Lunahuana

I had another baking experience, and let me tell you they just keep getting better! Last week decided to bake cookies with my boyfrandd, yes you read that correctly, and his sister. I swear they thought I was a magician or something and they were only chocolate chip! We burned the shit out of them but they still loved them. The funniest part was that they were surprised an hour later when the cookies weren't soft anymore...hahaha

Anywhoooo went with my program this weekend to Lunahuana- a lush green valley en el campo. Shortly after arriving we headed out white water rafting. The river was beautiful, we all got drenched and swam in some rapids. After lunch we headed out on a city tour-we hiked a hill to see some ruins, walked around little lunahuana, went to an extremely old vineyard and tasted some wine and pisco, went to some other place where  we taste tested delish honey and then went to a real haunted house! Apparently ten days after it was built everyone who lived there died..and I don't remember the rest, but we walked through in the dark and it was spooky.

 My new profession..cobrador...the people who rally you onto the micros and take yo moneyz..this is how they appear yes.

 Today we woke up at dawn and were told we were going zip-line ing and on a short trek. The zip-line was nothing like costa rica..see picture. It was more of a pully system that took forever. The trek lasted over an hour, in the hot desert, at 8 am all just to see... a mummy. The mummy was pretty cool but due to lack of breakfast no one was feeling the trek. After breakfast and pool time we went horseback riding. Which alright but nothing like Huaraz when we rode horses up to glaciers for 5 hours. We lunched and pooled some more before heading out to go on cuatrimotos(four-wheelers, atv's..I don't know what you people call them). We started out single file, mind you two on each cuatrimoto, going through the center of Lunahuana, then we went off on some strange mountain trails and that's when the fun began. Lets just say it was sort of like mariokart in real life. Ella and I came in second only because Tonisha is a crazy driver.

 "zip line"

 Loquitos behind mee

...evil

Tomorrow is Halloweeen...so hopefully we can celebrate it well down here. Tuesday is Dia de los Muertos/ Dia de la cancion Criolla...going to the largest clandestine cemetary, should be interesting!

sara en la selva!

This weekend I went to the Amazon jungle city of Iquitos..only accessible by plane or boat.So we flew..out of our seats after our history midterm and raced to the airport with less than an hour before we took off. It was like a scene from a movie..we went to security then had to run all the way back to the front desk to get a sticker on our tickets, then run all they way back up to security. But we made it!


So Thursday night we got in and were whisked away by our guide in mototaxis..lets just say I want to be a mototaxista for a day or my life. All they drive in Iquitos are motorcycles, mopeds or moto taxis. Entire families on a motorcycle..including infants, eek! Anyway we met up with my host sister Viole and Emily who had left earlier in the day, got dinner and went to bed. But by went to bed I mean I just layed there waiting until it was time to get up because it was 95 degrees and there were 4 of us in a very small room and one fan.....

meghan and her coco- coconut water!

We tried to see the sunrise and sort of failed. Then we went with our guide to the market in Belen to buy some selva drinks. It was huge..and smelled bad..and I wanted to run out of it. Then we drove a little further because some people wanted to try Suri..worms. Grilled,fat,worms. They looked like what they eat in the Lion King...I was the only one who didn't try it, and I'm so okay with that.Anyway we drove to Nauta and from there got in a boat, it was basically an XL canoe with a paddle that had a propeller on the end...but that's what they use to get around so we did it. As we were cruising down the Amazon it began to thunder, like the loudest cracks of thunder you can imagine. And then it rained for a little bit..it felt so nice because it was mmm about 98 degrees and humid as what! We got to the lodge in the middle of the jungle where we were the only people along with our guides and the 5 or so people who would cook for us. We lounged in some hammocks before taking a walk through the jungle..I got to carry a machete:) We walked for 3 hours, saw monkeys monkeying around way up in the tree, swung from jungle vines, got stuck in mud, drank milk from trees we weren't supposed to, and saw giant bugs! After dinner we took a night walk through the jungle to a lake where we went in a canoe looking for alligators..mind you it was pitch black. We didn't see any sadly but we had a good time doing a 21 point turn in a dense carpet of lily pads. Also there were 3 foot wide lily pads and lightning bugs all around.

The next morning we went on a bird watching boat ride..boring. Then to a puebla of about 40 families...where we met a snake and drank coconut water. Then we ate some breakfast and went out on the boats again. This time we went fishing for piranha's... with a wooden stick for a pole and a piece of string....After that we motored around and saw some of the famous pink dolphins jumping around. Then we jumped around..right off the boat. The water was so warm it was hardly refreshing...so we smeared this rejuvenating mud all over us and ran around. My skin still feels so soft. I want more of that mud! We returned to Iquitos, ella got a little sick off the side of the boat, some people did Ayahuasca with a Shaman, some people got massages, Meghan and I watched Toy Story 3 in the air conditioning and fell asleep.

Sunday we got to sleep in a tad before we met up with our guide and took a boat ride to see the lower part of Belen. It is basically a floating suburb that is extremely impoverished. After that we went to a manatee reserve and I got to feed the little baby manatees. One thing we have noticed here that is very different from the US is that in the US living on the hills or on the river usually means you have money and here the poorest areas are the ones closest to the water or on the hills surrounding Lima. Anddddd that's about it...fotos!

                                                     shaving ella's armpits with my machete

                                                             George of the jungling it!

 jungle boogie

 awesome sunset

 baby parrot

 baby jungle kid

 baby chickennnnnnnnnnn

 my future home

 This is the jail. You sit in this small box for a certain number of hours depending on what you did...

 Does anyone want coconut water?

 on the way to Belen

 Belen's number one discoteca!

me feeding a baby manatee..they said I had to prepare for the future....it was weird

Pachamama needs a taxi!

Fuimos a Huacachina-

For starters the bus ride was a surprise..what we thought would be two hours turned out to be four, sopresa! Anywho we went with literally no plans of where to go or stay really, we ended up in Huacachina, a desert oasis about 4.3 minutes away from Ica. Friday we didn't do much because we got in late and everyone was tired. Saturday we woke up walked around the lagoon to go get some breakfast, took paddle boats out on the lagoon and lounged by the pool. Later we went sandboarding and in a dune-buggy. I think those drivers must loveeeeee their jobs. It was like a roller coaster gone wild..but not really. Sandboarding was fun, I like lying on the board more than going standing up, less sand in yo' pants! But en serio.... I probably don't want to go sandboarding again, it hurt and I think snow is way more fun.



After sandboarding we went on a winery tour..they called it ,in English, the Shit-faced tour. We went with some other foreigners to a bodega/ winery/ place where they make pisco. It was seriously like the Museo Nacional that I didn't go to last weekend when everyone else did; they had all this old armor, Incan weapons, swords from Simon Bolivar, and other old shit that they found. We "taste-tested" two different types of pisco..as in we took shots of two different types of pisco, and if you have never had pisco..it is nasty. Pachamama (mother earth Quechua style) needs a taxi was our joke because before you take a shot you pour some on the ground to praise Pachamama and some of us "accidently" poured out a little too much. So Pachamama got drunk. Also I have never seen this done before but the pisco and wine are stored in these strange clay vessels and they dip a bamboo stick in it that has a cutout and then they pour the little shots out of the bamboo stick...extrano. And then we had 3 different types of wine, all really sweet, which I liked. Then they brought us pitchers of our favorite wine and pisco and we stayed and danced/drank there til 12 and after we proceeded on to the one discoteca in Huacachina where our sandboarding instructor was there mixing drinks as a bartender.
Lost my watch, I guess I will be adapting to Peruvian time sooner than expected.

Ella has some cool pictures of us on the dunes that I will steal from her later and post.

 The oasis, looks like nasty green water, and it was. Apparently it has curative properties and you can roll around in the mud and then cure your heart disease!

 sun sun sun

 before we fell...and before we sandboarded

 The only pyramid in this desert

 Meghan and Indy

 Please note the museum like background..and the strange vessels..all full.

...after a few

Mistura!

...More like heaven. Yesterday I went to Mistura with some amigos..and lets just say it was really overwhelming but really amazing. It was in Parque de la Exposicion, which is just a giant park downtown Lima, the way they have it set up is so the entire park is surrounded by restaurant booths and then there are these giant tents selling cooking stuff, food I think, doing demonstrations and I don't know what because I didn't have enough time to go into any of them. Anyway we went around getting a bunch of plates and then taste testing from everybody elses . There was a lot of ceviche, but I don't eat seafood so no, but here are some things I did try- an amazing risoto, lomo saltado lasagna, anticuchos (cow heart.....yah), milkshake de lucuma, tacu tacu ( a dish from the jungle that was super good) and then we got pisco sours that were apparently the best in town. The only reason I tried the cow heart was because, well when in Rome, and also it was apparently the best of the best...the line took us at least an hour so yah had to be good.

I want to go back and eat more...so good!

Also it was kind of strange, we got special privileges; because we are tourists we got to sit in this little gated off section. Whereas before when we were with everyone else we were just sitting on the grass because there weren't enough tables. It was odd and I didn't really like it..but the Peruvian we were with said it was just because they want us to say good things about their cuisine and the experience so more tourists will come. yo no se.

 Meghan in front of the entrance

 causa's con causa! -potato stacked with chicken and avocado in the center

My camera was dead so sadly those are the only pics I have..but I will steal some from other people later and post em!

Also we have had three days of sun in a row! Which is kind of a big deal...and yesterday at mistura it was actually uncomfortably hot outside..can't wait for more of that kind of weather! I went to a BBQ last night with our peruvian friend Indy at her friends house. Went on an errand with Indy to her aunts house in the middle of the BBQ and met some of her family which was fun. It was nice to be at someone's house and hangout with other peruvians...makin' friends! Alsooo we ended the night by falling into the pool..which some people were not too happy about..oops.

Cusco!

Well just returned from my trip to Cusco this morning; love that city!

Thursday morning we arrived, acclimatized, and conquered! After a nap in the morning we explored Cusco checking out some Incan walls and a great little store near the rock with twelve angels. Then Ella and I went out to dinner with Melvin and Marion (our site directors) to a little hole in the wall pizza place that was really good. Friday morning we awoke early and began our tour of the Valle Sagrado (sacred valley). We stopped at a site above Cusco, a llama/alpaca petting zoo, some ruins by Pisac, a chicharia(where they make chica-a drink from fermented corn) and some more ruins in Ollaytambo. After all of this exhaustion we boarded a train and headed to Aguas Calientes for the night.

Saturday we woke up in Aguas Calientes and got on a bus and headed up to Machu Picchu. The ride was incredible, through rainforest covered mountains. Machu Picchu was incredible mostly because of the location and the extensiveness of the ruins. Though it is extremely touristy with about 3,000 tourists EVERY DAY! After our tour most of us headed off to hike up Wayna Picchu(young peak), the mountain you see in the typical image of Machu Picchu. It is about 45 minutes of zig-zag stairs straight up, I definitely was not expecting to find a little village at the very tip top though. There were some amazing views down on Machu Picchu from there. Next time I go I will definitely be taking the Incan Trail, I can only imagine how awesome it would be to walk through the sun gate as the sun is rising and see Machu Picchu.

After that we returned to Aguas Calientes and boarded our 4 hour long train to Cusco. Ella and I got to sit together and it was a hilarious ride for the most part. We returned to Cusco where I met up with my cousin Cara and we went out and had some amazing Argentinian wine. After we met up with everyone at a hostel party then continued on til 4am to two different dancing spots. And now I am back, missing the sun already!

 Incan walls in Cusco

 dressing up

 dinner

 above cusco

 bigggg incan walls

 scary

 oh jaaa, wingspan like a condor! (also that is Wayna Picchu in the background, went to the very top of it!)

 some duck like things, we miss you U of O!

 at the top of Wayna Picchu, the city of Machu Picchu is behind me

Cusquenas on the train ride back, had to celebrate a 100 yrs of Machu Picchu