the past few weeks

I don't even know where to start. Since I got home from the Inca Trail the time has gone by soooo fast!! We got back on a Sunday night, I had a shower and was in bed SO fast, probably the best sleep I've had since I've been here! That week was a pretty standard week with the project and Spanish lessons. The 21st of March all the volunteers from my project (3 of us in the morning and 2 in the afternoon) went on a day hike with some of the older boys from the community. We started at 4:30 IN THE MORNING yeah I am serious. Well we probably started walking at about 5 because then there was a little bit of light to see by.. We hiked from about 3600 m above sea (where Cusco is ) to about 4800 m. We took a back way where there wasn't really a trail... so also that meant no tourists! It was free too which was sweet. We hiked for about 8 hours and ended up at Huchuy Qosqo which is Quechua for 'little Cusco', some ruins that are about 5 kilometres above a little town called Lamay in the Urubamba valley. It was a very long hike down to the town, we got to Lamay at about 3 o'clock and caught an hour long bus back to Cusco. As soon as I got home I CRASHED and tried to get in as much sleep as possible because alas it obviously was the same night as the TEFL graduation party at Maximo. Holy I don't know if I've ever been so tired in my life. A few hours before we left I honestly just laid on the floor with my leg up on the wall HAHA it was great. We headed out to Maximo to see Kareema, Sonja and Jay (from the house) graduate! (Also there was free drinks...) It was a very fun night as EVERYONE went. The next Sunday we headed to Jack's for some western food lunch where I ate the best BLT ever. Too bad it wasn't a BLCheese that would have been so perfect. Last week at the project was a busy one as 9 of the kids, one other volunteer, and the director of the project were heading to Lima on Wednesday for first international Futbol Calle Festivale, basically a conference for organizations similar to the one I am working with from all over Peru. They are there from Wednesday the 25 until this evening. So for the past three days Phil and I have been holding down the fort at the project, Friday was crazy, like every single kid came, it was really good though. They had so much energy at the end of the day still we honestly had them running races back and forth. 

Yesterday Holly Mike Elaina and I headed out to Ollantaytambo, we met Kareema and some other English teachers out there. We had some hot chocolate and decided to climb the free ruins to have a fabulous view of the pay-for-entry ruins. It was great. We were basically the only ones up there, and someone even had an iPod with speakers and EVERYTHING it was sweet we just hung out up there for a while. It is a super cute town with really nice places to eat and little cobblestone streets. We had a good view of the town from up there too and got to explore the ruins on our own. We headed down after the sun set due to the fact it was getting dark and we did not want to be stranded up there in the dark. We caught a bus back to Cusco that ended up going to Cusco via Pisac (which is not on the way) so it took a little longer than expected, but we made it!! Plans for Lake Titicaca next weekend and Nasca the week after that! ALSO the Village People are coming to Cusco... might have to go to that for s/20 tickets?!?!