El año nuevo

Okay, so it's time for the New Year's post.  Last week, I was asked what my New Year's resolution is.  Well, to be honest, at that point in time, I had absolutely no clue!  I've never made a New Year's resolution, so I figured this would be a good year to start.  So after I decided to make one this year the hard part came...  What will it be?  I probably haven't given this as much thought as I should have, but here are the things that I came up with.

1.  Try not to stress out during next semester (I made this one because I have several hard classes and I will be REALLY busy so I need to remember to stay calm and relax during the stressful times)

2.  Choreograph at least three dances (I have a couple songs that I've been wanting to choreograph to for awhile now so I might as well stop dilly dallying and do it this year!)

3.  Thanks to Pinterest, I found a quick and easy workout that I should be able to fit into my schedule on a daily basis.  The plan is to do this everyday or at least do it on the days that I don't have dance.

4.  Stretch (A huge part of dance is flexibility so after the above workout, I would like to stretch so that my flexibility increases)

So that's all I can really come up with for now, but there are also little things that I would like to do, too.  For example, number 5 would be to make someone smile every single day and do something nice for someone everyday.  I hope that I am able to keep these resolutions and I wish luck to all of you who have made resolutions as well!  I'm sure I will think of more as the new year draws closer, but these are the ones that I have right now.  One last thing that I would like to do for the year also came from Pinterest:

Throughout the year, write down memories that make you smile. On New Year's Eve, open it up and reread all of the good stuff that made the year wonderful!  I think that this is a great idea and I can't wait to start it!

One last thing.  Be safe on New Year's Eve.  All of you have people in your life that cherish you so please be safe, smart, and responsible.

Navidad

Okay, so I think this will be my first blog post that doesn't have to do with being in Peru.  I'm not promising that I won't mention Peru, but I will tell you that the majority of this blog will not be about Peru.  What will it be about, you ask?  Christmas, of course!  What else would it be about?  Nothing, obviously.  Only Christmas and everything that goes along with it!  Like I have said before, I have no idea in what direction this blog is heading, but I hope that it's a good one and I hope you continue to enjoy reading it!  Okay, here it goes.  I may not be going on a big adventure in Peru, but I know that the next phase in my life will still be an adventure!

Okay, back to talking about Christmas!  What are some awesome things about Christmas?  Number one on my list has to be watching Christmas movies!  This is something that I really missed doing while in Peru! (#1 time mentioning Peru)  Once December 1st hit, I was wanting to watch Christmas movies SO bad, but I had to wait until I returned to the states and I was so excited to watch Christmas movies.  My two favorites are Christmas Vacation and Elf.  There's just nothing like a Christmas movie that make you laugh and smile for hours!  Some of the other great Christmas movies are The Santa Clause, White Christmas, The Christmas Story, Prancer, Holiday Inn, The Year Without a Santa Claus, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Home Alone, and many many others.  Want a list of more look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christmas_films  Anyway, watching Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music like Bing Crosby are just some of the ways to get you in the Christmas spirit, as well as shopping and wrapping presents!  I did most of my Christmas shopping in Peru (#2) so that everyone had unique gifts, but I also was able to shop the day before Christmas Eve with my mom and boyfriend and that was just a great day.  Not only was it great because I got to see the Abercrombie & Fitch guys shirtless, but I got to spend the day with my mom and boyfriend and there were great deals at all the stores! :)  I hope that you enjoyed your days leading up to Christmas as well!  What do you do to put yourself in the Christmas mood?  Usually snow helps with that, too, but unfortunately there is no snow yet.  That means that there is going to be another snowmageddon this January.

Yesterday morning my mom, dad, and I all packed up the truck with presents and suitcases and headed three hours to my grandma and grandpa's house near Chicago.  Family time is just the greatest, isn't it?  Especially when you don't see some family members all the time, which is what this Christmas has been like.  I have family that live in Texas that came up for Christmas and also, since my sister went off and got married and moved, I was able to see her and her husband finally, too!  For Christmas Eve, we traditionally have a Swedish meal complete with Swedish meatballs, potato sausage, and potatoes and white gravy (because we are part Swedish).  Yum!  Also, we always have a white elephant gift exchange on Christmas Eve night.  This year we played Christmas Trivia (Example: Who hollers "Stop!" at Frosty the Snowman? Answer:  The traffic cop) as well as the Cake game (Example: What kind of cake does a mouse like? Answer:  Cheese cake) :)  Anyway, everyone got a small gift, but the grand prize was a prize that I brought back from Peru (#3).  It was a goodie basket full of Peruvian foods including IncaKola, Huancaína sauce, Sublime, chifles, and cancha.  My family didn't really like anything too much, but I still think most of it is good, however, I'm still not a fan of IncaKola.  Also, for Christmas Eve, it has become a tradition that my sister and I always get pajamas as a gift.

Christmas Eve with my sister in our new pajamas

For some reason after the games, we watched the movie Jaws because it was on TV.  Not really what I call a Christmas movie, but who cares because Christmas isn't just about watching Christmas movies, but it's about sharks family, too, so it was nice to just sit and talk and watch people get eaten alive by sharks.  Soon after, we all climbed into our beds and waited for Santa Claus to bring us gifts during the night.

My grandparents Christmas tree
with presents on Christmas morning :)

Now, it's Christmas day and again it's been a wonderful day filled with love and laughter.  We all took the liberty of sleeping in and I love sleeping in, but I wonder where the excitement for presents went.  Remember when you were a kid and you woke up before 7 a.m. to open presents?  Where did that magic alarm clock go?  I wish I had one of those internal alarm clocks for everyday, but unfortunately when you grow up, your body realizes that the presents are still going to be there even if you wake up a couple of hours later.  This morning I was excited to open many gifts from my family and Santa and I'm happy with everything I got.  I would list everything, but I don't want to make you jealous so I'm just going to leave my Christmas gifts out, but they were amazing..just saying.  As we all sat down to play with our new gadgets and gizmos, we were happily surprised with a doorbell.  There at the door were my other two cousins and their new 6-month old son from Texas.  They weren't supposed to be here until later tonight, but it was a wonderful surprise to see them this morning.  Also, my boyfriend came up today to celebrate with my family.

My 6-month old cousin, Maddox :)

My boyfriend and I on Christmas day :)

My family and I have pretty much done nothing today except for relax and enjoy each other's company and really I don't think there's anything better in this world.  I really hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas as well and that you spent it with the ones you love!  The night is still young and I know that we have another wonderful dinner planned for tonight, which I'm excited for, but this is goodbye for now.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!

Las listas

Okay, what you've been waiting for is finally here!  My fun lists that I have made.  I still feel like they  aren't complete, but here's a start.  I'm sure I'll think of stuff as time goes on, but here it is!

Things I miss in Peru

·         Freshly squeezed orange juice - I started every morning with a fresh glass of orange juice and it was delicious!  For those of you who have had it, I'm sure you understand why I miss it.

·         More food - There's a long list of the foods that I miss so here it is (They're in no certain order)

o   Picarones (the deliciously sticky donut type things)

o   Lúcuma (Tropical fruit - it's best as yogurt or ice cream)

o   Lomo saltado (Obviously if you read my blog you know that this was my favorite food)

o   Manjarblanco (kind of like caramel)

o   Canelitas (The teddy graham type cookie that I hunted for with Tonisha)

o   Anticuchos (Cow heart kabobs)

o   Cancha (Corn kernel snack)

o   Chocolate cake (not just any chocolate cake, but the chocolate cake on campus)

o   Milk (I actually am not a fan of milk usually, but I really liked the milk in Peru, it's really sweet)

·         Peruvian summer - It was nice to start seeing Lima when there was sun!

·         Parque Kennedy - This park was just a nice place to walk around and it was a central meeting place for the other students in my group.  Also, Sunday's were really fun in the park.

·         Friends/Host family - This is kind of an obvious thing, but I love everyone I met done in Peru and I will never forget them.

·         Deporte y Vida - I absolutely loved going to Deporte y Vida every week to volunteer

·         Taxes included on the prices - This is something I really miss!  I love that I was able to look at a price and know that that was exactly what it was going to cost!

·         The fact that men stand up for you on the micros - Although this can be viewed as a sign of machismo, I actually enjoyed the "politeness" of some men standing up so that I could sit down on the micro.

·         Adventure - The fact that I could go anywhere and do anything was exhilerating

·         Easiness of school - Surprisingly, my classes were pretty easy and I'm not looking forward to the workload that I will have next semester.

·         Spanish - Coming back to the United States was really weird because everyone speaks English.  I find myself getting really excited to hear Spanish here in the states now.

·         The cost of food/everything - Everything was so cheap in Peru compared to the U.S. and I miss that

Things I won't miss in Peru

·         Cat calls from guys on the street - I hated this so much that I can't even put it into words.

·         Rice - Don't get me wrong rice isn't bad, but I'm glad that I don't have to eat it for every meal now.

·         Other foods

o   Fried eggs - Sometimes fried eggs will just randomly be placed on the tops of meals and personally, I'm not a fan of them.

o   Ceviche - Again, not a fan, however, I did have a little bit once and I enjoyed it.

o   Cuy - I only had it once and I don't think that it will be twice anytime soon.

·         Honking - This grew on me, but the excessive honking in Lima is a little..well...excessive.

·         Car Alarms - Haha, I wish I could explain the car alarms to you, but unfortunately, my video of the typical car alarm in Peru is not uploading. :(  Like the honking, these went off ALL the time! 

·         Peruvian winter - The whole "No sun in Lima" thing just isn't for me.

·         Large paper - The paper standard size is longer than in the U.S.. and it didn't fit in my spiral notebook (Yea, I know it's terrible!)

·         The song "On the floor" by J.Lo - It played WAY TOO MUCH!

·         Saldo - Saldo is the fee to recharge your cell phones.  It's not too big of a deal, but it's nice to not have to go back to put more minutes on my cell phone every week.

·         Climbing into a lofted bed - Although I did love my lofted bed, by the end of the semester I was ready to be able to lay in bed without having to climb a ladder first.

On the fence things in Peru

·         Always drinking bottled water - Isn't a huge deal, but I like knowing that I can safely drink the water in the states.

·         Micros - I actually kind of miss these, but at the same time, I don't.

·         Throwing toilet paper in the trash can - Not that I miss this, but it just became habit!

Things I missed in the U.S.

·         Cinnamon toast crunch - Obviously, if read my whole blog you know that I missed this, but I actually got it once while in Peru.

·         Other foods - Obviously!

o   Caramel Apples - I missed these during Halloween.

o   Salt - The salt just isn't the same in Peru and I never figured out why.  It's more like a powder than a crystal.

o   Peppermint Ice cream - I didn't miss this too much since I got to eat it as soon as I got home.

o   Anything my mom or grandma makes - no explanation is needed.

·         Hugs - Having a nice firm hug when I got home was amazing!

·         Family and Friends - Again, this is obvious, but I better mention that I missed my roommate, Taylor, and my boyfriend, Logan, or they will wonder why they didn't make the list.

·         Stars - I love the view of the stars from the country.  There's not a lot (or any) stars in Lima.

·         Snow - Missed this and I still do since there is still no snow here in Illinois.

·         Thanksgiving - Although we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, it just wasn't the same.

·         Being home - Just sitting in my living room at home is a great feeling now.

·         My dog

·         Being able to go to the kitchen and eat whatever I wanted :)

Things I didn't miss in the U.S.

·         Cell phone - Although I enjoy having a somewhat decent cell phone again, I'm still not used to having it on me all the time.

·         Negativity - Obviously not everyone in the U.S. is negative, however I believe that US Americans have a higher level of negativity than Peruvians

On the fence things in the U.S.

·         Rain - It never rains in Lima.  There form of rain is less than a sprinkle, but they have no downpours like we do in the U.S.  There were several days in Lima that I said, "If it stormed in Peru, I would think that it was going to storm today."

·         English - Yea, I missed it, but I love knowing another language, too.

·         Driving - I like to drive, but at the same time it was nice to not have to.  Also, there's no way I would have wanted to in Lima!

I hope you enjoyed these lists.  Have you ever left the U.S.?  If so, what did you miss or not miss?

Puno/Arequipa (Día 6)

Finally, here is Day 6 and the final day of our Puno/Arequipa trip.  Although this was the last day in Arequipa, we were still able to get a few more tourist-y things done.  We started our day at 11:30 a.m. because we slept in since we had had a long day the day before at Colca Canyon.  When we left the hostel we got a taxi straight to Molinos de Sanbandia, which is an old mill that was built in the 1700s and it lies in the outskirts of Arequipa.  It was a nice little trip, but there wasn't a whole lot to see.  However, it was nice to see some fields and there was a good view of Volcán Misti.

The grinding mechanism

The watermill which causes the mill to work :)

Volcán Misti

After the small trip to the mill we headed back to the central plaza and found a kind of sketchy place to eat pollo a la brasa (grilled chicken).  Luckily, all of us survived the meal, probably because we followed it up with the deliciously creamy ice cream from the supermarket.  We also went shopping and found a Andean Christmas CD complete with panpipes and guitars. :)  It's a pretty joyful CD.  This is essentially what it consists of:

Our next stop was an art gallery that (obviously) had a few pieces of art in it.  As we looked at the artwork, I began to look at the booklet I was given about the art, well much to my surprise the art was done by people who did not have use of their upper limbs so they painted using a paint brush in their mouths.  I was amazed!  The artwork was sooo good and there was so much detail in some of them.  I guess that teaches you to push the limits and never say "I can't."

Me with one of the artists

After that, we took a stroll through the Casa de Moral, which is an old house that was built in the 1730s.  It has a mixture of baroque, European, and indigenous architectures and, in my opinion, the set-up of the house was pretty interesting.  There was also an art gallery in the house and because the house is now owned by one of the banks in Peru, there was a gallery of all the different coins and bills from the past.  We also were allowed to go to the roof of the house as well to check out the view.

Dining Room

View from the roof - the house is a rectangle with a patio in the center

Bedroom

I took a picture of this because it's Larcomar!!!
(Larcomar is the mall that was two blocks from my house in Lima)

Old money - The Inti

Once we were done at the Casa de Moral, we picked up our bags at the hostel and headed to the bus terminal.  We had a long journey ahead of us.  We left Arequipa on the bus at 4 p.m. and we had a 15 hour trip over night back to Lima.  On the bus, we watched the movie Real Steel, which I thought was going to be terrible, but I actually really liked it!  We also played Bingo and we were fed a decent meal.  Unfortunately, Tonisha and I also had to work on our presentations since we had those the next day at 10 a.m.  Tonisha went to sleep while I watched the movie, The Knowing and then I went to sleep as well.  Tonisha and I took pictures every hour of the trip, well not every hour, but every hour before I feel asleep.  There's a total of 8 photos and some of them are quite unattractive as the trip goes on, but I will show you the starting and ending photos. :)

4:08 p.m. (Leaving Arequipa)

6:58 a.m. (Pulling into Lima)

Overall, the 6 days away from Lima were amazing!  It was a fun trip and a great way to end my time in Peru.  I hope you have enjoyed reading about the 6 days away!  I'm still not done blogging so keep checking back to see my lists of "Things I miss/don't miss/on the fence."  Have a good night!

Puno/Arequipa (Día 5)

Day 5 = Colca Canyon tour day!

We woke up at 2:05 a.m. and we were on a bus at 2:50 a.m.  It was cold outside, but luckily the tour company gave us blankets on the bus and I tried to sleep most of the way.  We stopped at 5:30 a.m. to get a closer look at the mountains and Volcán Misti.  We also saw some vicuñas, which is a relative to alpacas and llamas, but the vicuña is known as the princess of the Andes.  When we stopped to check out the view, it was -2 degrees Celsius out (28.4 degrees Fahrenheit).  I was reluctant to get out in the cold, but I did anyway so that I could snap some pictures.

Some mountain peaks.  One of them is
Mount Ampato where Juanita was found.

Vicuñas

Sun rising

Our next stop was at 6:15 a.m.  We went to some hot springs, which were so nice since it was still really cold outside, but I felt fine after getting in the 38 degree Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) hot spring.  Next we stopped for breakfast, which really just consisted of bread, tea, and coffee, but in my opinion, that was a perfect breakfast!  Once we were on the road again, we stopped several times (too many) before making it to the Colca Canyon.  We stopped at a town called Maca, where I got to hold an Andean Eagle.  We also stopped along the road several times in order to look at the landscape with all the terraces.

Me with the Andean Eagle

Mirador de Antahailque:  The Colca River

We also went through a 400 meter tunnel that was in the middle of the mountain and we finally made it to the Colca Canyon.  The main place to view the canyon is from a place called Cruz del Condor, but we didn't stop there.  We actually stopped before that point and took a 45ish minute hike to the Cruz del Condor.  We also saw the place where Ciro was found.  Okay, so I know none of you know who Ciro is, but I'm going to tell you.  Ciro was a Peruvian man who went hiking with his girlfriend in Colca Canyon.  Well, they got lost and his girlfriend was found 10 days later alive, however, Ciro was found dead 6 months later.  Now, what's the reason I'm telling you this?  I'm telling you this because it was huge news in Peru.  There has been a huge controversy on whether it was an accident or whether it was murder by his girlfriend.  Well, it was found that the girlfriend was not guilty, but obviously some people still disagree.  It was funny though because before we left on this trip everybody was telling us not to end up like Ciro.  Tonisha, Sheila, and I decided that it was Mark that should have been worried since he was the only guy. :)

The area where they found Ciro's body.  They were clearly somewhere
they weren't supposed to be because you couldn't see any clear trails on that mountain.

Colca Canyon

Okay, now for the next controversial issue.  Is Colca Canyon the deepest canyon in the world?  Our guide told us yet, but I feel like he is supposed to say that, but everything that I have read pretty much says that it was, but now it's not, so pretty much it's arguable!  Recently, the Cotahuasi Canyon, which is actually close by the Colca Canyon, was named the deepest canyon because it is supposedly 335 meters deeper than Colca.  There's also another "canyon" that is deeper than Cotahuasi, but some scientist somewhere decided that it was a gorge not a canyon.  So pretty much Colca Canyon is either the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd deepest canyon in the world.  Moral of the story:  Colca Canyon is a really deep canyon.  Also, I do know that Colca is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, which is cool.  Although Colca was impressive, I'm really interested to see the Grand Canyon now, because, from pictures, the Grand Canyon looks prettier!

Sheila, Tonisha, Mark, and I at Colca Canyon

Okay, I'm done blabbering now, well, maybe not, but you get the point.  We finally left the canyon after awhile, but before leaving we saw a condor fly by, hence the name, Cruz del Condor.  On the way home, we stopped at an Arequipeño buffet, which was really good, but it was kind of a tourist trap because obviously the tour company would take was to an expensive buffet place.  At least it was good though, right?  Right!

We finally headed back to Lima and we drove through the National Reserve of Salinas and Aguada Blanca, where we saw a bunch of alpacas, llamas, and vicuñas. See...

Once we got back to Lima, we were finally able to go inside the Catedral of Arequipa.  The outside is beautiful so I was excited to finally see the inside.

Organ

Our next stops included a stroll in the Regional Library and a peek into the Iglesia de San Francisco because they were in the middle of mass.  Then, we went shopping to the markets, where I picked up a few Christmas presents. :)  By that time, we were all really hungry because it had been a long day so after a long time of debating on where to go for dinner, we chose a pizza place and we all got the lasagna special.  It was pretty good, but the best part was our waitress!  She was SO nice!  We gave her a huge tip and I'm pretty sure she was shocked by what we gave her.  We then hit up some more markets, got some ice cream (of course), and headed back to the hostel.  I worked on Tonisha and I's presentations that we had to do and we watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry in Spanish.  Then, it was off to bed to get ready for our last day in Arequipa! :)

Bueñas noches!  Happy Holidays!

Puno/Arequipa (Día 4)

Okay, here's Day 4 of the Puno and Arequipa trip!  On this day, we slept in a little bit and when I woke up, I took a much needed long and warm shower.  As we were getting ready to leave the hostel for the day we were asking the owner of the hostel what to do and for any suggestions of his.  We'll we got to talking about our Colca Canyon tour that we had scheduled for the next day and it turns out that we (I) picked a ricidulously priced tour company.  We were going to pay $35 dollars for the tour when in reality we should only be paying around S/.50 ($18.54).  Thank you owner of the hostel!  You saved us $16.46!!  We didn't end up leaving the hostel until around 11:45 a.m., but don't worry we still got a lot done during the day, starting with going to Colonial Tours to get a better Colca Canyon tour scheduled.  After we got that scheduled we went to this place called Mamut for lunch.  It was delicious!  It was a nice little sandwich place and they had really good juices as well.  I had a turkey sandwich and a delicious chicha morada con maracuya (the purple corn drink mixed with passion fruit) to drink.  After that, we took a short trip to the ATM and the supermarket (they had soft serve ice cream for sale that Tonisha and I got).  It was so creamy!  Sorry Tonisha for being a bad ice cream influence.

We then went to the Museo Santuarios Andinos, which is famous for having the ice princess, Juanita.  When we got to the museum, we saved money for the second time that day because there was an awesome student discount.  Advice for future study abroad students:  Bring your student ID everywhere!  You never know when you'll get a discount!  Anyway, we started the tour with a 20-minute video on the finding of Juanita, as well as other mummies that have been found on the mountains/volcanoes of Arequipa.  Juanita was found on Mount Ampato by Johan Reinhard and Miguel Zárate.  She is thought to be in the lower teen years and she was killed as a sacrifice for the Incan gods.  Anyway, the tour was pretty good, but it was cold!  They keep Juanita at a cold temperature to perserve her because that's the climate she was found in.  It's also very dark in the room where she is.  It seems that they keep her very well perserved, but Sheila told me that actually she's already starting to deteriorate, but who knows.  We weren't allowed to take pictures obviously, but here's an internet photo.

Juanita

Anyway, after the museum, we headed on over to the infamous Monsterio de Santa Catalina.  It's a monastery that was closed to the public for 390 years and then it was open to the public in the year 1970, so now there are many tours that go through there daily.  There are still people living there in solitude and silence, however they are in a new part of the monastery that is obviously not open to the public.  First of all, the place is ginormous!!!  It's literally huge.  I wish I could explain it to you.  There are so many nooks and crannies everywhere and if the workers at the monastery hadn't told us to stay to the left while walking through it, we would've honestly gotten lost in there.

A map of the monastery.  See, it's big!

We saw so many cells and kitchens and the "streets" of the monastery are really pretty.

A cell

Kitchen

Calle Toledo (one of the streets)

At one point on the tour we were allowed to go to the roof and it was an amazing view of Arequipa.  It was probably my favorite part of the tour.  You could see the mountains and Volcán Misti that surround Arequipa.

View from the roof

Next, we started our hunt to look at the local churches since there are hundreds of them (not really hundreds-I don't think).  We started at the Iglesia de la Compañía.  It was pretty just llike all the other ones. :)  The work inside the churches are always so intricate.  There's always a ton of gold work.  I tihnk that the gold work is pretty, but personally I prefer stained glassed window, but I didn't see a lot of those in Arequipa.

The front of the Iglesia de la Compañía

We tried going into the Catedral in the Plaza de Armas, but it's closed on Sundays, which doesn't make any sense to me, but no worries we moved onto the next church, Iglesia San Agustín, but they were in mass, however, we did get to peek in at the inside and then we saw the flood of people leaving because mass ended soon after we arrived.

The people getting out of mass

After all the walking and touring, we were hungry and we wanted to try some Arequipeña food, so we found a restaurant that appeared to be local and indeed it was.  All four of us got a different dish so we could try everything.  I got cauche de queso and the other dishes were rocoto relleno, pastel de papa, and soltero de queso.  To be honest I didliked every dish except for Sheila's pastel de papa.  It pretty much tasted like scalloped potatoes.  Yum!  I also decided that Arequipeñas really like their cheese because every single dish had cheese with it and the cheese ice cream that I tried at Mistura (the food festival) is Arequipeño.  Speaking of ice cream, since we're (I'm) ice cream addicts, we went for ice cream after dinner.  It wasn't the best ice cream however it was still good because I tried a flavor called Selva Negra.  I'm still not sure what it was, but it tasted familiar and it was good.

Pastel de papa

Soltero de queso

Rocoto relleno

Cauche de queso

We then took a trip to the supermarket to get snack/water for the next day on our Colca Canyon tour.  We went back to the hostel and watched the movie Hitch in Spanish and we were in bed by 9:15 p.m. because our tour for Colca was starting the next day at 3 a.m.  Well, that's the end of Day 4.  Stay tuned for Day 5 in Colca Canyon, arguably the world's deepest canyon.

Puno/Arequipa (Día 3)

Okay, I'm finally getting back to writing my blogs.  I actually wrote some of these Puno/Arequipa blogs on the plane so all I had to do was type this up and add pictures. :)

Anyway, finally it's here...Day 3!!  Day 3 didn't start very well because I woke up at around 5:30 a.m.m and had probably one of teh worst headaches of my life.  The altitude finally caught up to me.  I must not have drank enough water the day before.  Plus, the lack of oxygen when sleeping is kind of rough.  Anyway, I tried to sleep until breakfast, but it was hard to do with the headache, but fortunately, Sheila had Advil so I was better by the time breakfast was over.  Breakfast consisted of this pancake/crepe looking thing, bread, and tea.  It was good and soon after we said goodbye to our host family and Benigno (our host grandfather) walked us to the port, where we then said goodbye to him.  We boarded the boat and we went on our way to Isla Taquile.  It was about an hour boat ride and I slept the entire way.

Isla Taquile and Lake Titicaca

Once we arrived to the island, we hiked to the Plaza (yep, just Plaza, there's no police force there either).  The hike wasn't too difficult, we that's what I say now because I am not there hiking it, but I'm not going to complain because the Taquile people (and others from that region) can carry almost 40 kilograms (around 88lbs) on their backs while hiking, which is just crazy.  I witnessed it and it just didn't look fun.  Anyway, at the Plaza we walked around and also looked at the Tejido, which was pretty much a market filled with things sewn by the men and women of Taquile.  I didn't buy anything there because stuff was rather expensive there, however, I did buy two bracelets from a little girl, Mary Luisa, on the street.  After the time in the Plaza, we hiked to some nearby Pre-Incan ruins.  There were still some stone houses, but other than that, there wasn't too much to see.

Pre-Incan ruins

However, two interesting things we could see were the snowy caps of the highest mountain peak in Bolivia and the town of Picuyo (I think that was the name of it), but since I am not 100% sure of the name, let's just call it cocaine land, meaning it's the town that has the highest cocaine production in Peru.  Our guide told us that it's also the town that has the most luxerious cars in it.  Our guide also told us that no police are allowed in the town.  Ha, I wonder why?  Pretty much you're probably in danger just for going near the town.

After that, we hiked to a restaurant for lunch.  Every restaurant on the island has the exact same menu choices: trout (from the lake) and an omelette.  They also, like the houses on Amantani, have a rotation so that each restaurant gets the same attention from tourists.  Before eating though, we learned some things about the Taquile people.  Number 1:  Their wedding ceremony is 7 days long and it's fun for everyone except for the couple.  The couple have many rules that they must follow.  For example, they have to remain serious, they cannot eat using their hands, they can't talk, and a couple months before the ceremony, the women must cut off her hair and the man weaves it into a belt.  More on the weaving habits of men... Like on Amantani, the man must be a good sewer or a woman will not want to be his wife.  A woman will put water in the man's hat to test his sewing abilities and if it holds water for a long time, than that man will most likely make a good husband.  Also, there's no divorce on this island either.  Also, we learned about the traditional dress of people on Taquile.  For example, men who are married have all red hats, men who are single have red and white hats, and the presidents/officials of the island sport brightly colored chullos.

Men's hats

Also, there is a certain positioning to the hats: to the back means that the boy is under the age of 12 or something like that, to the right means they are happy with their marriage, and to the left means that they are unhappy with their marriage.  It makes me wonder how many people in the U.S. would be willing to openly express if they were happy or unhappy by wearing a hat.  Also, you can differenciate between single and married women by the pon poms that they have on their shawls.  Big pon poms equals single, small means married.  We also learned the proper greetings between men on the island.  I hope you are finding all of this interesting.  I, personally, think it's all pretty cool, but if your not interestied then just skip ahead.  Anyway, men exchange coca leaves to greet each other.  We also watched two traditional dances-a planting potato dance (that's what I call it :)) and the marriage dance and lastly, we witnessed a woman weaving and a man using a natural shampoo to clean wool.  And man did that shampoo work.  I wanted some considering we all had not showered in four days-whoops!!  Anyway, we finally ate and we had soup and I chose to eat the trout from Lake Titicaca.  It was delicious and how many of you guys can say that you ate trout from the highest navegable lake in the world. :)  Also, I should tell you that there are only five types of fish in the lake: trout (which was brought from Canada in 1960), catfish, something called ispi, and two other smaller fish.  After lunch, we hiked to the port (there are 5 ports and 6 communities on Taquile) and got on the boat for a three hour trip back to Puno and again, I slept for the majority of the time.

Lunch-yum!!

When we got back to Puno (the mainland), we went to the bathroom, ate ice cream, and picked up some food for our bus ride to Arequipa.  We took a taxi to the bus terminal and we took the 5 o'clock bus to Arequipa.  Tonisha and I talked for some fo the bus ride, but then we fell asleep, but it wasn't too long before we were waking up because it was SO cold on the bus, but finally we made it to Arequipa around 11:30 p.m.  We were going to just take a taxi to the Plaza de Armas, and then find a hostel, but then our taxi driver ended up recommending a place and man am I glad he did because the hostel was great.  But I'll rant and rave about the hostel on Day 4.  Anyway, we got to the hostel and I went straight to bed!