralph's lap in the front seat. I'm pretty sure he can no longer have children. Sorry, dude!


How many volunteers can you cram into one car? Bren, Gillie, and Maren grimace from the backseat