Cajon

Today we made a band...

We learned how to play the cajon, which is the most well known Peruvian instrument. Basically a wooden box with a hole in the back. We dropped some beats and I have a really good video but it won't upload for some reason:( 

 La chica on the left is holding the jaw of a cow ..an instrument in peru!You bang the bone and the molars rattle making a rather interesting sound I would say...so creative those Peruvians!

Tomorrow I am going to a castle:) 

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

Is it really Octubre??

Well well well. Interesting week I had. Tuesday went to see Planeta de los Simios(planet of the apes) with Ella and some Peruvian friends. Didn't realize that it would be dubbed so that was a Spanish adventure. Surprisingly I understood it all which was really cool. It was midterms week so two of my classes got cancelled Wednesday so Ella and I went surfing with our friends/instructors and we both ate a lot of shit but did really well on the shorter boards. Yesterday Ella and I decided to explore Barranco ( a cool artist/hippy neighborhood on the beach) because the only time we ever go is at night. We wandered around found a cute art gallery, ate some cookies, and took pics. Then at night we had a dinner with our CIEE group at La Dama Juana. It was a fancy buffet dinner accompanied by Peruvian dances! Ella and I were a little late getting there so we of course got the seats next to the stage...needless to say, the pulled us on stage to dance. 

 Dancin' and eatin'

 Okay I turned into Indiana Jones since you last saw me. That was not my hat btw,it was part of their costume.

                  Okay and then this happened.....but he was like a Peruvian James Franco..so I don't hate it.

Tonight is the Peru v Paraguay futbol game..AMO PERU!

America Latina

Realllly into this video...

Punta Hermosa

Tranquilo fin de semana! Ayer fuimos a punta hermosa! We wanted/meant to go to Cerro Azul to go surfing but we got a little lost and the bus ended up not going that far. So we got out in a small fishing village called Pucusana (I think)...ate some palta sandwiches, saw more scary peruvian dogs and then got back on the bus. We headed back towards Lima and got out at a beach town called Punta Hermosa. Apparently in the summer it is hoppin! Since it isn't summer though not too many people were there. First beach I have seen with sand. We didn't get to surf but we did do some extreme body surfing. Can't wait to return, it was only 45 minutes south of Lima and you can take a micro right there. It's only about 3 soles or 1 USD each way. loveee it. 

 Pucusana

 Punta Hermosa

 Ella Bella

kinda looks like Greece

Anniversary

As of today I have been in Peru for two months!

How time flies..only two and half more to go:( sad. Anyway here is a bulleted list of random thoughts after two months...

-why when turning left would you go to the far right lane then try to cut off? three more lanes? why bus driver why !

- they eat every part of the chicken here...yah the feet/claw ...bleh

-someone got killed at the U v Alianza game last saturday so now we can't go to the Peru v Paraguay game:(

- at La Catolica (my school) there are big drama /protests going down because the Vatican wants to make it really catholic

- I don't like when my underwear dries in the kitchen...

-palta palta paltaaa(aka avocado..you have never tasted something so good)

-spanish is not called spanish here, it is castellano

-when Peruvians speak in English I can't help but die laughing...so thank you Peru for not laughing at me when I speak Spanish

- Also spanish speakers can't say 'ld' so "world" comes out like "word"

-here I am Sara not Sarah 

- when you buy stuff sometimes at the giant supermarket they write you a receipt at the counter then you take it to the register, pay, then walk back to the counter and they give you what you want

- I broke my key in the door...twisted it all around...I'm like the hulk

- If you want to take a shower you have to turn on the water 40minutes before...major planning

-The sidewalks and every other floor surfaces are really slippery

-nobody has carpets..shoes all the time in the house

Okay that is all that comes to mind as of now!

edit----
-everyone says I have the face of a child..it's getting old

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