Day 9 + 10

We got up at six to a ice cold hotel room. At six forty five, we were meeting with a group of people to visit one of the churches in Cusco. After we dragged ourselves down for 'breakfast,' we discovered we got two buns. And this fantastic juice. But after forcing down a bun, we left and headed over to the church.
I have never seen such an extraordinary building before. The sign just inside the door had a comment to tourists not to come in during the service, and I felt kind of guilty doing so, but it was deffs all the teachers. I just followed them.
There was two pieces in the church that really stood out to me, and those were the black Christ, and the Last Supper. The Black Christ has a story behind it:
Supposedly, it was built in Spain, and on a ship to Peru. The Ship began to fill with water, and the sailors tied the Christ to a cross, or the sails on the ship so it would be the last to go underwater. When they did this, it is said that all the water left the ship.
Now, the Last Supper was something we had been told about before we had seen it. It is the traditional depiction of the last supper, however, on the table, they are serving Cuy. Cuy, if you recall from a few posts ago, is guinea pig.

We checked out of the hotel and were on our way to the next ruins just after eight. The Pisac Ruins. This was more than a hike than anything, but it was quite extraordinary to look at. We didn't have a chance to look at the 'honey comb' tombs near the top, but we had some time to explore as far as we did go.
After the Ruins, we went to the Pisac Market. It was not nearly as busy as I expected, and I was pleased to find out we had an extra half hour in the market. I can safely say that I left the market without a single sole in my wallet. I managed to finish my gift list (which almost completely family, or I would have nothing for myself) and got some beautiful pieces for myself. In any case, I am thrilled that I left money at the Casa for after the market.

On the way home from Pisac, we stopped at the school that our global class two years ago built. It is a good feeling to see that the school is actually being used, and it is an example of how our school will be a few days down the road.

Today, instead of a hike as planned, we had a half day of work, and then the agro-tourism. We found out that we will be doing a few more stoves, in Huatata, the village we're building the school in. Last year or the year before, one of the classes did a day in Huatata where they built stoves, and now, there are more people in the village who wish to have one as well. Today they didn't have all the bricks prepared, but tomorrow we'll be working on that. As stoked as I was to build stoves today, I ended up with a job...well, almost as wonderful. I got to stomp mud. It was dirty, and very tiring. Try, Stair master for two hours with weights around your ankles. that is stomping mud. The mud is burro, the cement pasting the school together.

Agro-tourism is really neat. We went around to three families just outside Urubamba and saw their businesses. There was ceramics, honey and chocolate. I held a handful of honey bees. It was a very, very strange sensation. Kinda like it was tingling, with little flutters of air. The ceramics were beautiful but I had to hold myself back as I have already spent near 200 soles on them. and the chocolate was nice. I bought some as a present to someone, and it is just sooo difficult not to eat it myself.