Living in Peru : your everyday companion

By Ruth Holliday
Telegraph.co.uk

At her Spanish school in Cusco, many of the students are hooking up with fellow backpackers, but Ruth Holliday is not too keen - besides, her permanently pink, peeling skin and naff jumpers are perfect for avoiding romance.

It's amazing what an apple crumble can do for international relations. Sitting around the table with my host family in Cusco, Peru, I feel more at home than I'd ever expected. Volunteering to make an English pudding for dinner once a week has, you might say, been an excellent sweetener.

My fellow students at Spanish school are also living with host families around the city and, predictably, the results are mixed. One Scottish woman in her forties is so enamoured with hers that she refers to her hostess as Mama. Meanwhile a young Belgian is so desperately unhappy she arrives for our morning class in tears.

Living in someone else's home is always a potential minefield and, Peruvian hospitality being what it is, I'm expected to behave not just as a lodger but as a full-blown member of the family. My Mama and Papa for the next four weeks are Monica and Rafael - a couple with five years' experience accommodating students from around the world.

At 30 I've had my own home for over a decade. I'm used to setting the house rules myself - so living by those of a relative stranger ought to be a tussle. But falling into line with the routine here is strangely liberating. It's a relief not to be in charge for once.

As my Spanish gradually improves I inevitably make the odd gaff. Like referring to Monica's kitchen as “cochina” (filthy) rather than “cocina” (kitchen). And informing a table full of Spanish speakers that “estoy caliente”. This means not that I'm suffering with the heat - but that I'm randy.

On the subject of randiness, many students at my Spanish school are keen on hooking up with fellow backpackers for a bit of unwashed romance. To me, it doesn't appeal. I'm not ashamed to say that this gap year is all about me. Nevertheless, sleeping in a single bed again is a strange sensation. At night I nod off to the incessant beeping of horns and barking of stray dogs in the street.

Back in Lima my airport transfer driver, Luis, explained that you can drive in Peru without lights, indicators or even brakes, but not without a horn. Cusco's cars bleat out a 24-hour cacophony - but at least they don't snore or pinch the duvet.

Even if I did fancy a fling of some sort, style and sexiness are barely possible here thanks to the climate in the mountains. By day the sun is so fierce that unprotected skin burns in seconds and I have a permanent pink, peeling appearance despite religious use of factor 45. At night, in the early mornings and anywhere out of the sun it's painfully cold.

During lessons students are issued with fleece blankets to ward off hypothermia. Heating doesn't exist here - woolly jumpers are the preferred method of staying warm. So I spend most of my days either swaddled up like a sunburned refugee or layered in dubious-looking cheap alpaca sweaters, complete with llama motifs knitted across the chest.

These ought to be perfect conditions for avoiding romance. "This is a sabatico from hombres," I tell my host family. They just smile - wise to the fact that cupid usually strikes when he's least welcome, and pays little attention to flaky faces or naff sweaters. Who knows, by the time the banoffee pie comes round next week, I may be eating my words.