Living in Urubamba

After intense travelling through five different countries in 2 months it was time for me to stop for a while and find something useful to do. I found out about an English teacher training course in a small town called Urubamba and as I always wanted to become an English teacher I decided to give it a go. I’ve been living in Urubamba over a month now and I’m glad that I decided to stay here longer!

Urubamba is a small town in the Sacred Valley about one hour away from the touristic city Cusco. There is only one reason why people travel to Sacred Valley or to Cusco and that’s of course the great Machu Picchu. Even though this famous City of the Incas is just couple towns away where I live, I still haven’t had a chance to visit it. Urubamba again doesn’t really offer anything interesting for tourists but as a place to live it’s great. 

(The main plaza and a local transport)

At first I was quite suspicious about this little town and I was thinking how the hell can I live here and actually enjoy it. During my first days I was talking to expats who live here and they all seemed to love this place so I was thinking that there has to be something about this place. And actually the longer I’ve lived here, the more I’ve started to like this place! 

The town is so small that you can walk from one end to another in about half an hour and whenever you walk on the streets you can’t avoid bumping into someone you know. There are no big supermarkets in the whole town so all the grocery shopping happens in the markets. The main market day is Wednesday when the streets are full of hustle and bustle and you can buy almost everything you need ridiculously cheap. 

(My room)

I live together with another teacher trainee from England and we live in a big local house near the main plaza. The house belongs to our school’s landlord and it’s a bit old and dusty but it’s fully furnished and spacious so we are happy to live there. We also have a big kitchen so we cook food every day with the fresh ingredients from the market. The only down side of this house is that the landlord’s brother visits the house sometimes with his wife but this old couple has been lovely to us preparing us porridge in the mornings and making us feel like we have our grandparents visiting us. The landlord has been friendly to us too and one day he took as on a day trip with his car to see some nearby attractions.  Otherwise we spend our freetime dancing salsa, hiking on the mountains or having couple of drinks with our local friends. The life here is very tranquil. :) 

(Me and my roomie Jenny)

(Our landlord and his lovely old car)