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.

Drinking in Peru

Now I have to admit that I was slightly worried that our liquor induced alter-egos might have to take a rest while in Peru, but lucky for us, the peruvians can put it away. The beer here is awesome and tastes mildly like bud light but it is called crystal so we can all feel like rap stars.

 Katy and I tried the wine but it tasted like insta-hangover so we decided to steer clear.

We learned the traditional Peruvian drinking customs at a festival at Netto's mom's village. You can only drink with your right hand, pour with your left, you have to say salud before you drink, and everyone uses the same glass (because alcohol kills the germs). It is also bad manners to finish one bottle without pouring at least some of the next bottle into your glass. Which means you can never stop drinking ...

Netto's family really liked Jacqui...

Peruvian's also love to drink and sing karaoke...or maybe its just our host family, either way its awsomely fun belting out 80s songs to people who don't understand the lyrics. It is also necessary to imbibe the local bebidas in order to not be rude. Our mothers taught us well, we wouldn't want to offend anyone.

Katy and Jacqui are big fans of Pisco Sours which is a local drink that includes egg whites to make it frothy and other deliciousness. They are relatively expensive (as in 7 whole soles for a big one) but worth every penny. Probably they should be available at Thirsty Bear soon.

Oh yeah why we came...to Volunteer!

First off, we want to apologize in advance for the many, many grammatical errors likely to plague this blog post. We are currently getting used to trying to translate everything we want to say into simple Spanish sentences, that when we translate back to English it sounds like we are in 1st grade. Hmm, that sentence may have just proved my point. Shoot.

Anyway, after spending our first full day in Huancayo getting acclimated (read: being lazy), Nate and Katy decided to tag along with a few of the medical students also working with Carisma Peru to start our volunteer work at the medical center. Medical centers throughout the city (and maybe throughout the country…there was a lot of incredibly fast Spanish happening) are currently running a campaign to get all children under the age of five vaccinated against polio, “sarampion” (similar to our MMR shot in the U.S), and some other diseases (sorry, more Spanish words that Katy did not understand). Nate and Katy were pretty excited to learn to give vaccinations, until they discovered that the children scream, cry and buck like tiny little broncos during their shots, then look at you like you murdered their puppy when it’s all over. So anyway, Katy and Nate spent their first two mornings walking from house to house practicing their Spanish (“¿Hay niños que tienen menos de cinco años aqui?”) and stabbing small children with needles. But, it was still semi-awesome to learn the right way to stab needles into children.

 

Meanwhile Jacqui went off to help at a Center for Worker kids. While not quite as exciting as stabbing children, she is pretty sure she messed up some basic math trying to teach it in spanish. Even teaching english, which you would think would be pretty easy, proved to be a challenge. The kids were adorable however and very friendly despite not understanding a word she was saying. She did find the peruvian child she plans to adopt. Despite being a tiny terrorist, Jacqui thinks he has some serious potential...

La Selva Dia Dos

As the jungle is probably one of the more adventurous trips we're going to do here, we think it warrants two posts. The second day we visited more of the lovely water features of Peru. A beautiful waterfall that I have no idea what the name is but you have to pay to use the bathroom....

This last picture is of all of us after we convinced Katy to climb on top of the waterfall with us...lots of convincing :)

We also visited a native Peruvian reservation where we got to dress up in awesome costumes and dance around with people who came up to our (well specifically Jacqui's) belly button. The best part was we got to meet one man's pet mochiterro. Probably the cutest animal currently in existence. Unfortunately our camera's were dead at this point so this experience will only live on in our memories...

La Selva Dia Uno

Back in the van, Katy and I were just about ready to ralph out the window when we finally arrived in Merced two hours later. When you see how awesomely sleep deprived we look in our pictures don't judge, we had been in a constantly lurching vehicle for about 16 of the last 20 hours
.
Merced is actually a pretty big city for being in what seems like the middle of nowhere.  We bought marshmallows, a box of Peruvian “chocolate” and what we thought were graham crackers for a bonfire where we were staying that night. 8 soles (about $2.50) for 10 chocolate bars…we should have known! And the graham crackers weren’t very graham-y so we just stuck with the marshmallows and decided we should probably learn some Spanish soon…we didn't take any pictures of Merced womp womp

After sleeping like freaking rockstars we woke up the next morning and took “showers” (read dripping water) and headed off to breakfast and then the animal rescue. Everyone (including serpentineaphobic Katy) held an anaconda and admired all the crazy plants and butterflies (see pictures).

Meeting Spiderman
After the animal rescue we met our not-difficult-to-look-at guide, Yordin...

and crossed a crazy bridge to go on a tour of the JUNGLE!

 Yordin only spoke Spanish and despite our intention of learning Spanish in our sleep, we understood only about every third word he said (is anyone noticing a pattern here). Through hand motions and lots of smiling and nodding we learned about lots of indigenous plants, ate a tangerine-orange combo strait from the tree and oh yeah climbed about 8 waterfalls. 

Nate on a Peruvian "water slide"

Guess which one we took?

 That night despite being more than slightly exhausted, we went to a discotecha where Nate got his groove on with some sexy peruvians...I think somebody took pictures and I will add them when I find them. We also sampled the local bebida called pisco sours which has egg whites in it to make it frothy. que deliciouso!

More soon!

Guagapo: The Crying/Never-Ending Cave

So approximately 2 hours after arriving in Huancayo, we convinced ourselves that we could totally make what Eli and Netto assured us would only be a 5 hour, strait forward, ride to the jungle. We would go up the mountain and down the mountain and we would be there. Piece of cake. Funny thing about Peruvians, they seem to have their own space-time continuum, and after about 4 hours we made it about half way to the "Never-ending cave" (end of ranting-promise)


The Never-Ending Cave
Something you should know about the three of us, we don't really speak Spanish. Meaning that we definitely don't understand the very rapidly speaking tour guides so far on this trip. So naturally we followed one into a cave that never ends. I'm pretty sure she said that it had been explored for 2000 meters before it goes underwater and even then forks off into thousands of different caves. Possibly she was talking about rocks shaped like tennis shoes, I guess we'll never know

This is Netto! Our Peruvian padre

The really uplifting local legend behind the cave is that when the people went to war with the Inca, they put all the old people, women and children in the cave to avoid a massacre. The families waited for the return of the warriors for a long time, but the Incas were too strong and the men never returned. The women mourned their deaths and, out of fear, never left the cave, becoming transformed into rock after many years. The legend says that the tears of the starving children are what created the river that runs through the cave and makes the valley fertile today.Like I said, uplifting right? Or maybe I totally misunderstood and the legend is about llamas...we'll never know
see below for more Katy-is-a-badass pictures

Travelin’ time! The crew on their way to PERU!

After a morning that can only be described as a clusterf@%#, we were finally off to Peru! Nate woke up in time, Jacqui remembered her PIN number, and Katy didn’t claw anyone’s faces off in a fit of hunger-induced rage. So really, it was a very successful start to our travels.



After approximately a gazillion hours of traveling, we arrived in Lima! And our gazillion bags arrived too!

This is not a blog about how to pack light...

Henry, our driver, picked us up at the airport and drove us to the hostel in Lima, Magdelen House. As he began speaking in rapid, incomprehensible Spanish, we realized that we should have studied Spanish way more before leaving the states (oops). We managed to communicate enough to find out that our bus to Huancayo left the next day at 11 pm, and that he would pick us up for said bus at 10 pm. Success! We arrived at the hostel, which was much nicer than we had thought it might be (especially because Katy was having paranoid thoughts that it might be a mattress in a dungeon). We climbed 6 flights of stairs to our room for the night. The three of us shared a cozy (read: tiny) room with our own bathroom, and somehow we managed to fit ourselves and our luggage inside. We promptly passed out, Jax and Nate opting for their sleeping bags on top of their beds, and Katy constructing a cocoon out of her Craig Hospital picnic blanket.
We woke up really late on day 2, and decided to spend the day exploring Lima.


After talking to Jim, the helpful (read: pretty creepy) expatriate residing at the hostel, we decided to be super tourist-y and visit the Plaza de Armas in Lima. We took a taxi across town, where we discovered that A) Lima looks way less sketchy during the day B) Taxi drivers in Lima are CRAZY. Or rather, driving in Lima in general is crazy. It’s a lot like driving in New York, except with even more honking and no traffic lights or signs. We made it to the plaza alive, where we saw the Government Palace, the Cathedral of Lima, and a really big fountain.

We then went in search of our first authentic Peruvian meal. After an impressive sales pitch by a Peruvian waiter in the street, we decided to visit his restaurant for lunch. It was delicious, and Katy’s new Peruvian boyfriend(s) charmed her with his ability to make roses out of napkins.

After lunch, we walked around downtown Lima and checked out the shops and the massive amount of pigeons. Jacqui was especially excited about all the pigeons.

The Catedral de San Fransisco

No that's not a black and yellow striped building

We went to the Catedral de San Francisco Catacombs, where we decided it would be a really good idea to take the tour in Spanish. So basically, we had no idea what our tour guide was talking about most of the tour and we just walked around sneaking pictures despite the “No Fotos” signs.

 Underneath the cathedral, there is an underground city, “las catacumbas,” where 25,000 people were buried. And I sayinstead of “are buried” because archaeologists thought it would be a good idea to dig up all the bodies and separate them by type of bone. We walked by huge piles of human bones- skulls, femurs, scapulas- it was very organized and very creepy.

femurs and skulls

 Still, we got to pretend to be Indiana Jones for a few minutes, and it was pretty awesome. After the Catacombs, we took a taxi back to the hostel and decided to walk to the beach. But because we are really directionally challenged and it was starting to get dark, we gave up and just decided to check out the street markets nearby. We ate dinner at a small restaurant after a rave review by a random woman in the street (“¡Comida muy rica!)- she was right, it was muy delicioso. After dinner, we headed back to the hostel, packed up, and waited for Henry to take us to the bus station. We started panicking when it was 10:30 and Henry had still not arrived to pick us up, and tried talking to a hostel employee in Spanish about our predicament. There was a lot of confusion and pointing at the clock before we realized that we had accidentally set our watches an hour late for the duration of our stay in Lima, and it was actually 9:30, not 10:30. Americanos estupidos. We can’t even blame the language barrier for that one. Henry picked us up right on time, early in fact, and we made it to the bus station with plenty of time to prepare for the 8-hour ride to Huancayo.