Lessons for the day

We are currently in the Sacred Valley in a town called Urubamba, making our way to Machu Picchu. Last night we stayed in another nearby town called Pisaq, and explored the ruins overlooking the city during the day. Views of the mountains and valley from the Pisaq ruins are so far the most breath-taking and beautiful sights I have seen on this trip, and perhaps ever. They say the ruins at Pisaq are second only to Machu Picchu, and if so I can´t wait to see what Machu Picchu is like (tomorrow!). If anyone is ever heading to the area, I would highly recomend spending some quality time in Pisaq. I wish I could post some pictures, but we`re travelling light these three days in the valley, so I don´t have my USB cord.

We stayed in a nice hostel last night in Pisaq, with my own private room for only $3! It is a new place and was very beautiful, though, once it started raining last night I discovered a leak in the ceiling as water dripped down directly onto my face! I still liked the place though, I guess you just get used to a different level of comfort. For example, an expression I have used often, and just used in a cafe today is, "Hey guys, the bathroom here has SOAP!". One bathroom I found in Huancayo even had paper towels too : )

Its a bit harder to practice my Spanish now that we´re out of Huancayo, since there I spoke everyday to the host family, and kids at the school and orphanage. Now, I could literally get away without speaking Spanish for the rest of the trip, if I wanted to....which I don´t. I am learning, however, that Spanish is in fact a very simple language. They don´t have countless meanings for the same things. For example:

Esta bien = It is good
Esta bien = OK
Esta bien = Fine
Esta bien = Sure
Esta bien = No problem

Claro = I understand
Claro = Of course
Claro = OK

Everything just seems more simpified here. It makes sense to me, and makes learning the language much easier!

Well, just wanted to post while I could. Pisaq definitely deserves a post of its own, and I´ll be posting more about Machu Picchu after we visit tomorrow as well!

Take care,
Joan

Just one question....

...WHY???

We`re ruined!

Hello There,

So, we arrived into Cusco on Sunday, and we were instantly in love with this city. From the plane into town we could see huge snow-capped mountain peaks out the left side of the plane. Of course, all I could think of was the move "Alive" (these are the Andes, you know), but I wasn`t worried, because at least if something happened I knew how to survive ; )

Cusco is a gorgeous city nestled in the mountains, with Inkan stone architecture as the foundation for many buildings, topped with the Spanish-influenced structures with red-topped roofs. Here are views of the city center (Plaza de Armas), Incan walls lining the narrow streets and red rooftops:

Of course, there are a few things that are a bit shocking in Cusco as well. Coming from Huancayo, not a very touristy area, we were overwhelmed by the number and aggressiveness of the street vendors here. It is impossible to look as we do without being mauled by children and locals trying to sell us things. They don`t give up, even if you say "no"! I`m learning to just ignore them entirely, that usually works. It is also a LOT more expensive here. Food and everything is much more expensive than Huancayo, and on top of that we`re going to Machu Picchu, which is the most expensive thing to do in Peru! (Well, it seems that way anyway.)

There has been a slight delay thrown into our plans - the trains and buses decided to strike on the two days we planned to use them to see Machu Picchu (today and tomorrow), so we`ve got to wait it out and won`t be able to leave for Machu Picchu until Friday. It sets me back two days, which I hope doesn`t prevent me from seeing more places down the line. Though, of any place to spend two extra days in, this is a great one.

We`re using our extra days to get to know the area a little better. Yesterday, Jeff, Amanda, and I took a cab to an area just outside the city, where we could take a few hours to walk to various ruin sites imporant in Inca times. Some sites were used as fortresses, others for summer homes or bathing areas for the elite. One of them is called "Sacsayhuaman", which when pronounced sounds exactly like "Sexy woman". All were cool, and afforded AMAZING views over Cusco and down the Sacred Valley. Here are some photos, I think they speak for themselves:

We`re planning to take a few days to get to and see Machu Picchu. If you don`t know what this is, I`m sure you`ve seen photos before, it is the ruins of an ancient Incan city that existed at the top of a mountain. Incan architecture is famous for being very precise in the way of its structure and relation to nature. Needless to say we`ll be sick of ruins by the end of this week!

The trip to Machu Picchu by nature takes a few days. There are day trips from Cusco, but they are very expensive and don`t give you much time at the site. We are going to leave tomorrow to stay in a town in the Sacred Valley, which is on the "Inca Trail" and where there are other ruin sites. We will stay in the closest town to the big site the night before, and get up early to go to the top of Machu Picchu and have most of the day there. To get the cheapest train ticket, we will stay one more night in Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu town, the only reason to go there), then take an early train back to Cusco, by way of Ollantaytambo.

So, I won`t be able to post for a few more days, but when I do I should hopefully have some great new pictures!

We`ve already booked our way out of Cusco, we will head next Monday to Puno, a town in Peru on Lake Titicaca. From there its a short jaunt into Bolivia! We decided on the train as opposed to the shorter, cheaper bus, just so we can have the train experience! It is about 10 hours from Cusco to Puno, and they views are supposed to be spectacular.

Hope all is well, I`ll write soon!

Joan

Last Day in Huancayo

So, it really just hit me that today is my last day here in Huancayo. I visited the girls at the orphanage for the last time, it was sad to leave them. They kindly gave me a hand-carved gift of a wooden pencil-holder, which I really wish they gave to me yesterday, because I just shipped my souvenirs home and it is really heavy! I´m not sure for how long I´ll be willing to carry it in my backpack. We brought them some fruit today as a going-away present. They performed a dance for us (something they made up to pop music), it was really cute. They tried to teach me after, I think I did pretty well if I do say so myself : )

Here I am with my favorite girl, Estefany. I know I shouldn´t pick favorites, but I can´t help it, she´s just so damn cool:


For the past two evenings we have gone on some interesting excursions. Tino is not used to having so many people in the program, so he is, shall I say, "working out the kinks" of how to show so many people a good time. Wednesday he took us to some ruins outside the city. Since everyone has such a busy schedule during the day, it wasn´t until 5:00 that we left on the one-hour drive, which means it was dark by the time we got there. So actually "seeing" the ruins proved to be difficult. To make matters worse, it was a long walk down a dark path back to the bus, and a few people got very lost. We had to send out a search party, and they were very upset when we finally found them! Lucky for me I have my headlamp - thanks Jeff! They were pre-Incan ruins of the original Huancayan people. Here is a picture with Huancayo in the background:
Not learning the valuable lesson from this night, the following night we went out at 6:00 to attempt to view a natural rock formation in the city, known as "Torre Torre" (Torre = tower). Walking on a narrow path along a steep slope toward rocks that were invisible in the darkness didn´t seem like a good idea to many of us, so after attempting the journey myself and some others turned around and had an early dinner. Though we did have fun taking some funny pictures in the dark!

As I mentioned, Tino is an award-winning weaver. Some of his weavings are on display at a local restaurant, so they let me go in yesterday and take some pictures. Aren´t these amazing?!?!

Yes, these are actually weavings. Marie showed me how they do it, they take a pinch of each color from a handful of wool (or whatever material they are using), and literally just put it together piece by piece. They are breathtaking to see. He told me he even made one for Princess Di!

Tonight we are having a going-away dinner, since 16 of the 21 people in the house are leaving tomorrow morning (13 are the college group, plus myself, Amanda, and Jeff). We will all actually be on the same bus back to Lima, and at the same hostel tomorrow night! I just sort of happened that way. On Sunday, myself, Amanda, and Jeff will fly to Cusco! It is going to be very exciting, though I´m sure a bit shocking as well, as it is very expensive compared to Huancayo! Cusco is the #1 tourist destination in Peru, so the prices are much higher than what I´m used to. I´ll write soon!

Joan

Shakin´ my groove thang

Its week number two at the house in Huancayo and I must say I feel as I´ve settled into a routine. It is nice having a place to come home to that you are familiar with and where you know what to expect. I think I´m a bit spoiled right now, I´ve got my own private room with a key so I can just leave all of my things there and go out for the day with a few Soles (Peruvian currency) in my pocket and not have any worries. Its going to be a lot harder once I begin staying in hostels, it won´t be as easy to hang my hand-washed clothes accross the room if other people are there. They do have laundromats here (lavanderias), but the one time I went I specifically asked them not to dry certain things, and they did anyway and now my pants are at my ankles. I´ll hand wash as often as possible. Clothes dry in no time in the sun, but if it is raining or there is no sun for a few days, clothes take 3-4 days to dry!

This past Saturday all of the volunteers from the house, plus the 20-something family members, went out to a local bar. There were live local bands playing traditional Peruvian music. We entered the club (as a large group of white people), and I don´t think I´d ever felt so stared-at in all my life! We were definitely the only gringos in the place. These local middle-aged couples wanted to dance with the gringas (it seemed), so I started dancing and somehow really impressed everyone (including my friends)! The lady kept feeding me sangria, which I didn´t really want, but didn´t know if by turning it down I would be offending their culture! So, I did what I had to do, you know? The others joined in and we had a nice circle going, holding hands and making up steps to the local jives. I think we did pretty well, it was a ton of fun. Here are some pictures from the night:

Thirteen new people arrived yesterday from a college in florida, so now the house is packed and bathroom time is at a minimum. They just changed my schedule, so now I have one class at the Andean School, rather than two, which is MUCH better. Even though it wasn´t a whole lot of work, I was feeling pretty burned out and am thankful for the lighter load. Teaching is tough work! To Kara and all of the teachers out there, I give you a lot of credit.

I went to the weekly market on Sunday and bought lots of nice things to send home, gifts and souvenirs. Here is a picture of me with my new sweater. It is made of Alpaca wool, and cost about $8:

Here´s a picture of Angela, the youngest daughter, which I didn´t have for the last post. Isn´t she a cutie!

Also, I finished my weaving on Saturday! Here I am with my new blanket:

I´m so sick of rice and potatoes, I was hoping I´d last more than a week before I started craving other things. I´d been dying for cheese, so we went out for pizza on Sunday. It was supposedly some of the best pizza in Peru, which is disappointing. Also, all of the chocolate here has an underlying funky taste to it. And not the cool funk, like James Brown, but funk as in the way my dog smells after he´s been running in puddles. In fact, the whole town has this smell, like the smell of mud in everything, that starts to get to you after a while. I´m not complaining, just observing : )

Well, that will do it for today, I´ll write soon.

Joan

Biking through villages and lots of photos!

I´m going to take advantage of this good Internet connection while I can. Here is a picture of one of the two youngest girls of my host family, Pili (I need to get a better picture of Angela, she`s got to be the cutest kid ever):
This is the outside of the house I am staying in:















Here is a view from the entrance to the orphanage:












Today some of the volunteers had the day off (I already needed it....pathetic!!!), and we went for a long bike tour through many of the surrounding villages. The scenery was gorgeous, and riding through some of the villages and fields was just so peaceful. We stopped at a restaurant and I had trucha, a local fresh-water fish. It was delicious. We got a large soup, and fish with rice and potatoes for only about $1.50! After we stopped at a shop that sells silver, which is produced in this region and sold at the lowest prices. I got a nice silver and copper ring for about $3.

Here are some pictures from our day:

Me with host dad Tino`s daughter Elizabeth, who is also a coordinator for the school and orphanage. She`s hilarious:

Amanda and Jeff:

Tomorrow is St. Paddy`s day! We`re going to do our best to celebrate without an Irish pub. From what I hear the effects of alcohol in this altitude are much stronger, so me and Amanda are planning to split one drink. That should be plenty!

Hope you are all well, I`ll write soon.

Joan

Juanita says....

Well, its been a really busy week! First of all, I`ve been trying for more than three days to upload new pictures to this blog, and only now is it working. So, please pardon the long entry. I will post additional pictures in a separate entry.

Sunday I visited the weekly market and bought some really nice things for practically nothing, all hand-made. It was so cheap I didn´t even think of bargaining with them. In fact, it was so cheap I almost bought things I didn´t even want! Hand-woven blankets for less than $10, hand-knitted sweaters and hats, hand-carved gourds, it was amazing. Later that day I visited a nice park with a Gaudi-esque style, very cool. After that we visited a place to get local food, and I tried guinnea pig for the first time. And cow´s heart. As in, I ate them. The guinnea pig was tasty but hard as a rock and really hard to cut into, and there was practically no meat on it. I´ll pass on the cow´s heart next time.

I began my volunteer work and classes this week. In the mornings I visit a local orphanage for girls to spend time with them and teach them some basic English. Visiting the orphanage has been a very special experience. These girls come from serious physical and sexual abuse, or were abandoned. Two of the girls even have children - one from her own grandfather and the other of her father - and they are only 14 years old. It is EXTREMELY sad. However, the girls are so kind and loving. As soon as we entered through the gates on our first day the girls came running up to us with open arms and gave us lots of hugs and kisses. It was really touching. They don´t have much, but the organization that I am working for, Tinkuy Peru, is trying to help. Once I took out my camera they had a field day. Here are some photos of the children:

They don`t smile much for photos but trust me they are very upbeat and playful. We introduced ourselves on the first day, and by the second and third were teaching them ¨Head, shoulders, knees and toes¨and ¨Simon Says¨, which I renamed Juanita Says (Juanita se dice) ; )

I go home for lunch, then head in the afternoon for the Andean School where I teach two English classes at 4 and 5:00. My first class was ... well, hell. It is a group of very young kids with no attention span whatsoever, it was really hard to keep them under control. On the second day I brought them paper and markers to draw a picture of themselves and write Ï am a boy/girl¨and ¨My name is ___¨. It was SOOO much better. My second class is more advanced and easier to handle, though I still needed help, so a new girl named Yvonne from Australia is now joining me in these classes, which is great. She gives death stares, while I play good cop. Here is a picture of my first, younger class. They sure are cuties though:

My Spanish class is after this. I have a teacher named Miguel who wants to study in the States, I hope he can do it, its really hard for people here because they don´t have a lot of money and there are many restrictions for visa, etc.

I began my weaving class in the evenings, too. Wasn`t I trying to get away from such a busy schedule??? Its been a little hard to find the time to work on it, but by the end of this week I will have made a blanket!

Two new people arrived from Canada - Amanda and Jeff from Ottowa. They are really cool and are staying for the same time that I am, so we have already decided to travel together after Huancayo! We pretty much have the same route planned, so we will go together. I am psyched, we get along very well. They just booked our flight to Cusco after next week! We will take the bus back to Lima and fly to Cusco from there, to avoid the 30 bus rid we would have to take, had we decided to go that route.

Hasta luego for now!

Juanita

First Days in Huancayo

Hello Friends and Fam!

I have made it to the city of Huancayo. I left yesterday morning on a bus from Lima. The bus was amazingly nice, better than most airlines in the states!!! We had comfortable seats, a movie, a meal, and they even had a game of bingo for the entire bus! (Take that US Airways!) The woman who won bingo was hysterical, she took the microphone and gave a thank you speech! (Or told a joke, I wasn´t sure exactly what was going on).

The ride was almost entirely through the mountains, which were breathtaking. We literally went straight up from sea-level to 5,000 meters (more than 15,000 feet) in about six hours. Needless to say, I was quite queasy by the end. I´m not sure if it was more from the windy mountain roads, or the shock of the high altitude, but I was not a happy camper when I arrived in Huancayo. And hell if they were going to make me think in Spanish at that point, all I wanted was a bed! To my dismay, my host family had an entourage of people to greet me at their house. It was nice and all, but with my headache and thinking I might puke at any minute, it was hard to make a good impression.

My host "mom" (six years older than me), Marie, gave me some tea to help settle my stomach - coca tea that is. Illegal in the US, I believe its where cocaine is derived from, no? Anywho, apparently at that altitude (now slightly lower, 4,200 meters) there are no strange side effects from it. It tasted pretty plain. I had a nice conversation with Marie (in Spanish, I´m doing well!!!), then took a much-needed nap. I met two other girls who are staying in the house with me - they are from Utah, and yes, they are Mormon. They are also 19-year-old hairdressers. We walked around a bit before dinner. Apparently there is a Mormon church in Huancayo, but not a Catholic church? (I must have misinterpereted that part). Four other girls arrived from Iceland late last night, also staying in the house.

The home I am in is very nice, and I like my room a lot. There is electricity and running water, and hot water in the shower (heated by an electric showerhead). They have a flat roof with great views of the mountains and surrounding homes, here are two views:














My host family is so nice. Marie and Tino are my host "parents" (Tino is a Peruvian award-winning weaver, I plan to take a weaving class with him next week), they have two adorable young daughters, I´ll post pictures as soon as I have some, they are too cute. Then there is the extended family who lives in the house as well - Tino´s grandmother, Marie´s brother Jesus (who is also a tour guide), and a housekeeper. Tino also has another daughter from another marriage.

Huancayo is definitely a city, not the most attractive but it has all I need and more. Internet cafe´s on every corner, nice restaurants, etc. I can´t wait to do some tours with Jesus around the city, there are many wonderful villages surrounding the area. Here are two views of downtown Huancayo:


















I´ve been doing OK with the altitude, I was nauseous last night, but I´m not sure if it was more from the bus ride. My fingers and toes feel like they have pins and needles. Marie says its from the altitude and that it will go away in a few days.

That´s about all for now, I start classes tomorrow (teaching and learning), so I will let you know how that goes.

Spanish lesson for the day - Hasta Luego! (Until Later)

Joan

PS - My host family addresses me as Juanita, for some reason Joan is practically impossible for them to say ; )

Day -1

A-HA! I have finally figured out how to load these pictures. It is much easier than I thought, I was making too difficult, when the USB ports are right on the front of the computer!

So, lets retrace my steps a bit. Here are pictures from BEFORE I left for Peru. Note the hair-length and skin color:

Yes, this is all of my luggage for three months. Couldn´t figure out how to flip this one:

And that one´s just plain goofy. I already have a sunburn, its pretty hot here in Lima. It will be much cooler in the mountains, I head for Huancayo tomorrow morning. I´m looking forward to seeing the countryside from the bus - its a 6-hour ride to the next city.

I´ll write from Huancayo!

Joan (Juanita)

Day 1 : Lima, Peru

Hola Amigos!!!

So I have made it - south of the equator, to the undiscovered continent, to the land of Incas, to the other America. I arrived only this morning but I must say that it already feels like two or three days. Having not slept more than 2 hours in the past two days has accounted for the feeling of one really long day.

I left from Logan yesterday around 6:45pm. Trying to upload my ¨before¨ pictures is proving difficult, I´ll have to add them from another Internet cafe tomorrow.

I spent time walking around Lima today, the Miraflores part of town, which happens to be the nicest and safest. The sun was strong and it was hot, probably in the 80´s, and I´ve already got a sunburn! I´ve got a great hotel right near everything I´ll need; I´ll stay here for the next two nights before taking an early-morning bus on Saturday to Huancayo, the city where I will live, teach, and study for the next two weeks.

Check into my blog often, I´ll send periodic updates but it will likely be updated more often then I will remind you of.

A bus tour tomorrow will show me more of the city.

Sorry this isn´t a very exciting first entry, I´m still exhausted from the flight!

Hasta Luego!