On Mountains, New homes, and Arachnophobia 

september 9

Tomorrow, we move to Urubamba! In qechua, the native language of the incas, urubamba means "flat land of spiders." In english, flat land of spiders means I will be freaked out for the next nine months.

UPDATE: We are in Urubamaba-- WAY WORTH THE EIGHT LEGGED VENOM DRIPPING HORRORS! The natural beauty is overwhelming. It truly tanscends description, so have a photo. Or two. Or six.

 My new house

 My beautiful new room (now much messier)

  nice little hike (featured in this photo is chong)

 Urubamba. Where i get to live. For nine months. :-)

 At the top of the aforementioned hike

 The mountains surround us (like the spiders, I fear). I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska with mountains permanently guarding the east. The mountains of Urubamba are alien in appearence, but they comfort me like the mountains back home. The predominant color here is brown. There are the dark earthy browns of the mountains, the light dusty browns of the roads, and the newly deposited browns on all the clothing that i wore to explore a little rocky concavity on the side of a hill. I'm told that the browns fade into green during the rainy season, which is expected to start around november (frequent readers will recall my policy on fact checking)

The biggest news in Urubamba is my host family! Yesterday I moved in to the sweetest, most patient, most accommodating household imaginable. The house has an interior courtyard, surrounded by two stories of rooms. Most of the bottom rooms house a kindergarten that conveniently starts just as i wake up in the morning (no sarcasm here, the excited squeals of little kids are oddly well timed) My room has two beds, several windows, and a thoughtful welcome sign. My new family has an unbelievably patient mother who puts up with my ongoing desecration of the spanish language. It also has the world's second cutest little girl—and the first! I haven't decided which is which yet. Tonight we played a game that seemed to involve my being poked repeatedly with a bubble wand before turning into a dinasuar and chasing them around. At least I hope it was a game - the spanish was way over my head and i may have just terrified two little girls. Regardless, they seemed to forgive me before bedtime, when Claire Anna refused to sleep until showing me her homework, complete with many english words. I have a sneaking suspicion that her enlish surpasses my spanish.

In the next few weeks, I'll establish my routine and really settle into life in Urubamba. From everything I've seen so far, I have an incredible nine months in front of me.