Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
I'm Connor from polyglossa.com and you're listening to Episode 3 of the Listening Time Podcast.
If this is your first time listening, I'd like to welcome you.
You are listening to a podcast that's going to help you practice your English listening.
So this podcast is for English learners who can't yet understand native speech, when people speak at normal speed or in groups of people.
If you can't understand what natives are saying in those situations, but you can already understand a lot of English.
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I made this podcast and I'm doing this podcast to give material for those learners who are too advanced for the very beginning level material, the material that gives you dialogues where the people are reading from a script and they're speaking really slowly and they're not using natural language.
This podcast is not like that.
This podcast is for people that want to listen to authentic English, but English that's a little bit clearer and a little bit slower than real, normal English.
So, in each podcast, I talk about different topics.
I talk about topics that come to my mind throughout the week, or just topics that I feel like talking about, or topics that you suggest.
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On the Listening Time podcast.
I don't read a script, right?
When I make these podcasts, I'm just speaking as the words come to my mind.
So it's natural, authentic English, but just a little bit more.
I speak a little bit more slowly and a little bit more clearly.
And with each podcast episode, you have the transcript available.
So you can read to understand the words that you missed when you listened to me the first time.
So that transcript should be helpful for all of you.
So in this episode, I'm going to talk about my trip to Peru.
So I took a trip to Peru about two and a half years ago and I was thinking about it recently and I thought it would be a good topic to talk about for the podcast.
So we're going to talk about that today.
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Okay, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Alright, so let's get started.
First of all, I want to mention that this podcast episode will not be very informative.
I'm not going to teach you about Peru because, honestly, I don't know that much about the country.
But I'm going to tell you about my experience there.
I'll just tell you a little bit about my trip and the things I saw, the places I went to, etc.
It'll be an interesting topic for you to listen to as you practice your comprehension skills.
So, first of all, I flew from Guadalajara, Mexico to Mexico City.
This was my first leg of the trip.
I didn't fly directly to Peru because I don't think there are any direct flights from Guadalajara to Peru.
There might be, but I don't think so.
I don't think I've seen any.
And so first I went to Mexico City and I actually spent two nights there.
So before my main part of the trip to Peru, I went to Mexico City first, so I could fly from there, and I wanted to take advantage of the time that I was going to spend in Mexico City.
So instead of just having a short layover there, I decided to rent an Airbnb and stay for two nights there.
So I had a good time in Mexico City by myself.
Then, after that, I flew from Mexico City to Lima, Peru.
And I didn't fly alone because my friend actually went with me on the trip.
I guess I should tell you about him now.
He's the one who actually paid for my trip to go to Peru.
He really wanted to go and he wanted to take someone with him who spoke Spanish, because at that time he didn't speak any Spanish, and so he wanted to make the trip a little bit easier for him, and so he knew I spoke Spanish, and so he invited me and he said okay, I'll pay for your tickets if you go with me and take that trip with me.
So I said, of course, I'm going to do that.
So I took him up on his offer and he paid for my tickets and I went with him.
So we flew together from Mexico City.
We met at the airport there and we flew directly to Lima, Peru.
However, we didn't stay in Lima.
Lima was just the stop before our final destination, which was Cusco.
I'm sure some of you already predicted that.
Cusco is the city that most tourists want to go to when they go to Peru because of Machu Picchu.
It's close to that historical archaeological site.
So we didn't get to see Lima.
We just stayed in the airport there.
And then we flew to Cusco.
So when we got to Cusco, we actually didn't take a taxi from the airport to the main city.
Because we thought, hmm, it's early and we have time to kill.
So why don't we just walk from the airport to the city?
It was, I think, 6 a.m.
And we were going to stay in a hostel.
And the hostel didn't let us check in until the afternoon.
So we said, okay, we have no rush, so let's just walk to the city.
So we ignored all the taxi drivers who wanted to take us there and we walked for probably 45 minutes to the city.
It was definitely an interesting experience.
And when we got there we couldn't go to our hostel, of course, because we couldn't check in, and so we decided to just explore the city a little bit and eat a meal and just relax a little bit, because we had traveled a long way.
And so we walked around the city and just sat around in the main square and relaxed a little bit.
The city of Cusco is really nice.
It's really cute, as we would call it.
It's definitely a charming city.
It's a place where you probably want to take some cool pictures on the different street corners and take pictures in the main square.
And it's a nice city overall.
It's definitely a touristic city because people arrive from all over the world to go to Machu Picchu.
So you have many tourists in Cusco year-round, I think.
We went in October, if I'm not mistaken.
And that is not the busiest season.
I think, actually, I don't remember when the busy season is.
But October and November, I think, are the rainy months there.
I could be wrong, but I think I remember that those months were considered rainy months in that part of Peru.
So I think there weren't that many tourists.
Of course, there were a lot.
I think there are always a lot of tourists in Cusco.
But I think that compared to other seasons, other months, there weren't that many.
So it didn't feel too crowded.
But yeah, we enjoyed walking around the city a little bit. and we did some people watching.
In English, when we say the phrase people watching, we mean that you sit down on a bench or somewhere in public and you watch the people that walk by.
You look at them, you observe them, and you just observe your surroundings.
This is something that Americans do when they go to other countries.
And I'm sure that people from all over the world do this same thing.
But maybe in English we use a different phrase than you.
We say to people watch.
So we did some people watching there in the city center in the downtown area.
And it was very funny because the people there, at least in that part of Peru, are pretty short on average.
The people are not very tall.
And so it was funny because I'm pretty tall, i'm about 186 centimeters, i think.
But my friend, he's very tall, so i think he's 203, if i'm not mistaken.
So he's very tall, and so the people there, the locals, they were amazed to see someone that tall in their city.
So on two occasions the locals stopped us and asked us to take a photo with them because they were so amazed about how tall my friend was.
So they literally stopped us and said hey, can we take a photo with you?
And then the different family members took turns taking pictures with my friend, and sometimes with me and my friend.
But it was a funny experience for sure.
So let's talk about Machu Picchu.
This is the main attraction of Peru.
This is the number one site that everyone wants to visit.
And for good reason, because let me tell you, it's unbelievable.
It's an incredible place.
I'm sure that if you've been there before, you would agree with my statement.
It's really cool.
And so, in order to get to Machu Picchu, you first have to take some kind of bus or taxi or something to a train station, and then you get on this train and then it takes you through a really beautiful nature landscape to the base of the mountain where Machu Picchu is.
So after you get off that train, you have to take another bus to get up to the top of the mountain where Machu Picchu is.
So when we got up to the top of the mountain, We realized very quickly that we were very high in the sky.
The altitude was very high there.
I can't remember the exact number but I can tell you for sure that it was high.
And we realized this very quickly because we were short of breath.
When you're short of breath, that means that you're having trouble breathing normally.
You breathe more forcefully.
You have to breathe very fast to make sure you don't pass out.
If you pass out, that means you faint, you lose consciousness, you fall asleep, so to say.
So you have to breathe very fast and you have to take a lot of breaks when you're walking, because it's very difficult for your heart to deal with that altitude.
So it was a challenge for us to walk up and down those stairs at the top of the mountain.
But it was worth it because in a very short time, we had arrived at the viewpoint of Machu Picchu.
And when you first see the view of the ruins, it's like magic.
It's really, really awesome.
You've probably seen pictures of Machu Picchu in books or in magazines or on the internet before.
And so I know I had.
I had seen many pictures before.
So it was so surreal for me to actually be there and to see that view in person.
It was really amazing.
And so I think that we sat down and just looked at the ruins and observed the scenery for a long time.
We probably did that for an hour just looking at the site.
It was so amazing because it's really isolated here.
You don't have a lot of other signs of civilization nearby.
It's at the top of this mountain.
And around you are other mountains and hills and rocks, and there's nothing there.
And so you can understand why this place was hidden from the rest of the world for so long, because it was probably really hard to find it.
It's definitely isolated in the mountains.
But yeah, we walked down and walked through the ruins through the different parts of the city.
And we didn't take a tour.
But we did listen a little bit to the other tours that were around us, because many people were taking tours and we could hear the tour guides talking.
So, even though we didn't pay for a tour, we were still able to listen and learn a lot about the site.
Machu Picchu was definitely the highlight of the trip, of course, but it wasn't the only site that we visited.
We visited probably four or five other archaeological sites as well.
And they were all incredible, really.
But they're not as famous because Machu Picchu is way more famous than every other place there.
So people don't really think about these other cool sites because they're mainly interested in Machu Picchu.
So it's understandable that, But I just want you to know that there are other really cool sites there as well.
So in regards to the food, unfortunately, I didn't go to many good food places to eat.
And that's because my friend is not the type of person who's really interested in trying a bunch of food.
So unfortunately, I didn't try all the foods that I wanted to try.
But I did try guinea pig.
If you don't know what guinea pig is, this is a small animal.
It's a little bigger than a rat.
But it kind of looks like a rat.
It's a pet in many countries.
In the United States, many people have guinea pigs as pets.
But in places like Peru and Ecuador and places like that, people eat guinea pigs.
So I thought it would be cool to try one.
So we went to a restaurant near our hostel and I ate a whole guinea pig.
I can't say that it was delicious.
It definitely wasn't.
But it was interesting.
It wasn't horrible, but it definitely didn't taste like chicken.
It had a distinct flavor to it.
So I don't really know how to describe the flavor exactly, but I recommend you try guinea pig if you ever go to Peru.
It's a fun experience, I think.
And one last thing that's interesting about Cusco and the areas around there with high altitude is that you find and you see these coca leaves everywhere.
Coca leaves are leaves of the coca plant and this is the same plant that is used to make cocaine, i believe and so these leaves are used to help you not get sick from the high altitude.
So people drink coca leaf tea there to help them with their altitude sickness.
So my friend and I drank this tea multiple times every day to help us not feel so bad from the high altitude, because it's easy to feel sick when you're so high up.
So that was a funny thing.
That I remember from there is that we were constantly drinking coca leaf tea.
But coca leaves are illegal in many countries like in the United States.
So that was an experience that I probably won't have again unless I return to Peru.
So hopefully it was interesting for you to hear a little bit about my trip to Peru.
And I know I didn't teach you a lot about the country, but that's okay.
I'm sure you can go there at some point in the future and learn more, or you can just learn online.
And if you really wanna go, then I recommend it.
I highly recommend it.
I think that it's a marvelous place to travel to.
And specifically, Machu Picchu is amazing, of course.
So thank you for listening to episode three of the Listening Time podcast.
And remember to check out our listening practice seminars at polyglossa.com.
And if you need more listening practice also, you can check out our YouTube channel youtubecom slash polyglossa.
And you'll find many listening practice videos on that channel.
So I hope you'll join me next time for episode four of the Listening Time podcast.
