Valley Girls (and Boy)

After our first week of volunteering, we went on a tour of the valley! We took an incredibly bumpy/dusty/Dramamine filled bus ride to our first destination, where we hiked up approximately 1000 stairs and tried really hard not to fall to our deaths. And sure enough, we survived and took pictures.

 

Then we got back in the bus and drove to La Hacienda de Caballos (totally just made that up….but it sounds awesome, right?). After discovering what might be the second grossest bathroom this trip and getting chased by a giant turkey, we picked out our horses.  

 Nate’s horse was quickly dubbed El Jefe, because he insisted on leading the pack. Katy’s horse was a ginger. Because gingers gotta stick together (even though technically Katy is not a real ginger- auburn, people, auburn). Jacqui named her horse Fabrizio, because well, that’s just an awesome name. So El Jefe, Ginger, and Fabrizio took the 3 amigos on an awesome ride through the valley.

I'm on a horse! (insert lonely island tune here)

We arrived at the base of some crazy looking mud mountains where we were told that our “short, easy hike” would begin. So of course that meant for the next hour we bushwhacked through dense underbrush, climbed over giant rocks and through ridiculously tight crevices, and at one point our guide had to use his pick-ax to blaze a trail through the rocks for us.

Like most of the hikes so far this trip, we arrived at the top feeling like exhausted badasses (and then took pictures). We hiked down and rode our horses back, and Nate even got to unleash his inner cowboy by galloping with El Jefe. Sore and incredibly hungry, we stopped at a hatchery for lunch where we looked at amazing ruins and ate the best fish ever. Ever. Seriously. Then we went to watch an elderly woman make incredible silver jewelry buy hand. The set-up process alone takes her two days, then typically one to two days per piece. So naturally, we had to support her business by buying pretty much everything in her store.

Highly technical jewelry making equipment

 Finally, we arrived at our last stop for the day, a store where everything is either woven or knit by hand from alpaca wool. Everything was awesome, so of course we went on another Peruvian shopping spree. And Katy got llama leg warmers and an old man sweater and everyone was super jealous. The end.