I found internet access outside next to the cactus.

Peru gets cooler the more I get to know her (Obviously Peru is female). I woke up early this morning to the sound of my poor roommate throwing up. By the sounds I heard I thought she was running a bath. I sat outside with a cup of coffee and watched the fog lift from the mountaintops while jotting a few goals down in my journal.

Goal #1: Make a 4.0
Goal #2: Leave this place not feeling like a tourist.
ect.

(I tried to upload some pictures here but the connection just wouldn't allow it)

Yesterday we had an assignment to make a dish out of an assigned food. My group of 3 got the pepper. We walked down the stone road to the plaza and attempted to find the market on our own to no avail. Finally we asked an older woman wearing a tan top hat who was selling peanuts from the sidewalk where the market was. She pointed, and we bought a bag of red peanuts.

6 chili peppers, 7 carrots, 2 onions, 3 eggs, two handfuls of peas, a bag of flour=4 soles. $1.30

When we got back our director was a little disappointed that we let the women in the market take advantage of us like that. We should have gotten a much better deal on those eggs.

Our dish was a disaster of course, but that is beside the point.

It is interesting to see the differences of standards between Peru and the US as far as sanitation goes. The market was absolutely beautiful with carts full of brightly colored fruit whose names I could not pronounce, and piles of potatoes as tall as the stalky women who sell them. But the meat. The meat for sale is literally half of an animal hanging from a hook and covered in flies in which the men chop off the requested amount and toss into a plastic bag. It looks like its been there for days. My friends and I couldn't stop staring at the blood drip to the floor as a man sawed at a piece of beef to sell. We gagged and moved on to the veggies.

But the chicken for dinner tonight was delicious.