¡Lo hice!

It is a bittersweet time when such a wonderful and inspiring experience comes to an end and yet the familiar friendliness of home is so close.

After we left Lima about a week ago, we went to Cuzco for a couple of days to get used to the altitude but took the opp0rtunity to support a local organization, CAITH, that helps rehabilitate young girls that have been tricked into becoming unpaid workers. On our first day, the girls gave us a tour of the city, and their admiration for the city that has been a prison for most of them was incredibly inspiring. They have overcome so much and yet still have so much joy in their hearts.

We did some touristy stuff and saw the beautiful plazas in the center of the city but of course, we had to leave another impression on Cuzco: we had dinner at a restaurant that uses its profits to support young Peruvians by teaching them professional skills that can help them to better support themselves in the future.

After Cuzco, we headed out to the Sacred Valley and the village of the porters to see how the men live that carried all our necessities on their backs during the hike. We helped cosecha (cultivate) some potatoes and then we all reaped the benefit of the work and had the potatoes for lunch. They had been cooked in a pachamanca, an underground ¨stove.¨ The night was freezing but some of the porters´wives made us some hot soup and they all taught us how to dance. It was kind of odd because it looked more like fighting than dancing but our guide made sure that all of us joined in and had a good time.

The next day, we began the Inca trail. When I saw the horses and the burros at the beginning of the trail, I started to reconsider whether I could really do this and whether one of them would be saving me in the next few days but I left them behind. The next four days were a blur of exhaustion, pain, and just plain dirtiness. No showers or toilets for four days was tough but not as tough as four straight hours of uphill hiking on the second day. I told myself that I would take a picture kissing the ground when I finally got to Machu Picchu but I was too tired to bend over when I got there. Although I was exhausted and extremely sore when we arrived, I knew I had earned that visit to one of the most sacred places on Earth way more than those lazy tourists that came on an air conditioned bus. ; )

I wanted to give up so many times on the Inca trail but I didn´t have much of a choice and I wouldn´t have been able to forgive myself if I had given up and been a coward. Now that I am all sweet and clean and have toilets and a bed, I´m really glad I did it. I never expected that I would do something so physically rigorous and come through it with a strength I never knew I had.  

This past week has mentally and physically tested me more than anything I have ever done and during this entire trip, I have realized both what my heart and body can accomplish. Te amo Peru. Te extrañare mucho!

Macchu Picchu (I thought I would be original with the title)

The Inca Trail and Macchu Picchu was quite the experience.  The day before we started the trail, we toured around some Inca (to be politically correct, Quchua) sights, and that night we stayed at the porter´s village.  The coolest Inca sigh we saw was Moray, a circular terrace structure the Quechuas used to acclimate food crops.  Its really hard to explain, google image it and youll understand.  At the bottom of Moray, the temperature is 15 degrees warmer than the top.  They took the seeds of the best foods that grew on the bottom level and moved them to the next level up, and did it until the seeds were all the way at the top and completely acclimated.  They also did the opposite; they took crops that grew in the mountains and started growing them at the top level and acclimated them to the warmer temperature, so that they could grow the highland foods in the lowland.  They pretty much genetically engineered their food.  I thought that was so cool.  There was also an inexplicable drainage system at the bottom.  After Moray, we went to the campsite and it started raining.  We harvested potatoes while our lunch was being prepared, and then we ate lunch.  We ate cuy (guinea pig) again.  This time, it was cooked over a fire instead of being fried.  It was still delicious, the skin was all crispy, I would describe it as being very pork chop with crispy skin-like.  After lunch, we set up out tents in the rain and then we went on a little hike to the top of a hill to see the sunset.  It was beautiful, and we took many pictures.  That night, there was lightening in the distance between two huge mountains, it was beautiful.  After the lightening show, we went to the porters village for dinner.  We had soup, and every ingrdient in the soup was grown by the people in the village.  There was potatoe (of course), quinoa, lima beans (or soy beans we arent sure) and pumpkin.  It was good, and the aji that night was very cilantro-y and fresh.  The next morning, we got up at 6 and started the Inca Trail

The Inca Trail

We got up and had breakfast, and during breakfast the porters took down our tents.  It turned out that that first time we set up our tents was the only time we had to do so, the porters ended up carrying, setting up, and taking down our tents every day.  The trail on the first day was tame, it was not too dificult.  We stopped at an Inca site and the guide started asking us questions about the clash between the Quechua and the Spanish.  I felt like I was in a Guns, Germs, and Steel discussion group.  We stopped for lunch, and then continued on until our camp site.  That night, we had a pep talk for the second day.  The entire trip (and even before), we had been told of the difficulty of day 2.  We were told it was 80% uphill, and that we werent stopping for lunch because we needed to just get to camp.  So, we went to bed very nervous.  The next morning, we woke up early and ate breakfast and we set off for the trail.  And yes, it was really difficult.  I felt like I was in the Fellowship of the Ring, because of the difficulty and the scenery.  I also had moments of feeling like I was in Jurassic Park.  When we finally eached the top, Adrian and I ate the most delicious bon o bon (South American Reeses) ever and we just relaxed for an hour waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive.  The rest was a downhill breeze, it took about 30-45 minutes.  The uphill portion took 5 hours.  That night, I slept amazingly and the next morning we woke up and ate breakfast before the longest day of the trek.  That day ended up being awesome, I had some coffee (which was temporarily beneficial because it gave me a great burst of energy, but long term bad because I was hurtin for a bathroom later) and was totally on top of everything.  The scenery that day was GORGEOUS, there were huge green mountains everywhere with misty clouds covering there tops and snow-glacier mountains in the background.  I decided to actually use my camera that day (I was saving the battery for Macchu Picchu).  At the end of the day, we went to some awesome ruins and then we went down to our campsite that had ligit hot showers and an indoor bar.  We cracked some cold brewskies and put our feet up and relaxed after our showers, it was awesome.  That night, we decided that the next day we wanted to get up at 3 AM so we could get in line first at the checkpoint. and later get in line to cluimb Huayna Picchu (that big green mountain in the postcard pictures if Macchu Picchu)  So we got up at 3 the nxt morning, ae breakfast, and we were the second group in line for the checkpoint.  The checkpoint gate opened at 530, after an hour and a half of waiting, and we were off.  Andreas, Bre, Adrian, Meghan and I decided that we had to run if we wanted to get in line to cluimb Huayna Piucchu (they only allow 400 people a day to do it).  So we ran for 41 minutes and reached Macchu Picchu at 611.  I was soooo tired, we ran about 3 miles and it wasn´t like we were running on a road, there were stairs that we had to climb on all fours.  I felt like Smeagle going to Mordor in that part in the Return of the King when they clumb those steps by Minas Morgul.  That givs you an idea of what he steps where like.  OK maybe not that intense, but they were still really steep.  So we arrived to Macchu Picchu, and I had never seen anything so peaceful.

Macchu Picchu

So we took our candid Macchu Picchu pictures, and then we put our stones that we picked up on the first day f the trail and left them in the sacred area where the Quchua put their stones when they took pilgrimages to Macchu Picchu.   Even though we had arrived to Macchu Picchu, we could not relax ye.  We still had to get our tickets for Huayna Picchu.  So we ran down the stairs to get to Huayna Picchu, and Andreas used his walking stick to beat away the lazy tourists that took the bus and train.  Apparantly, we got alot of looks from them, but I was still i hardcore hiking mode and was only looking at the ground.  All the other tourists were all clean and nice looking in their winter clothes, we were sweaty and disgusting from the trail.  I hadn´t shaved in 5 days.  I just wanted to tell the other tourists ALRIGHT LISTEN YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I JUST WENT THROUGH TO GET HERE, GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!! So we were told by our guide, Herlin, that we were to wait until 8 AM to get in lin for Huayna Picchu.  So we went down at 8 and got in the back of the line.  I was so hungry, keep in mind that I ran 3 miles and hadnt eaten since 330 AM.  I put my head down and thought about carne asada fried for about 20 minutes (french fries topped with cheese, guacamole, sour cream, carne asade, and hot sauce) . Then we miraculously got tickets for Huayna Picchu.  Out of the 200 people they let on the first climb (there is one at 8 and one at 10) I was number 197.  We got lucky, that 530 AM run really paid off.  SO we climbed Huayna Picchu, it took about 30 to 40 minutes.  It was very steep, there was a lot of all fours Smeagle style climbing.  When we FINALLY reached the top, it was so worth it.  We got to see Macchu Picchu from a view that few people ever get to see it, and we relaxed on the rocks.  Adrian and I had anther victory bon o bon, and it tasted so good.  We then climbed down Huayna Picchu, and we FINALLY got to eat.  It was the best empanada I have ever eaten in my entire life.  I was so hungry.  Words cannot express how hungry I was.  After, our tour began.  I was having major ADD during the tour.  There wer llamas everywhere, and whil Herlin was telling us a long story I was distracted by the 3 llamas frollicking in the field to the left.  One was a baby, it was so cute!  After that, I took some llama pictures.  I touched this one llama, and then I went up to the other one on the same terrace.  It was eating away, but every time I appraoched it it walked a little further away.  I was terrified it was going to spit at me (Cynthia got spit on by a llama in Huaraz), and it liftd it´s head up in my direction and I flipped out.  But instead of spitting at me, it just gacve me this hillarious look.  It was chewing (llamas look SO FUNNY when they chew) and it looked like it was asking me “dude, what are you doing leave me alone” anyways I started cracking up and I walked away because I figured it was done dealing with my crap.  Later, we went in a sacred room and Herlin was explaining stuff to us.  In the distance, I saw a Llama walking through the ruins, so I decided to leave the room to check that one out too.  When we were at the top, we saw the sacred sundial.  In the distance, there were these two llamas racing back and forth on a terrace.  Everyone was like what are those llamas doing, they were straight up racing on their own accord.  Anyways Macchu Picchu was really cool.  My favorite part (besides interacting with llamas) was the temple of the condor.  I took a really touristy picture there.

Ay Pacha Mama Mio… MACHU PICCHU!!!

1 day  small pueblo in the sacred valley & 4 days of the inca trail

1st day we stopped at Moray and saw the upside down pyramid that the Quechuas made so they could grow their crops at different altitudes it was really neat.  It was a little walk down to get to the center of the pyramid and you had to step on rocks that would protrude out of the andenes and walk down to each different leval.  When we got to the center of Moray we sat in a circle and Antonio our tour guide told us that there were many theories as to why the middle of Moray was so fascinating.  He said that it is not a theory, but it is true that Moray never over flowed and never became a type of pool, the Quechuas made the very bottom or center a type of drain so the water would easily be pulled into the Earth.  Also, he said that if you ever were to over flow the bottom layer of Moray you would be able to see all of the constellations which I found really interesting! Then we drove to a salt flat where there were thousands of salt beds and they exported that salt to Asia and many other countries.  Lastly, we ended up in a small pueblo in the Sacred Valley and set up our tents and had almuerzo con the ayudar from quechua women y men! we helped them pick potatos from out of the ground, collected them and put them in a big bag.  Then we sat under a big tent and ate potatos they dug up from a natural oven they made from just dirt and coal. They uncovered the dirt with their shovels and we ate the potatos and soy beans.  We also ate cuy (my second time)! It was an amazing experience eating with Quechua and seeing your meal being prepared from the earth without any type of preservatives, every food we ate came from what we were standing in front of.  For dinner we went down into the small pueblo and actually entered one of the machu picchu porter´s casa.  It was made out of mud and bricks and a dirt ground.  “Kay, I am going to give it to you. My frens, No facilities where we are”  So i had to use the baño in the dirt outside.  We ate sopa the quechua ladies prepared which was a broth with the potatos and beans we had picked earlier that day! A musician came in the little house and started playing a harp looking instrument and the quechua people showed us how to dance.  It was really funny and so much fun seeing us trying to dance with them. 

INCA TRAIL

There are so many things that I want to talk about.  It was an intense trek, and everyone was sore after the four days and 3 nights, but it was worth every second of the aches and pain.  The scenery changed from desert to rainforest to cloudforest as did the climates.  I couldn´t believe we were actually walking on the same path that was made more than 500 years ago.  We passed by many ancient structures and on the 3rd day we arrived at the largest andenes i have seen! It was beautiful and only me, alyssa and antonio were there.  You could see the urubamba river, many mountains including the machu picchu mountain but no Machu Picchu… yet.  On the 4th day we woke up at 330am, had a quick breakfast and walked down to the checkpoint.  Once it opened at 5am we showed our ticket and ran past the first group ahead of us and booked it down and up the rocks.  At one point I ended up by myself running along the crooked path and climbed the rocks on my hands and knees up the wall.  It was an AMAZING feeling passing by the bushes and trees hearing weird animal noises in the dark jungle atmosphere and rainforest scenery.  Alas… THE SUN GATE!!! First glimpse of Machu Picchu and I could feel a rush of blood running through my head.  I couldn´t believe THEE MACHU PICCHU was right in front of me about 20 minutes away.  The sun began to rise as Machu Picchu became clearer, there were barely any tourist at the sun gate with me so i shot a lot of pictures… cont.

The Road to Machu Picchu Commences…

Today we all head out to the Sacred Valley to start the journey to Machu Picchu. After an afternoon and evening with the porters in their village, we start the Inka Trail tomorrow morning. It will be a 4 day trek through the Andes to finally reach the sacred ruins. We are all pumped and ready to go!

¿Donde esta Elyssa?

Back in Lima. Nice to have something familiar but a little bittersweet to not wake up at our beautiful site in Marcara.

I last blogged on Tuesday so there´s been a lot that happened since then. On Wednesday, we went to cosecha papas (cultivate potatoes) which means we hiked up to the side of a mountain and with metal instruments yanked potatoes out of the ground while hanging onto the side of the mountain. I appreciated much more where my food came from after that trip. After our work, we had a little picnic (with potatoes of course) and hiked to a waterfall nearby. By the time I got there, I was exhausted so I got into the freezing ice melt and cleaned off a little bit. I couldn´t feel my toes for a little bit but it was worth it. We climbed back down and went to some ruins that were built about 2000 B.C. and then played a game of futbol with the locals. It was a very busy day.

Thursday, we went to the school in Vicos to do some lessons in two of the classrooms there that had special needs children who because they have a lot of family issues are a little behind in school. We played Duck, Duck, Goose (Pato, Pato, Ganzo) with them and did math and a project for creative thinking and a little therapeutic art. Then we got the saddest question ever, ¨When are you coming back?¨ None of us wanted to answer that one but we were happy that they wanted us to return.

Friday was another cosecha day but with corn. You wouldn´t believe how many different varities of potatoes and corn there are. One type of corn is called La Sangre de Dios (Blood of God) because the yellow corn is striped in red. After tying corn together so it was easier for them to dry, we walked over to a local afternoon party where they were so friendly to us. They gave us food and wanted us to dance and we had a beer with the traditional authority there. He was pretty tipsy by the time he got to us because everyone had wanted to have a beer with him. Then, we walked back to get dressed for our goodbye dinner with Beatriz, Erasmo, and Jacinto. We gave them a poster with the Urpichallay logo on it with notes from us and a soccer ball with our goodbyes.

Sunday was a long but interesting day. We had breakfast at Beatriz´s house as usual and then we took a comvi to Huaraz to take a tourist bus to Pasculori?, a beautiful snowy mountain but when we got there, we had just missed it so we decided to go to Chavin, ancient ruins about 2 and a half hours from us which had been our original plan anyway. The bus ride was long but beautiful with a mountain side that had a small canyon shaped like Peru and a lake in a valley of mountains that looked so beautifully undisturbed, just chillin in nature like its beauty was completely common. When we got to Chavin, we had lunch and went through the ruins pretty quickly because we had to make sure we made it to our bus to Lima but we got some good culture, lots of pictures, and we all went into the underground tunnels (without bumping our heads or falling, which was difficult). When we were done, we stopped by the Chavin museum and checked out all the artifacts that were found in the ruins and what their significance was. When we got back to the bus, there was a lot of drama. The bus driver forgot to tell some of the people on our bus what time they had to be back and when we couldn´t find them, the bus driver didn´t want to leave them but our bodyguards fought him and the other Peruvians on the bus because we had to catch our bus to Lima. They thought Erasmo, our Urpichallay friend, was our tour guide and told him he was a bad one because he had gone so fast and he was a disgrace because he was choosing Americans before his own people. It got a little crazy.

But we made it back in time to catch our bus and made it safely to Lima. That night, 4 of us got sick, including me, and we all laid in bed all day yesterday after seeing a doctor and getting a ton of medication. We´re just trying to rest up before we go to Cuzco tomorrow morning and then head to Macchu Picchu.

Hello everyone!

My last couple of days in Macara were a lot of fun. On thursday we had a good bye diner and exchanged gifts. Then on friday we did coshecha de maiz. This was probably the most fun thing I did besides painting the sink. It was soo interesting peeling of the husk and discovering what color corn you were going to get. There was such a huge variety of corn that I don´t think I can go back to the States and just settle with plain old yellow.

Then on saturday we decided that we all wanted to go somewhere but didn´t and coudn´t decide where. Finally once we got to Huaraz the option to go to the ruins of Chavin became a possibility so we went. The ride there was 2.5 hours..soooo long! But it was definately worth it. There was this like ceremonial square with the 4 directions. The space was planned out very well so that on times of the full moon or equinox the moon and or the sun would align themsleves according to the 4 different sides. Then there was a laberinth that we went into. This is probably one of my life goals. I had read soo much about them from Borges and finally getting to be in one was really exciting. I am also very proud of my group for not getting lost forever in this laberinth. Very good job!

Getting back home was soo difficult though. We ran into a problem. The other people in the bus were not back and we had no idea where they went. We waited for an hour and drove back and forth. We wanted to leave them because we had to be back at a certain time to say goodbyes, pack,  and get our bus. The other people on the bus started to argue with Erasmo and Jacinto because they kept telling the bus driver to leave them.- In the end it worked our because the both went to go find the students or whatever they were and brought them back to the bus. We barely made it to dinner with Beatriz. We were a little late but it was okay.

Its really funny that we always go out somewhere with Erasmo and we are always late to dinner or skip lunch with Beatriz. At the ruin site for some reason the people thought that Erasmo was the tour guide. I don´t blame them he did have a vest, a camera, and Jaci who had a friggin´tripod. I guess I won´t foget these last moments me and the group had with them because it really showed how much they cared for us.

Now I am back in Lima! The bus ride here I was in first class and it was the best. I have pics of me chillin´like a villin. I didn´t feel so hot the whole day yesterday but something that made my day was getting to see everyone back and hugging. I was wonderful. I just wana hug them all. Also I got to see the Van Gogh exibit! It is glorious. The artists in the local area got inspired from his life and work and did homages of his art. I didn´t think I would get to visit a museum here. I definately want to one day work in a museum or in a library. Not to necessarily help people find things but so that I could creep around and see as much as possible.

Now it is Monday morning and it´s time for me to reflect on the volunteer experience for a big presentation that I have tomorrow with the Ashoka fellows and my peers. This should be a good time for all of us to see what is really important in this life and what steps we need to take to make this world a better place to live for all.

Ciao

Arequipeño Pizza Thought

Last night was our last dinner in Arequipa.  We made pizzas with los niños Isabella y Annapala.  Juana´s daughter Cathy bought the ingredients green olives, purple olives, onions, bell peppers, bacon, cheese, ham, tomato sauce and the pizza dough.  We each prepared the different foods so they would fit nicely on the pizza, separated them into bowls and then started creating our 3 different pizzas.  When the first pizza was finished being created we placed it in the oven, still a little undercooked.  We cooked it again and each had a slice.  Then the oven ran out of gas only after the first pizza  was made.  It took us some time to realize that the oven was not broken but it just ran out of gas.  We sat at the table joking around and having fun.  About half an hour later Juana and her husband, Oscar returned with more gas and Proffe and Costas.  We all sat at the dinner table eating pizza and laughing, having warm conversations over wine and playing with the children while enjoying a music CD of  Arequipa instruments. 

It might have been the Arequipan wine going to my head, but this is when I realized that my experience was like the pizza we had just made.  The ingredients sitting in the bowl were what Juana had taught all 4 of us volunteers about Yachay Wasi.  I was the pizza maker, I decided what ingredients or methods I have learned from Yachay Wasi I wanted to carry on and what I thought was important to me and what made sense.  So I would add those components or ingredients onto my pizza.  The pizza serves as what I will do after I return from Peru.  It would be baked and sometimes it doesn´t always turn out as we expected so we wait a little while it´s okay if we feel frustrated, but we reflect and see what went wrong.  Then we try again, we try again and when it is improved we can repeat it by making more pizzas and sharing it with people.  For ‘happiness is only real when shared.´  Just as we try and try with our pizzas, ask for help, have some time to rethink what went wrong, try again and share it over and over.  Good or bad, the outcome is one that you only learn from.   Usually if you try things over and over again, you will learn from mistakes and you can share your past knowledge on to many others.  When this information is carried out the world will become a better place; by having more people caring more about eachother and of the world.  Knowing this, shapes you into a person who has learned.   

Anyways other than my pizza enlightenment, this night reminded me of Christmas Eve at my house when uncles and aunties, cousins and all of close family comes over to my house and just enjoys themselves and eachother´s company.   Memories being brought up and laughter following soon after seemed to be the pattern of the night.  I feel like I got the full experience of the Peruvian culture, being a member of Yachay Wasi and RED, learning how to communicate in ways other than language and knowing I will return to the US with a vast amount of knowledge and insight. 

This morning the taxis came to pick us up at 530am juana and oscar came outside to say one last goodbye.  After kissing oscar and juana on the cheek and giving a hug she said this is your house please come back soon.  I got into the taxi as it drove away I shouted te amo! As Oscar wiped back the tears Juana shouted yo tambein!

 I have learned, gained, found more of myself and more than just knowlege, but also a family in Arequipa Peru.