Gotta Catch Up

Thanks to those people who have been harassing me for not writing in this for so long, I’m not sure whether I would have ever gotten around to it. So obviously a lot has happened since the last time I wrote…about a month and a weeks worth of stuff. So unfortunately I think I will only write about bigger things I’ve done.

Birthday and Puno

The weekend of my birthday was ridiculous. It was my birthday as well as Zach’s (another volunteer) on the 7th of February. So we celebrated it by going out everyday that weekend. The nightlife in Cusco is fun; there are some really great bars here as well as some very local and western clubs. On my actual birthday we were all suffering the after effects of the past 2 days but the house was looking forward to Superbowl Sunday… I, however, actually had a reason to be excited since I was leaving for Puno. I left the house that night to meet up with a friend of mine who is also a volunteer, Alex, at the bus terminal. The bus ride was 7 hours (which unfortunately I couldn’t fall asleep on). So needless to say, when we arrived at 5 o’clock in the morning the next day I was a little out of it and very much sleep deprived. We took a bike taxi into town to look for some breakfast. It was hilarious, I felt really bad for the guy on the bike, since it was 2 people with 2 bags… pretty hard for the guy. We had a good laugh watching people walking beside us going faster than we were. Anyway we ended up getting into the town center. There were chairs being set up all along the sides of the road for Carnival. After eating breakfast we went to the port, got boat tickets, and then headed off to Los Uros, the famous floating islands of Peru. It was amazing to see. We were given a presentation on how they created the islands. We were told that they have to add to the island every 15 days because it slowly gets washed away. After that we were off to Amantani, the island we were staying on. The place was beautiful, and the house we were staying was a lot nicer than we expected. In the end we stayed one night extra on Amantani, which I’m happy about because on the second night we got to witness one of the most amazing lightning storms I’ve ever seen. Anyway on the second day we walked to the top of Amantani, because once you get there there are two separate mountain tops, and on each there’s an archeological site. Pachatata and Pachamama. There were some spectacular views at the top, and on the way up there were these amazing stone archways. All of which were built by the Incas. The next morning we were off the Taquile, probably my favourite island out of the three. It was BEAUTIFUL! We had to walk up this long, long walkway to get to the Plaza at the top of the island. When there I had an amazing lunch, in one of the only places to eat (with only one meal on the menu). We saw more of the island and then had to walk down the opposite side of the island to get back to the boat. To get down to the boat there was this ridiculous set of stairs that went on forever. By the time I was down my legs were shaking like crazy!! We were then on the boat for about 3 or 4 hours to get back to Puno. Our bus ride back to Cusco was not until much later that night so we had a lot of time to kill. We sat in this popular square where all the young people around were spraying each other with this foam stuff to celebrate Carnival. After a guy tried to steal my stuff we decided to move locations and we ended up watching the Carnival parade for a while. It was fabulous, the costumes and outfits were spectacular! Sadly we had to tear ourselves away from the parade to get on the bus back home.

Carnival

The 14th of February here is not a lame Hallmark holiday like it is back home, here it is Carnival, Where there are so many celebrations going on all over Cusco with music, fireworks, drinking, dancing…and did I mention drinking? I was invited to go up to Huayllarccocha (where I volunteer) for a very traditional version of Carnival. Unfortunately I was VERY sick, and any kind of illness here is multiplied by 100% because of the altitude. So I had been sick for 3 weeks already by that time…not fun. Anyway, as planned, in the morning I went up to Huayllarccocha. Carnival up there was probably one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Everyone was dressed in very traditional clothing, men in colourful ponchos and women in amazingly colourful dresses. Before actually starting the festivities they have a tradition of painting each other’s faces with one colour of powder paint. (It was pinky purple, I don’t know whether it’s always that colour) Usually someone from the opposite sex will put the paint on you. So after that was done we were ready to start walking. So let me try and describe what it looked like. Many people were wearing hats with blown up balloons on them (that is also a very important traditional part of the outfits…I don’t know why though). Many people were carrying flags, the Peruvian flag and the Cusco flag and some men were carrying shovels. Everyone in the community partook (and as extras there were a couple of us gringos). Now the cherry on the cake was that there was a band that came along as well, men carrying huge instruments. So we all set off walking, flags were waving and the band was playing. Eventually after walking along the road for a couple minutes they turned off the road and everyone started running down the side of a mountain. I mean everyone, men, women, old, young, the band with their instruments, and us gringos. When we got to flat land everyone was still running, but now there were streams that they were jumping over. When we got to the first stop the band started playing again and these 5 men in skirts holding white flags started doing a dance. And within a minute or two the walking continued. We started walking up the mountains, with different stopping points. At these points different things would happen, the men would dance, the band would play, people would eat and drink and at a few spots men that were carrying shovels would dig around stone piles. It was amazing to experience, even though I only got to experience it for a short while since I was so sick. So after a couple hours I turned back, walked back down the mountain and went home. The group continued running over many, many mountains I learned later, and ended in one spot where everyone drank and danced. It was cut a little short, however, because there was huge rainstorm. That night there were some amazing fireworks going off all over the city. It was a pretty spectacular day!

Ica and Lima trip

I left for Ica and Huacachina to do something different for Alex’s last week in Peru. We went there by bus, which on the way there was 22 hours on two different busses. NOT FUN. I’m usually pretty good with busses, but this one was swerving all the time and made me feel very sick. Which also meant that I didn’t really eat anything for the 22 hours because I was scared I was going to throw up. Fun times. Anyway we got to Ica and took a cab to Huacachina (which takes all of about 5 minutes). When there we found a cheap hostel that was actually really nice. They had hammocks!!! :) Huacachina is a TINY town…I’m not sure whether you can even call it a town it’s that small. So you are in the middle of a dessert, with crazy big sand dunes everywhere. And in the middle of these sand dunes there is a natural oasis. That’s what Huacachina is, some restaurants and hostels surrounding the oasis. It takes less than 10 minutes to walk around the whole of it. People swim in the oasis and during the day they use paddleboats and things like it. Apparently at one point there were 7 of these oases all over that area, but now there is only the one left. It’s a really lovely place, very surreal. At night it’s just as pretty because there are lamps around the oasis that are lit up. That night we had dinner and drank some wine by the water, which meant I was hung-over in the morning. What did we decide was the best cure for the hangover? To go to three wineries in one afternoon! It was actually a lot of fun. The first we went to is the biggest wine producers in Peru, Tamaca. We were given a tour of the grounds and got to see the original instrument that they used to crush the grapes. It was this huge wooden effort. The wine was really good; however, they also make Pisco, a very common Peruvian drink, which I don’t like on its own. After Tamaca there were two other smaller wineries, and then we went to this weird museum and a sacred Incan site. The site was cool to see because it consisted of these trees where their trunks grew along the ground and were very long and twisty. Ha- that’s the only way I can describe them. But it was scared to the Incans because they believed that they made the shape of a monkey and butterfly. That night when it was really dark we decided to climb up the sand dunes. We climbed up high enough that we could see both Huacachina and Ica and the same time. The best part was running back down though. It was ridiculous how much speed you worked up without really doing anything…and stopping was the hard part. The next afternoon we went sand boarding, the reason that most people go to Huacachina. You drive on to the dunes in these crazy sand buggies. The driving around was really fun in itself, there are a lot of times where you are going straight and then suddenly you are going down a really steep dune. Because the colour of the sand is all the same you cant see when there is a drop coming up. It was hilarious, there was a group of women behind us and they were screaming all the time. And I found out that they use the word Wednesday as a swear word. So at some points you could hear one woman behind us screaming “Miercoles!” We started on the boards on smaller dunes; I went down on my stomach…there was no way I was going to try standing up. Horrible balance+ watching others try and wipe-out really badly= Not in my lifetime. But it was so much fun, you went faster on your stomach but you had more control. After everyone got to practice on the smaller dunes they took us to these MASSIVE ones. I don’t know how tall they were, but the people at the bottom looked like little dolls. Not good when you are afraid of heights!! I started freaking out, but the guide we were with wouldn’t let me not go down, so down I went. It was crazy fun. After going down the first huge one there were 2 others for us to walk to and go down. The next one wasn’t as large… but big enough for me to get scared. And the final one was a monster. There were many people at the top just sitting there looking at what they were about to do. Alex threw himself off the top almost right away, and I don’t think I saw anyone else go that fast. There was a guy there with me watching Alex go down as well. He was the next to go, once at the bottom they just sat there waiting for me to come down. I could NOT convince myself to go down, I think, all in all, I was up there for at least 20-25 minutes. Then a friend of the guy who was with Alex and I came and convinced me to walk even higher up the dune. Which meant the trip down would be longer but not as steep. So eventually I was at the very top of the dune and went down. Fantastic and fantastically scary! After going down the third and final dune everyone had to walk back to the cars. On our way back it was even better in the buggie because by this time it was dark and so you really couldn’t see what lay ahead of you. So there were a lot more sudden drops and a lot more screams from the back.
The next day we traveled to Lima and stayed in the historical district in this wonderful hotel. It was beautiful and strange. It was filled with a large collection of completely different things. It had sculptures and paintings everywhere. Every morning the people that worked there would bring out two parrots that would just hang out on some sculptures and eat sunflower seeds. As well as they had two tortoises that roamed freely. We didn’t do all that much in Lima roamed around a bunch and saw a movie in Spanish. Lima is really, really busy! The streets are a little intimidating when trying to cross the roads. No one walks across the roads in Lima, everyone runs, otherwise you get run down. On the bus ride back to Cusco I was by myself since Alex was getting his flight to Columbia from Lima. The ride was very beautiful because they were taking the back roads because of all the rain Peru has received the regular route had been destroyed. It was very beautiful, but very long. It ended up being 23.5 hours on the bus and 3 hours waiting for it to come in the first place. But eventually I was back home.

First Day of Sites

Qoricancha/ Qorikancha

Qoricancha are some old Inca ruins that are in the city center. They were originally called Inti Kancha which means “temple of the sun” and is what a lot of gringos call it. It use to be the richest temple in the Inca empire. Apparently the temple use to be covered with gold, the walls were even lined with it. But as we all know, that didn’t last after the conquistadors came, all the gold was looted and melted down. Anyway when you walk in you come to a big courtyard which is absolutely beautiful! Lucky for us, as soon as we stepped into the confines of the building it started raining like crazy!! It started hailing as well, the weather went a little crazy that day. The building is connected to a garden outside that is really lovely, unfortunately we walked it in the rain, but it was worth it. There is something sort of eerie about the site because there is a big mix between Inca and colonial architecture as well as completely different gods and beliefs. You walk in to one hall and all the paintings and sculptures are about the church, and then you walk to a different area a couple meters away and its about the sun or thunder, which were honored by the Incas.

Moray

Moray is a site outside of Cuzco, 42 miles outside of it. It seems like its in the middle of nowhere. When you step out of the car into the parking area you can’t even see where you are about to go. Its in a very steep valley surrounded by mountains. When you walk closer to trail you see Moray. When you look down there are many circular terraces each with a different micro-climate. It is believed that they were used for experimental farming, mostly with corn. To get down to the bottom you have to walk down a steep slope and then use the stairs the Incas used. Now each terrace is about a meter and a half or so away from the next one below it, and the stairs are about 3 rocks sticking out from the side. It’s hard to explain them, and I for sure am not doing them justice. So hopefully you will be able to see what I’m talking about with pictures. So the other guys went ahead of me and started making their way down the steep steps. And of course I was the idiot that decided to look down (when being afraid of heights…sometimes…usually when most inconvenient) It was crazy steep and all I could think of was that the little rocks sticking out that we had to walk on were going to break and I was going to fall. And of course during times like that you can’t possibly convince yourself that they had been around for so many years and every other tourist there was doing the same thing…geez. So what did I do? Well after having a good freak out and plastering my back against the first terrace, I had to go down on my bum the whole way. Convenient? No. Dirty? Yes. And by the time I had actually finished my freak out my friends were already down there. But once you’re down there it’s amazing. The place is huge and so well designed. We were all convinced that it would be a superb place to have a concert because the sound traveled so far. After taking pictures from the bottom we had the job of getting back up. It was pretty tough and two days after my legs were still hurting.

You can see in this picture how many terraces there were...a lot

These are the stairs I was talking about! At this point I´m still at the top...and about to freak out :) Good times

Salineras

After moray we went to this site called Salineras which is a site built by the Incas as a natural way to collect salt water to get salt. We drove there in a small car and the driver didn't really slow down around the corners. It was crazy, we were literally about a foot away from a sheer drop. The site is HUGE! Unfortunately for us we went a day after it rained, so instead of the areas looking like crystals they were kind of brown, but impressive nonetheless. As you get closer to them you can see each individual pool and the salt build ups on the side where the water evaporates and leaves the white salt. It was pretty amazing to see.

First Day at Huayllarccocha

On Sunday I was picked up from Inkarri and taken to the volunteer house that I`m now staying in. The volunteer house is BEAUTIFUL! It´s like a palace. There are about 15 other volunteers staying there as well, many from the U.S, a couple girls from Canada (Toronto and Vancouver Island), a woman from Australia and a guy from England. We´re all up by about 7 in the morning for breakfast and then we all go off to do our own thing. I´ve taken some pictures of the place but it may take a while to get them on facebook. I´ve decided to stay in Cuzco for a while longer before changing my program to the jungle conservation in Manu. So yesterday I started a different project working at a place called Huayllarccocha. Two other girls are doing this project with me, both from Canada. The place literally feels like its at the top of the world. We take a bus (which is like a minivan) up there and its about a 30 minute car ride to the top. We pass both Jesus and ruins called Sacsayhuaman and when you reach the top you come to this tiny little community where there are pigs, chickens, dogs, and sheep all over the place. So I am now working in a little community center there for the children of the community. They can go there to play, get help with homework, and at about 5:30 get some sort of healthy snack. The volunteers try and teach them that they need to wash their hands and faces and brush their teeth. So thats the first thing they have to do when the volunteers come, before they are allowed to keep playing. It´s hard for the community because they don't have clean water, and the water they do have should not be consumed but is being consumed not only by the children but by the animals they eat. They also do not have a proper bathroom in the community, so they either go to the bathroom in these little dug out holes or just wherever they want. And then they don't have a place to properly wash themselves afterwards. So the people at Maximo Nivel built them a bathroom, and are now waiting on the city to give them a permit to rip up some of the road and connect two water pipes together so the bathroom they built will actually have water. So that´s hard to see, the fact that now they even have a bathroom but cant use it because the city still has yet to give them a permit to complete it. But even though their conditions are not great the children there are in such good spirits, they are really lovely and playful. Straight away they get you to pick them up and spin them around. One little girl got me to read to her in both English and Spanish. I played Uno with two little boys and it was hilarious the rules seemed to change after every hand. Eventually after playing with them for a couple hours we made them a snack that would give them energy. I think it was a drink with oatmeal, something else and chocolate powder for taste. I go again later on today and I can´t wait! I gotta go to Spanish class now! Ta

VIVA EL PERU

I just got back from the post office, which is about a 35-40 minute walk from Inkarri, depending on which route you take. As soon as I stepped outside it started raining...and raining. Lucky for me I had decided in the morning that I didn´t need a rain jacket...I was wrong. It was funny though, the streets are so narrow that the bigger cars almost hit everyone with their mirrors as they drive by, and the streets are so busy with cars you can only really walk along them for a couple seconds. The ¨sidewalk¨ varies in width but generally is a little over a foot, and they are all very smooth stones. So it was pretty slippery coming back, but good fun.

One thing that I´ve noticed a lot of since landing here is that drivers use their horns like nothing else. You hear them all the time. On my way home there was a man in a car at an intersection waiting for room to cross a busy street but there were so many cars he never got a chance. There were three cars waiting behind him and they were honking their horns like crazy!! poor guy, he really didn´t have a chance to cross. It seems like it doesn´t matter how bad the driver is as long as he has a working horn. One final thing about horns, ha!, the cab drivers use them the most. Especially if they are driving down a one way street and you´re back is towards them, they will honk to let you know they are driving up behind you (and are free to give you a lift) convenient eh?

And last but not least I found the Viva El Peru mountain side!! There is one side of a mountain surrounding Cuzco that has that written on its side. I have been looking for it since I arrived and I finally found it by fluke yesterday. I also found Jesus...but who cares.

Artista and the Market

Alrighty so today I woke up and had to walk to the main square to re-take the pictures that were deleated yesterday. It started off as a really nice day, sunny, still a bit cloudy, but otherwise really nice. So I got to the square and walked up onto the steps of one of the cathedrals. After taking my pictures I sat down and a man who had been there all along, just sitting a couple meters away came and sat with me. I can´t remember his name AT ALL, but he told me he was an artist in Cusco. I was thinking he might be before he told me because he had long black hair and one ear periced, which he was wearing an earing with two feathers on it. It was hard to have a decent conversation with my lack, and broken Spanish, but I was glad someone was finally letting me attempt it. (usually when I try and say something the person says hold on a minute and gets someone who speaks English) Eventually I got tired of talking and just wanted to walk around, I wanted to find the market, so I said goodbye and went off to find it.

I got to the market and immediatly fell in love! It´s so packed and there´s everythig in it. I bought some pretty earings and decided to buy some food for lunch. I probably spent no more than 10 nuevos soles (less than 5 canadian dollars) and I bought lime, avocado, tomatoes, red onion, green beans, spring onion...I can´t remember what else. But it was amazing, I went straight back to inkarri and made a salad!!

I´m still trying to upload pictures...but i neither have the time nor patience

First Official Day In Cusco

Once I arrived in the airport, getting my bag was very quick and someone from Inkarri (the hostel I’m staying at) was there to pick me up- and three other people who were also on that flight- to take us to the hostel. Inkarri is so beautiful, very, very sweet. Before I go I will take pictures of it. The building is white with blue shutters, there is an old well in the courtyard in the middle, where you can sit outside and do whatever. They say that you should throw a coin into the well and make a wish to Inkarri (the god) and maybe it will come true. Sadly I haven’t got a chance to appreciate outside yet because the weather has been kind of rainy. We were given coca leaf tea while we waited for our rooms to be sorted out; it gave me a lot more energy, which was quite good and very much needed. After showering and having a 2 hour power nap I woke up famished. Which wasn’t good because breakfast was done by then, so I had no choice but to venture out from the walls of the hostel to find some food. The street are amazing, there are all cobble stone, and most only have a tiny curb that people walk on so they don’t get hit by the crazy cars that go everywhere. The streets are wild! They wind everywhere and are so narrow. And when you have a map the streets are VERY easy to work out, and anyone who knows me, knows that I am the most directional illiterate person ever! Within a short walk I was in the main square, with the Plaza de Armas (where I finally found my fellow gringos :P)…. I literally couldn’t do anything but stare for the first couple minutes, it´s breathtaking. The old architecture is beautiful, and the whole place is bustling with activity with people both local and not. There were women dressed in the traditional outfits carrying baby alpaca!! And some were carrying baby babies…human ones, but the alpaca babies took the cake. Right on one corner was a sweet little restaurant that sold really yummy looking pizza, so I got one and ate looking out at the square. After that I walked around some more and bought some water in a grocery store (because you can’t drink the tap water here) and eventually I was so tired that I headed back to the hostel. When I was there I was able to find Friends playing on the TV in English, HA, so that kept me busy so that I didn’t fall asleep at a silly hour like 3.

This is one of the many beautiful buildings in the main square. I would upload more pictures here but it is taking far too long. So check Facebook!

The journey here

The journey was fine from Toronto to Lima; quite painless in fact, I couldn’t get any sleep on the plane but whatcha going to do. When I landed in Lima, however, things got a little trickier. I had been told that my baggage was going to be transferred all the way to Cusco for me, so I wouldn’t need to claim it and then re-check it back in once in Lima. This sounded good to me because my bag is about the size of me and fully packed. So Once I was in Lima it turned out that what I had been told earlier was in fact incorrect. So like everyone else on the flight I stood to collect my bag. As I was standing to get my bag I was hit with a wave of feeling very sick, I had to find a bathroom and quick, otherwise I was scared I was going to throw-up all over the floor. I don’t know what caused it, airplane food...tiredness…or maybe it was the fact that Lima felt like a sauna and I was wearing my Canadian winter layers. I ended up being fine, I just had to put some cold water on my face and conveniently enough by the time I came out my bag was just being placed on to the conveyer belt. Okay so that was stage one complete. I then had to wheel my bag to find the TACA check in, so there I was wheeling it up and down the Lima airport looking for anything that said TACA…no dice. So I finally was able to ask someone who works there, in Spanish, where TACA was, he kindly directed my upstairs. Which truth be told didn’t quite seem right to me because NO ONE else had suitcases upstairs and all of the signs were for departing, not for checking in. As I wove round the second floor of the airport I finally came to a sign that said “All Departures” so I figured the checking must be through the line. When I was entering that area a man that was working it told me I had to check in my luggage down stairs, so I asked again where TACA was because I really had looked everywhere by this point and had no luck finding it, he said downstairs. When I asked “where downstairs” he said, “Yes, down stairs. ” Perfect. So there I went again wheeling my ridiculously heavy bag all through Lima airport, getting redder and redder by the minute because it was so hot. When I got back downstairs I decided to give up and wait. So I sat down and waited for 2 hours. I made sure to sit right in front of their information boards that tell you what the progress on each flight is and which checking stands to go to. Cusco, however, was not on it. With only an hour to an hour and a half before my flight actually left I was confused as to why there was no record of the flight on the information board, As it turned out however if I wanted to know where TACA was checking in I would have had to walk down to the other end and check a different board and then walk back again, And I had been sitting in front of where TACA would eventually check people in, but since it was such a small flight apparently they only leave a short amount of time for everything. So for the whole time I had been looking for something that wasn’t even going to be opened for another 2.5 hours. What a dink! Anyway after all that when I finally checked in I went upstairs and had a large glass of mango juice, which wasn’t as much juice as it was pure, thick, liquidated mango, it was superb! Within about 2 hours after that I was in Cusco!!! When we were almost there, flying low enough to see everything below, but still above the mountains it was absolutely breathtaking. Everything was such deep colours, so vibrant. There were some lower clouds that just hugged the tops of the mountains, and there were lovely trees and rivers everywhere! That sight alone was worth all the strife in Lima. Finally when we were touching down you could see the streets, houses and cars, there were no skyscrapers in sight, no tall buildings at all really. Only similar looking short buildings covering each side of the valley. It looked like a perfect oasis.