Anyone who knows my (Janie) morning routine, knows that I love my coffee.  Seriously, it’s what I go to right after waking up.  Well, not so here in Peru.  Actually, since we arrived on Tuesday, I hadn’t had a real cup of coffee.  I say real because I did try to buy some in a little store the other morning and they gave me a hot cup of water and then some thick liquid coffee…don’t really know what it was.  I asked a fellow gringo who has been here longer and he said that the Peruvians actually prefer instant coffee to brewed.  So in almost every store, that is what you’re going to get.  Well…I woke up this morning and I really wanted some good, brewed coffee.  We’re living in the Santiago district of Cuzco, which is mainly a neighborhood but there are a few stores here and there.  No luck in either of the stores on our street  I came back to the clinic bummed that yet again, I would not be having my coffee and ran into Paulina to explain to her what I had been looking for.  She then pulled out a treasure – a coffee maker (the old school kind).  And she had a tiny bit of coffee too!  So now, all I needed was some milk.  I returned to one of the stores on our street and bought “Leche evaporada” (evaporated milk)…which I tasted alone and it was disgusting, but I thought hey, maybe it will be better in coffee.  Once I got upstairs I realized there were no matches to start the stove…so I went searching and found some on another floor of the clinic.  Finally, I was ready.

Excitedly awaiting my coffee!

So, here’s the scoop – after about 45 minutes of running around, I was able to make my first cup of coffee in Peru!  It was much better than the instant that I have had so far but one thing I learned – bottled water is a must (instead of the tap water that I used today).

mmmmmmmmmmm . . .

On another note, I promised Kenzo that I would blog about the hellacious showers that I have had so far.  They’ve been ICE cold!!  Seriously.  I mean, I’ve taken cold showers before, but not like this.  Yesterday at lunch I made a joke about how cold they were and Paulina informed us that they’re not supposed to be cold.  She had Francisco work on the shower yesterday afternoon and it was supposedly going to be “hot” for us last night.  I went first and it never got hot for me.  I think I was back in our room in about 4 minutes, shivering and purple.  Kenzo then went and came back reporting that it was almost “too hot”.  We’ll give it another try this evening.

Kenzo snapped a photo of me trying to get warm immediately after my first ice cold shower.

Anyway, so far life in Cuzco is adventurous.  One thing that I really miss is salad and other fresh foods, but maybe when we live with a family they’ll have that (?)  Our days have been spent walking around the city trying to figure out where everything is (as well as find a family to live with).  We begin volunteering on Monday.  We’ll definitely keep you updated!  Happy Friday!