Transcript: “Listening Time” Episode 3

Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. I'm Conner from

www.polyglossa.com, and you're listening to episode three 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, this podcast should be
perfect for you. 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. If you, the listener, have topics that you
want me to talk about, well, let me know, leave me a comment
and let me know what topics you're interested in hearing about on
the Listening Time podcast. So, also in this 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 listen 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. Also, remember to check out our
listening practice seminars. They're only $1. So if you want to
train your listening more, you can go to www.polyglossa.com and
sign up for the $1 listening practice seminars there. Okay, let's get
started. 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 gonna 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. Right, 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 "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, 6am 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...
You have to breathe very fast to make sure you don't pass out,
right. If you "pass out" that means you... 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,
right, 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. 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. So,
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, but I just want you to know that there are other
really cool sights 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 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 want to 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 www.polyglossa.com,
and if you need more listening practice, also, you can check out
our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/ 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.