This weekend, the group visited Cuzco on Saturday after running in the morning. Upon arriving, the interns and staff all visited a hostel owned by Tyler’s good friend, Ronny, to watch the World Cup. More specifically, to watch Peru face Denmark in their first appearance in the World Cup since 1982. The game was filled with excitement, as Peru had possession most of the time and took many shots on goal. Denmark proved too good, however, and won 1-0 with a goal in the 59th minute. After the disappointing loss, the group bid Ronny “hasta luego”, and ventured out into Cuzco. After checking out the large San Pedro Market for lunch, everyone walked out to the main square where a gold statue of Pachacutec (the 9th Inca, famous for turning the Incan kingdom of Cuzco into the Incan Empire) stands. Many people were out and about, most of whom were disappointed about the soccer loss. One even somewhat belligerently asked Will if he supported Denmark. After taking pictures, two groups split, one consisting of the interns and the other consisting of the Strive leaders, who had errands to do in the city. Highlights included seeing Coricancha (the ruins of a Spanish church that had collapsed during an earthquake, while the Incan temple underneath stayed intact because of the Incans’ excellent engineering), eating some excellent churros, and visiting the white statue of Jesus overlooking the city of Cuzco on the way back to Pisac.

Sunday was long run day. Everyone ran toward the town of Calca, which is downstream from Pisac. Ever present in the distance was the sight of the snow-capped mountain Pitusiray. Tyler and Calvin ran all the way, around 13 miles. Everyone else hitched a bus in Lamay, about 8.5 miles from Pisac, to meet in Calca. Here, we got some breakfast and packed lunches for the planned waterfall hike near town. It was also the first time some of the interns had seen cooked guinea pig. Around half an hour up, the top of the hike offered serene views and some cooling mist from the falls. While breaking for lunch, a group of middle aged yogis on a retreat came up to talk to us, but, apart from speaking English, it soon became apparent we didn’t have much in common. The rest of Sunday was spent relaxing.

Monday and Tuesday both consisted of service learning and working on poster presentations about Peru. After early morning runs both days, the interns embarked to learn what kind of service is appropriate and what some pitfalls may be. Three main tenets were reached for how to approach service: understanding, communication, and power dynamic. For poster presentations, interns were given one of four topics (Peru’s history pre-1824, Peru’s history 1824-now, Peru’s government, and Peru’s demographics and cultural information), and had to practice presenting to each other and the Strive leaders in preparation for the high schoolers’ arrival after week 5. It’s been an exciting few days in Pisac, with lots more to come.