Day 4

I've been in Cusco now for 4 days. I've been pretty busy getting used to the city, meeting some cool new people, getting going on my research, and apartment hunting!

The first day we looked at two apartment options. The first was unfurnished, soo undo-able, and the second was more of a mulitple room set than an apartment, the kitchen was on the roof, and she didn't have enough rooms available. The following day we didn't really have any better luck, so we're going to try to look at some more options today. For the mean time, we're staying in the IPA Cusco director's apartment for the next few days (b/c he's on a trip) until we can figure something out. This apartment is really nice, and it has internet. The only down-side is that a crazy cat that is actually kind of demonic lives here too. Last night it somehow turned on the faucet, so I woke up to a some-what flooded bathroom at 6 am. Cool cat.

Work has been going well. We have written and translated our survey, and have gotten a few leads on ways to get in contact with moneylenders. I think we'll start talking to people on Monday.

Highlights thus far. I've met some pretty cool 'gringos' here, and a lot of them are working either in my office or in some type of MFI, so we're all kind of on the same page- which is conforting in a new city. Also, the second day I was here, there was a 'feriado' (holiday) for Corpus Christi. All of the differnt zonas in Cusco have a saint which they paraded from their centros down to the Plaza de Armas in the middle of Cusco. There were TONS of people everywhere. We went up to a 2nd story bar to watch all the commotion from a pick-pocket safe location (see attached photo).

Also, my highlight for today has been finding a place to run. There is this great stadium-like area with a bunch of cement soccer fields, a pool, an indoor basketball arena, and a big track and field. It's only 2 soles (about US$0.70) to use the field, so I went out this morning to check it out. It was nice, breathing was a little tricky, but it was good to get out there and get some endorphines flowing again!

Well thats about it, our landlord came to change our lock this morning because I guess the key to the outside door that everyone in our building has, also opens our apartment door, so he decided that was a bad thing. We're waiting for him to get back, then going into the city to do some apartment shopping/looking around!