Alex | EIA | Peru LBAT

First of all...I definitely miss Peru!! Some time has passed since I have come home, and I have been pretty busy, but I do wish I could have spent the whole summer in Peru. It is a really weird feeling because it is almost like it didn't happen, or it happened to someone else, or I was a different person when I was there. I can't really explain it.

What I miss...

Adventures every day, even in the normal, day-to-day activities that I never pay attention to at home

My wonderful host mother, father, and sisters!

Being able to hang out with three of my now closest friends everyday

$1 taxi rides anywhere!!

Lomo saltado, ceviche, pan cusqeno, totta cakes, cusquena malta, fried eggs on top of rice, super fresh fruit, basilica desserts, ridiculously good juice 

Having an excuse to eat dessert and have drinks at almost every meal...its experiencing culture!

Speaking Spanish everyday!

Cori! the dog at Centro Tinku

Bright artesania everywhere..such good shopping!

Being able to wear llama print and not be judged (except by those rude taxistas would always try to overcharge me)

Cute neighborhood of Magisterio, where all my friends were in walking distance

Judgemental cusquenan babies

Being surrounded by the beautiful bright blue Peruvian sky and the unreal Andes mountains 

What I don't miss so much...

Sharing a room (love you Patricia, but I've had my own room way too long!) 

Tiny cars, short doorways, and feeling way too tall for the city

Only socializing with the same 28 people (they were so fun, but it is hard when you can't see anyone else for so long) 

Super low water pressure

Overnight bus rides!

Always having to use cash

Never ever having enough moneda for the taxi!

Super slow internet (I am so, so glad our host family actually had it though!)

Construction on Calle Nueva Baja 

Freezing temperatures in the classroom and those uncomfortable chairs

    Our last excursion was to the pre-Incan/Incan site of Pachacamac. I have loved all our tours and excursions, but honestly this one was the least interesting or exciting. It was probably because we were so tired, it was our last day of the trip, and the site was just all sand and small dirt buildings that are in the process of actually being excavated and restored. I don't even understand how that desert got to be in the middle of Lima...it was only like a mile from the ocean and a short drive from the city, so everything surrounding it was water or forests. We got to go to the museum as well, but we pretty quickly moved on to the next part of the tour, el pueblo joven of Villa el Salvador. It is a successful residential and industrial part of Lima that was founded by people migrating from other parts of Peru, into Lima. They make a lot of furniture so their whole business is the wholesale of raw materials to the manufacturers and designers who all live together in this community. We just took a bus tour but all of us were struggling by then, so we finally got to go back to our hotel and get lunch. 

    We arrived in Lima, relieved that all the long bus trips were over, but sad that to reach our final stop of the trip. As we were driving to our hotel, there was a bit of a reverse culture shock as I took in all the billboards, highways, fast food advertisements, and the general feel of being back in a city so similar to home. Our bus was really huge and we help up traffic and got stuck in the small streets, so that really made me imagine us as a group of awkward tourists stumbling through a foreign city being especially obnoxious. Luckily after six weeks of being in Peru, I was comfortable enough to not really feel like that...I felt like I could really get to know the city and the culture without being ignorant. Anyways, we finally got to the hotel and it was sad knowing this would be our last home in Peru. After unpacking we got the great news that we would be going on a bus tour in the evening..and then getting up for another super early ruins tour at like 7am. We were all ready to just enjoy Lima on our own and enjoy Peru on our own, so it will be a little hard to make the best of tomorrow.

    The bus tour was nice, but there was so much to see! We visited the colonial parts, downtown, the just built residential neighborhoods with beautiful condos overlooking the ocean, and everything in between. My favorite parts were definitely the ocean side parks with awesome murals and scultpures (like the huge kissing couple in Parque del Amor!) with the ocean in the background. I've never seen the Pacific Ocean, so I really hope I get a chance to go to the beach tomorrow! The Cathedral and Government Palace were both gorgeous, and I had a bit of an INTA-student nerd moment when I got excited about the fact that the President, Ollanta Humala, who we had learned so much about, was sitting right there in the Palace (unfortunately we didn't go in). We also visited the Catacombs of San Francisco which were pretty creepy. Lima has its distinct personality and energy from the other Peruvian cities, and I am so glad we got to visit so many different parts of Peru and get such a full picture.

    After another long ride, I made it to Arequipa! We checked into our hotel which is a super cute little place with a great garden that we ate breakfast in. I love breakfast anywhere, but hotel buffets in Peru are especially enjoyable. I am going to miss cafe con leche! After a welcome shower, we got ready to set out and explore Arequipa. We were on our own for the day, with no formal tour, so Patricia, Madsion, Rachel and I headed straight to the Plaza de Armas and the Cathedral. The Cathedral was even bigger and more impressive than the one in Cusco, but the whole city really took my breath away. The feel was so different because it was all in the colonial style and there wasn't even one chacana decorating the buildings! We had a lot of fun watching other classmates feeding and getting attacked by the pigeons in the plaza. We met up with Angela and Alyssa and found a really nice church (that was free to enter) to explore. The mass there started on the next hour, so we just stuck around and I got to go to my second Spanish mass. I am really glad I got to share that experience with my friends! Afterwards we were ready for a snack so we got really yummy gelato and continued on to try and find some museums or other sites to visit. The Santa Catalina Monastery is a must see spot, but it was kind of expensive so we just read the info at the entrance. We couldn't find one museum, but the one we finally decided on was definitely worth the visit. It was home to a 500 year old girl who was discovered sacrificed, and perfectly frozen at the top of a nearby mountain. The museum was really engaging and interesting, and of course seeing the girl at the end of the exhibition was the best part. 

    After all that history, it was time for lunch! We found a nice restaurant with a bunch of outdoor tables out in sidewalk of one of the side streets. I got a traditional dish of lomo saltado (need to take advantage of these last few days of Peruvian food!) and we all tried the Arequipena, the locally brewed beer. It was quite an interesting lunch since the people begging and soliciting in the street are really aggressive. We kept getting interrupted and the restaurant staff didn't even try to get the people to stop bothering their patrons. One man was particularly interesting because he came up to the table, glanced at all of us and gasped and said the Peruvian version of "oh my goodness" when he saw me. At first I thought he thought I was someone he knew or someone famous, haha, but apparently my blue eyes are quite enchanting! We ended up donating to his cause and got stickers that left glue all over our arms, but it was pretty funny. 

    After finally being able to sleep in, we enjoyed the afternoon roaming around Cusco. Patricia and I were supposed to be doing our powerpoints and papers, but honestly school work was our last priority today. We went to Centro Artesanal (um, last time, I promise!) because my friends decided they liked my llama sweater I have been taking pictures in and I just had to get some for them as well. We walked down Avenida El Sol and got bread and juice. Now this seems simple, but the simple things like that are just so much better in Peru. We wandered through Plaza de Armas and Mercado San Pedro, where we bought our host mother the biggest, most beautiful (and cheapest..) bouquet of flowers I've ever seen. I know so much of the city now, and I have really grown to love it, and not just as a tourist. 

    As Patricia and I heard the knock on our door, the last thing we wanted to do was get out of the cozy blankets and into the freezing Amantani air. Our nice host grandmother was at the door though, so we had no choice. She even brought us a bucket of warm water to wash up in! (remember..no running water on the island..) We got breakfast which was basically these friend donut/pancake things and I can't believe I ate the whole plate of them. We rushed back to the dock and it was time to leave our host family and the island. We were off to another long ride to the island of Taquile. 

    Taquile was really pretty, and of course difficult to climb as well. The walkway up to the main town was so steep, but the frequent stops to take pictures and admire the lake made it fun. This island specializes in textiles and the men are traditionally the ones to practice the trade. After exploring we went to lunch at a fantastic open air restaurant and had yummy fresh fish from the lake. The homes rotate who acts as the restaurant for the week, so the tourism work is shared by the whole community. We learned a lot about their customs and even though they are really different from Western culture in some senses (couples live together for 2 years before deciding on marriage, if a child is born to unmarried parents the grandparents take it as their own, there is no laws/crime/punishment), the community seems to just be really thriving socially. Yeah, I had to write an essay about this as well! After another fun hike back to the boat, it was time for the three hour return to Puno. We were all a bit crazy by then, but it made for some good laughs and great pictures.

I must have been really tired...or just really relieved that our overnight bus was not the regular Centro Tinku bus we have been taking everywhere, but a nice double decker big enough for everyone to have two seats and recline almost completely...but I slept through the entire bus ride and did not want to get up when Eddy woke all of us up at 5:30am. We went over to the hotel and had breakfast, sort of tried to wash up in the bathroom, and got our trip started. We took these really fun tricylce taxis...basically a bike attached to a basket that people sit in. We rode down to the harbor and got on a boat to visit some islands on Lake Titicaca. Before we got on the boat, at the market we bought presents for our host family, which mostly included oranges, rice, sugar, or flour.They live pretty simply on the islands!

    Our first stop was the Uros islands. They are man made out of reeds and have to be reconstructed like every 25 years. They float on top of the water and are anchored so that they don't float into say, Bolivia's territory of the lake. A bunch of the islands make up the community and two or three families live on each island. If there are arguments they just saw the island in half and leave peacefully separately. We visited one island and they gave us a presentation on how they construct the islands and explained their lifestyle. We also learned that reeds can also be eaten...definitely really random...and it really had no taste. We had some time to explore the island (which was tiny, about the size of a basketball court) and walking on it was so strange! Spots would sink more than others and you could feel the water swaying underneath. We went inside of the huts and the woman showing it to us started dressing us in their traditional clothes! It was so funny because their Spanish isn't very good (they speak an indigenous language) and they randomly just started putting clothes on us. It made for some great pictures though! Afterwards some people went on a really cool boat that was made out of reeds, and we met them on another island to start our three hour ride to Amantani.

    I slept again through most of the boat ride, though the water and surrounding land were really beautiful. We got to Amantani and split up with our host families. Now this was a regular island and was so hilly. We had to stop twice on the 15 minute walk to our house. The people of Amantani keep up their traditional lifestyle and tourism is the main thing. They take turns hosting visitors and the relationship between tourism and their culture is really interesting. There is no electricity on the island (only some homes have solar power), no tv, no internet (unless they were hiding it from us..) but everyone did have a cell phone. The houses are really simple  as well, a farm house with a courtyard in the middle, the top floor reserved for guests and the bottom floor with the family bedrooms and kitchen. There is also no running water. Thank goodness we only had to stay a night because showering in the freezing temperatures would have been impossible. We had a great lunch of quinoa soup and then a huge plate of potatoes and fried cheese. The potatoes were ok, but I am kind of tired of eating stuff that looks familiar, but then tastes really strange. I would just love a regular baked potato with butter. Anyways at lunch we met our host sister who was eight years old and adorable. We played catch with her, asked her about school, and let her braid our hair. Oh and she tried to convince us to paint her nails and give her lipgloss, but I'm not sure the mother would have appreciated that.

6.11

    Today was our first day of class with Doctor Rodriguez! I’ve never had him before but I am enjoying his class so far. We had four hours of lecture, which was kind of rough after not having pure lectures with Doctora for a few weeks. This class is about cultural patrimony, which is really interesting because it is basically anything that is passed down generations that reflects the culture of the country. So artifacts, dance, songs, ruins, buildings, traditions, whatever. Thankfully it is not just dry history and we get to do a lot of interesting projects. After the lecture and a yummy lunch, Patricia and I met up with Rachel and Madison to find our final project essay for Doctora! We got it all turned in and it is about 20 days before the deadline. First and last time that has ever happened in my life, but there was no way I was writing that paper after coming back to the states! We are in the middle of about four projects for Doctor Rodriguez and there is one more movie review to do for Doctora so needless to say I am pretty overwhelmed. After dinner we met with our other video report group to work on that project. It will be really nice to have videos and pictures to remember Peru by. Especially since my camera is not working properly so I don’t think I will be able to take my own pictures for the rest of the trip!

6.12

    Being in Machu Picchu another day meant that I had to be ambitious and wake up at 6am again so we could go explore before all the tourists got there! We had a great breakfast at the hotel and headed back on the bus up to the ruins. Patricia and I were leading our group up the trail and somehow lost Madison and Rachel who were in the back. We waited for a while but they never showed up, and we really didn’t want to climb down to climb back up so we just decided to go off on our own. We walked around the terraces behind Machu Picchu and realized we were starting to go up the Incan Trail. It would be so amazing to actually do the four day hike to Machu Picchu, going through the sun gate, but I am just hoping that I have the opportunity to come back and do that! We found a nice spot to sit and overlook Machu Picchu, as much away from the other tourists as we could get, which was kind of difficult. There was an Avon convention visting (a sea of pink jackets!) and it was free entrance for Cusquenans. Patricia and I sat and chatted for probably two hours. We couldn’t get ourselves to get away from the view. More so than yesterday, I really experienced Machu Picchu peacefully, without worrying about taking pictures or listening to a guide. Even more fun, I met some Polish people! Two met sat a few feet away from us overlooking Machu Picchu and they spoke Polish, so as they were leaving I asked them where they were from and chatted for a bit. What random chance!

   Soon we had to get back down to the actual ruins because I really wanted to climb Wyanapicchu. It is the big, steep mountain that you always see behind Machu Picchu in pictures. Look at it closely…it looks impossible to climb. Patricia wasn’t feeling well and we got lost from the rest of the students so I was just going to go ahead and do the climb by myself. I knew I would eventually run into them since it is one route up and down, but I was kind of excited to do it by myself. I have had no alone time on this program, which isn’t that big of a deal but I think experiencing something like that by yourself just really makes the experience a lot more meaningful…if that makes sense. The climb starts by going down a forested path of Machu Picchu, then crossing a little connection between the two mountains. The first third isn’t that bad, but then it got really steep and the steps became less nicely defined and there were spots where I had to use the rope on the side to pull myself up. I had to stop myself from thinking about how I would get back down, and just continue up and up. The hike was supposed to take about two to two and a half hours and that was just enough time to get back to take the bus for lunch. I was worried I was falling behind, but suddenly I rounded a path and heard the excited yelling voices of my other friends from the program! They had been taking a nice and slow time getting up the mountain, so I somehow climbed all of that which I thought took an hour, in about 35 minutes and actually caught up to them! They started 30 minutes before me so it was pretty lucky. Right about where we met was when it started to get really interesting. The rocks got steeper and the cliffs got steeper, so it literally felt like we were scaling the mountain. I am so glad I caught up with them because it would have been impossible to do without their support.

    We had to crawl through tiny caverns, go up wooden ladders, scale slippery rocks that slid right over the cliff, and climb down stairs overlooking the drop off. It was exciting and challenging but I loved it! We took our time to get back down the mountain, which was pretty scary (we definitely crab walked and slid down some stairs on our butts because it was too scary to walk) but we made it! Of course at the end we had to walk back up the actual Machu Picchu Mountain to get back to the ruins. By then my legs were shaking and all I wanted was to sit on the bus. The climb was my favorite part of Machu Picchu. I got to see the area from a totally different perspective from most visitors and in general it was a ridiculous challenge. And lunch tasted especially delicious after all that! It was another buffet but it had more traditional Peruvian food and an awesome salad bar! I haven’t had the chance to eat that many fresh veggies here. After lunch we had about two hours to hang out before our train ride back. Patricia got bit by something on the mountain, so we stopped by a pharmacy and then decided to visit the river. Rachel, Patricia and I climbed down to sit on a big rock and it was just perfect. It was great weather and the sound of the river was so soothing. Plus we were surrounded by huge mountains and that incredibly blue Peruvian sky. After some good laughs, we met up with Madison and went out to get ice cream. We had to run to make it to the train station but soon it was time to really say goodbye to Machu Picchu. I loved my amazing vacation at a world wonder, so I was genuinely really disappointed to have to leave!

    Machu Picchu day one!! We woke up super early before 6am to make it to our train. It was my first train ride and despite it being so early, it was fun. The train had big windows on the sides and in the roof so we got to see the pretty landscapes zoom by…well it was going about 18 miles an hour so it was a slow zoom. We made it to Machu Picchu Pueblo, which is actually called Aguas Calientes and is basically tourist town catering to those coming to see the world wonder. We had to walk through the market to get out of the train station, and I really wanted to try to barter with the vendors for cusquenan prices on the goods. Aguas Calientes is notorious for overpriced goods since many people come to Peru just to see Machu Picchu. We finally made it to our hotel and I was happily surprised! It was cute and quirky, but had comfy beds, fluffy pillows, clean bathrooms, and hot showers. So exciting! We had a free hour so Patrica, Madison, Rachel and I went to explore the city. We ended up going down this great path that felt like we were walking through the jungle. It felt just like a vacation and for the first time it really felt like summer. The weather was beautiful and it was nice enough to walk around in short sleeves. We had times for lunch and dinner but basically everything else was on our own accord. It felt like freedom, haha.

    After we finished exploring we went back for lunch, but somehow we were late and had to find our own way to the restaurant. Luckily most of the street vendors knew which way the big group of “estudents” walked. The restaurant was so much different from anything in Cusco! It was really upscale and I was surprised our program fees included such a nice place. The food was a delicious buffet that was kind of random, but it was probably the best meal I’ve had so far. The whole feel of the town is really different from any other place we have visited. It is pretty tiny and full of little streets with restaurants, textile and souvenir shops, cafes, laundromats, and that is basically it. It runs right along the Urubamba River and there are a few really pretty bridges. It was easy enough to learn the town in our two free hours. It was a great balance between catering to the tourists but not being completely cheesy and overwhelming. I liked it a lot!

     After lunch we got right on the bus to go to Machu Picchu! It is about a 25 minute ride up the mountain and then a 15 minute hike to reach the best viewing area that all the famous pictures are taken from. We took so many pictures, but it was absolutely gorgeous! Our guide explained some history and culture pertaining to the site, but overall I was kind of disappointed with the tour because he didn’t give us a lot of information. This might be because so much of Machu Picchu is a mystery, so I just enjoyed the wonder of it. The constructions are amazing but the location of it is what really impressed me. The mountains We took tons of pictures and walked through all the major sectors, but it is really big! It all closed at 5pm so we didn’t have that much time anyways.

    Happy Corpus Christi! It is a Catholic holiday but Cusco celebrates it in its own special way. We met together as a class in the morning and got to experience the festival of Corpus Christi together. It was the first day of our third class that we are taking in Cusco, which is cultural patrimony with Juan Carlos Rodriguez. Senora leaves after the last presentations tomorrow, so after we finish our final two essays we will be done with her classes! I can’t believe we have accomplished that much in four weeks. It is was literally the same amount of work that you would expect in a whole semester, so needless to say I am exhausted.

    Anyways, for Dr Rodriguez’s class we are doing film reports which are more exciting and much less stressful than big presentations and essays! We got into groups to film Corpus Christi celebrations and to interview people. The day started out with a mass outside of the Cathedral in Plaza del Armas. It was so beautiful! I’ve never experienced a mass like that before. There were hundreds of people all around the plaza listening. We interviewed a sweet old couple who have been going to the festival for years. Afterwards, it was time for the procession so we walked to the other side of the plaza to get a good view. It started off with the Corpus Christi…or the Eucharist…being pulled by a ton of different students by this rope that was attached to the huge silver statue. Following that were all the different parishes and then all the different schools. I think most schools in Cusco are associated with a religious saint or something like that, but they aren’t necessarily a Catholic school like in the US. The procession was done soon, but we knew that there was supposed to be a procession of the huge saint statues as well, so Patricia and I hung around to wait for it to start. We met the sweetest family while waiting! Patricia fell in love with their dog and the parents started chatting with us. The kids had sugar cane and they shared it with us since Patricia never tried it, and it was so sweet! Chatting with them was one of my favorite experiences in Cusco. I wouldn’t have imagined hanging out in the plaza and getting to know a regular family…and successfully communicating in Spanish! Anyways the procession was taking forever, so we met with the rest of our group and went over to the next plaza for more interviews and food!

    It was incredible. There were even more people than around the cathedral and everywhere women were selling chiriuchu. This is the typical dish made especially for Corpus Christi. It consists of basically everything possible: cornbread type pancake, parched corn, cheese, seaweed, fish eggs, chicken, sausage, jerky, and the most important part, the cuy, which is guinea pig. There were guinea pigs EVERYWHERE and you could see the women preparing the plates of chiriuchu. They basically took each ingredient and chopped it into pieces, so the guinea pigs were roasted whole and then you were lucky enough to get a piece with a paw on it or the tail or maybe even the head. We didn’t eat from the street vendors, but we went to a restaurant which was also serving chiriuchu. That’s basically the only thing served today. I got my plate of food, and saw the guinea pig head and just could not look at it. I made my friend take it away and then I was lucky enough to take a bite of the fish eggs first…which at the time I didn’t know were fish eggs. Basically it was a very dramatic meal and I really didn’t enjoy much of it besides the sausage and the cornbread. But I was in Cusco, on Corpus Christi, eating chiriuchu and drinking Cusquena, so I was happy! An experience to check off the bucket list. The guinea pig was hard to eat because it didn’t have much meat and it was salty, and it had some kind of unsettling flavor I couldn’t identify. But three of my friends, and the rest of the cusquenans liked it, so if you are ever in Peru, try it!

    Other fun foods of today included coconuts that they sold whole, so that you could drink the milk and then crack it open to eat the inside. It was the first time I had fresh coconut and it was awesome! The ice cream vendor taught Patricia how to crack it open on the ground, it was funny! The street vendors sold typical things like snow cones, ice cream, beer, cotton candy (which was so much better and cheaper than in the US!), and something called queso helado…cheese ice cream. It was one of the best ice creams I’ve ever had! Kind of similar to egg nog ice cream in taste. After stopping in a few shops we decided to go back home. It was a fantastic festival and interviewing the people made it all the more special!

    After hanging out at home for a little we went back to Plaza de Armas for celebratory ice cream with Doctora. I had pear caramel ice cream and it was delicious! Patricia, Rachel, Madison and I went out to dinner to Paddy’s pub, a really good Irish-owned place, since we were craving some more American style food. It was so weird to talk to the bartender and servers in English! We talk in Enligsh basically all the time among each other, but we are constantly surrounded by Spanish and have to rely on that to talk to strangers. It will definitely be reverse culture shock when we get back to America, haha. The food there was amazing. After dinner we walked around and found a nice café to get dessert. Yes, we started off with ice cream with Doctora but it wasn’t very much ice cream and we definitely deserved another treat. The night was full of laughs and fun times with my chacanas, couldn’t have asked for anything more! Now it is time for bed to rest up for the last class with Doctora!