Altitude sickness is real

Everyone warned me about altitude sickness in Cusco, but having been at altitude before, I wasn't too concerned. The saying is "Tienes que comer poquito, caminar despacito y dormir solito" (You have you eat little, walk slow, and sleep alone) I followed all those instructions, but still was taken over by the altitude.It is real and it's horrible. All day yesterday, even walking up the stairs from the lobby of our hotel to our room would leave me winded, not to mention the hilly streets around town.

I thought I was drinking a sufficient enough of mate de coca (coca leaf tea), but apparently not. Instead of taking a city tour, dad took a nap and I went to get a massage, which did make me feel good for a while. Everything really hit me after dinner. We had a delicious pizza and vino caliente, then walking home I suddenly felt like I was going to die (more so than earlier, even). I spent about an hour in bed tossing, turning, and shaking before projectile vomiting. Dad went out and got me some Inka Cola and water, and the guy at the front desk of our hotel gave me some altitude sickness tablets. Between all of those, I felt well enough to sleep and I woke up today feeling as if nothing ever happened.

PONCHO PONCHO PONCHO!

Dad and I spent an eventful four days rolling on the mighty Amazon River. It was so much fun! We started in Iquitos, which the largest city that can't be accessed by road: you either need to fly in or take a boat... we flew. As a city, Iquitos was interesting. It was full of motorcycles and rickshaws and was once the center of the rubber industry. Now, tourism is it's main economic activity. Right off the Plaza de Armas, there was a building that was built by the same guy that built the Eiffel Tower. We ate dinner there, which was pretty neat.

We went into the jungle with a tour for 3 days and 2 nights. We stayed in a beautiful lodge, without electricity, 140 kilometers outside of Iquitos. We arrived after a 3 hour boat ride up the Amazon. We stopped about half way to use the "bathroom" and right away, we saw the river dolphins playing near by the floating stop. The dolphins were fun to see, and they looked just like normal dolphins, which I was surprised by.

Our lodge was beautiful and ran like summer camp. We had to be in the dining room whenever the bell rang and then had a morning, afternoon, and evening activity. Our activities were hiking around looking for monkeys and medicinal plants, piranha fishing, visiting the nearby fishing village, night excursions to look for caimans and other nocturnal wildlife, dolphin watching, and taking a swim in the river.

All in all, the Amazon was different than any other part of Peru I've seen and the remoteness is amazing. It wasn't as buggy as we expected, though they still managed to get me and it was easily the hottest place I've been. Whenever we were one an excursion, we dreaded the command "PONCHO PONCHO PONCHO!" which meant were going straight into a down pour. When it rains in the Amazon, it POURS!

La Primavera

As I continue to hear stories about how chilly it's getting back in Ohio and Indiana, I thought I'd let you all know that springtime is in full force here in Lima. The climate here is really interesting, because the seasons vary drastically in every region. While on the south central desert coast the days are getting longer, the sky bluer, and the temperature warmer, the sierra and the cordillera are getting cloudy and rainy. The Amazon is also entering it's rainy season. I live on the coast though, so I am loving being able to lay out in the early afternoon and work on my tan and leave the house at night without donning a winter hat and scarf! I'm not the only one ecstatic about this change of weather -- I spent this morning walking along the waterfront and stopped to for a bout a forty minutes to watch a pod of about ten dolphins playing in the surf. The kitten in the picture clearly knows how spring time should be celebrated... sun bathing on the ruins of colonial era stone houses in the center of Lima.

I only have a little more than a month left in Peru and about two months left in South America total... While I miss my friends and family, it breaks my heart to think about leaving behind the South American summer for a midwestern winter.

Another one bites the dust

October came and went I can't believe how fast the semester is flying by. After John left, I've pretty much spent my time in Lima and nearby hanging out with my friends. Last week, we went to Punta Hermosa for the Billabong World Championship surfing competition. We rented a house for 11 of us and had a great weekend! I keep saying that it was beach house, but it was really pretty smelly, kind of creepy, and a few blocks away from the beach. Beach house or not, it was great and Peru won!

This weekend was Halloween and not nearly as big as Halloween in The States, though there were still parties and people in costumes.

These next three weeks should be great! Dad gets here on Wednesday... I'd tell you what we'll be doing, but then you really wouldn't have a reason to read my blog, so I'm going to just keep you all posted as we travel!

Sandboarding in Huacachina

John and I got out of Lima for a few day and headed south into the desert. We went to a little oasis called Huacachina which only exists for tourism, but with reason. It is a VERY fun place! The main activities available are laying around by the pool that every hostel and hotel is equiped with, dune buggying, and sandboarding. We did all three and had a great time. We took a bus ride back to Lima on Monday night completely covered with sand and I woke up this morning pretty sore from my wipe out.

I bought a bottle of pisco over the weekend that is mixed with grape juice, so it's more like a wine. I couldn't say no to this offer. While we were in a pisco kiosk tasting different types, I sneezed and blew my nose. The woman selling said that she had a pisco that would completely cure my cold. While I was tasting it, she also said that it soothes menstrual cramps. Done. Someone sure knows how to sell to ladies! Looking forward to seeing how this miracle pisco works out for me. I fact-checked it with Maria and she said that in the sierra they drink hot pisco or aches and pains and colds, so maybe there is something to it.

John and Mary Do Lima!

So, if you followed my blog while I was in the Dominican Republic, you may recognize this guy. John was one of my closest friends in the DR and he came here to spend ten days with me. It's been great so far! John studied abroad here the semester before we went to the DR, so he's been showing me around to all his favorite places in Lima and introducing me to all his friends.

He got in Monday night around midnight, so there wasn't much else to do besides grab a drink. Some of the fun things we've done so far have been going to the center of Lima and the top of Cerro San Cristobal, which offers a spectacular view of Lima, with John's friend Junior. It's really impressive how enormous the city is, which is impossible to realize when you're walking around. It's not very tall, but very VERY wide! That night, we went out to hang out with my friends.

Today, we went to the Peru vs Costa Rica soccer game with Junior, which was really fun, especially since both countries are near and dear to my heart. The final score was 2-0 Peru. After that, we got some dinner and headed out to the Circuito de Aguas Magicos. It's a park full of beautiful enormous fountains. One of them features a laser show to typical dances among other things. Another fun was a labyrinth that you could run through and the game was not to get hit by the water, but the water would shoot up and trap you inside the paths in the labyrinth. I got out of there dry and was in the minority.

We have some other things planned out today that I'm not going to ruin future blog posts by listing. All in all, it's great having him here and I feel like I'm on vacation too! It's funny because we're both from the States, but we've never hung out in there since we live so far apart -- he's from Washington the state. We met in the DR and now we're here together, so we're making it a rule that we can only hang out outside of the US, preferably Spanish-speaking countries.

Where did September go?

Last night, I had a much needed girls night with my friends Lorena, Urzula, and a bottle of red wine. We all got to wondering where September went and can't believe how fast the semester is flying by. In this post, I'm going to write a couple anecdotes of funny, awkward, and/or interesting situations that didn't make it into any other blog posts. Also, here are some pictures of a few of my friends that I hang out with pretty regularly. I feel really lucky to have made friends with such great people down here.
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Peruvians LOVE talking about there food. I, on the other hand, don't have to much to say about it except "Si, me gusta mucho! Es muy rico" (Yeah, I like it a lot! It's really good!) I've had this conversation countless times and usually after I say I like Peruvian cuisine, I have to list all the dishes I've tried (after being here for two months, how in the world can I remember everything I've eaten)and then they go on to tell me everything that I'm missing out on. It's not too painful, but my friend at work, Lucia, has an interest in my eating habits more so than most. Every time I go to the huaca, she asked me what I ate for breakfast and is ALWAYS disappointed when EVERY DAY the answer is bread, juice, and sometimes I go crazy and eat a banana. Apparently, I'm supposed to be eating much much more for breakfast.
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I pretty much spend most of my time at the huaca excavating. It's pretty funny for me, because when tour groups go by, they always stop to take pictures of the archaeologists at work. Multiple times, I've been asked to pose with my trowel or take a picture by a child. Being that most of my friends are archaeologists and so archaeology has become a very normal life for me. For others, however, some of them have never seen an archaeologist and have the romantic images of tomb raiders and adventurers that movies like Indiana Jones promote in their head, so I suppose it is exciting to see one at work. People also seem to get a kick out of how dirty I am all the time.
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Taxi drivers here hardly ever know where their going and it's one of the few things about Peru that I find incredibly annoying. Yes, I've had some very nice and knowledgeable taxi drivers, but the majority of my experiences have been hopping in a car and having to direct every turn and stop until we finally arrive. Fortunately, I don't have to take cabs very often. Being that Miraflores is easily navigable on foot and really safe, it's not too necessary. In fact, Peruvians continue to tell me that it's safer to walk alone at night than it is to take a cab alone at night, because they cabs here aren't controlled and finding a secure one can be tough.
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In Huaraz, I bought a stereotypical Andean textile purse. I love it! It's full of color, matches everything I wear, and full of space for anything I would want to carry. However, it sparked one of the most awkward conversations I've had yet while I was in Trujillo at La Festival de la Primavera. I was traveling with two white guys, so a multitude of people were constantly asking us where we were from and we'd have to go through the list of Francia, Italia, y Los Estados Unidos. One younger guy came over to talk to us, and after listing where we were from, he turned to me and said "you're not from Peru, why do you have that purse?" What in the world could I say to that? They're available to gringas too! So I just sarcastically said "Because I'm trying to look more like a Peruvian. What do you think? Did you think I was from Peru?" That made him laugh and it also ended the conversation, which I was happy about.
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Once, I was walking around with Lucia, the senora of my house, and we saw woman wearing bright purple lipstick that matched her bright purple sweater. We didn't say anything and just walked by, but as soon as she was a couple meters away, we both looked at each other and about died laughing. Part of me hopes that woman has a shade of lipstick for every sweater she owns.
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The other day I got off the combi at my first stop to catch another to get back to my house from the university. Usually, nothing eventful happens at this stop and I buy my sweet potato chips and just get on the next combi headed towards Ave. Pardo. This day, however, there was a very drunk man with crutches, a Beatles shirt, and a bottle of beer singing "Hey Jude" at the top of his lungs. I guess he was getting it all out of his system before la ley seca (the dry law) started (in Peru, you can't drink the weekend before elections so that alcohol doesn't effect your voting decision). Well upon seeing me, he insisted I join in and I found myself very awkwardly singing "Hey Jude" with this very drunk man with a ton of other people laughing and watching. Needless to say, I was pretty happy when my combi finally arrived!
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Well, that's about all I have for now. My days here are usually full of little moments that really don't fit into a blog post of their own, but I'll always remember of my time here in Peru.