on to Cusco! the naval of the world!

ok, brief rundown of our time in Cabana leading up to now:
*helping out in English classes
*exploring the hidden trails and getting to know all of the various thorny plants(and their fruits!) in the rich valley and steep rocky hills
*the hope of our stomachs shrinking so we would eat less and maybe shed a few Chilean bread pounds has been dashed...peruvian food is delicious and almost always has an enormous base of rice or potatoes.
*bonfire with hotdogs, stagazing, and guitar on a ridge overlooking the valley
*sunrise from the same ridge a few days later
*peruvian cooking lessons. i can now cook pollo estufado
*22 people in a 15 passenger combi from Cabana to Puquio, which took 4 hours but with a lot of time wasted with conversations like:
-hey i paid for my ticket
-well i have a baby
-well i want a window seat
-well i paid my 12 soles
-but i have a baby
-hey i bought htis yesterday and it says seat 3
-well mine says 3 too
-look i´ve got a baby and i need to sit here
-i bought this in Cabana
-they shouldnt have sold yuo that ticket
-well what am i supposed to do, i´ve got this baby
and so on and so forth
*11 hours in the somewhat affectionately named "pee pee bus" which smelled slightly of llama from Puquio to Cusco, arriving this morning
* settled for a nice hostal in the touristy part of town, dspite our usual tendenies to stay as far off the beaten track as possible. but its really cute, relatively cheap, has a kitchen where we can cook, really big really friendly dogs, and lots of Chilean guests(i could tell as soon as i heard them speak!) that we hope to make friend with.right now we´re just a little weirded out by the touristy-ness but understand that its just where we need to be since we have no friends or connections here and venturing awayfrom it could be dangerous...which sucks. but i know there´s a reason we´re here. im not sure what it is yet, but there is someone we´re supposed to meet, some conversation we´re supposed to have, some realization that is to take place and all of these little peices like our red room at the tippy top of the sunny yellow hostal, taxi drivers, camping arrangements and many other things that we can´t possibly forsee. so for now it´s just down to feeling out the "onda" (wavelength, feel) of this new place, living life, finding the life here that made the Incas consider this city the naval of th world. and most importantly, listening.
chau for now!