Day 19 - Change of scenery

Friday July Seventeenth

     I'm flying to the Amazon today. What?!?!?! That's crazy!

    So as is the norm here I was the first to get up and got ready by myself. It's amazing how much stuff one needs to pack for four days! 

     Right before I left for my flight though, German Caroline came back with her husband from the airport. Tómas! It's funny seeing him in real life after hearing so much about him! He seemed nice as I expected but I only got to say a quick hi as I was running late! Why does that always happen to me!

    So then I hurried to the airport but caught my flight to Puerto Maldonado with plenty of time!

     Puerto Maldonado: Very cloudy when I arrived, and so, so, so, humid! My hair instantly turned into an Afro! However not that hot, surprisingly, only about 70 Fahrenheit which is very abnormal for them. However it still felt stifling because of the humidity and because I had just come from Cuzco where it is normally more like 50.

 

View from the plane flying in. That's the Tambopata River part of the Amazon river system.

Met the nicest couple! Scott and Laura, Scott's from Australia, and Laura from England, they're here on their honeymoon! It was actually really funny as when I first signed up for this trip I saw that only two other people were signed up at the time and I said to my mum, I bet they're honeymooners and I'm going to be an awkward third wheel the whole time, and what do you know! 

     It turned out though, that there were others who signed up later for our tour :)

Getting on a boat to go up the river.

I feel like I'm in a documentary! I can't believe I'm actually in the Amazon! The most amazing rainforest! So cool!

My first wildlife spotting were Howler monkeys in this tree, no I couldn't really see them either!

And my second wildlife spotting, these are Capybara, the world's largest rodents  at around 140 pounds which is heavier than me!

My hut! Not to shabby! 

And the amazing view from my porch, with a hammock for me to enjoy it from. 

After an annoyingly long two hour free time we went for a night hike. It wasn't until I spent those two hours alone in the gorgeous main building that it sunk in that I had gone to the Amazon alone. However one thing you learn when you're by yourself is how to start talking to people and so in the lobby I meet this other group of high school students from Southern California. They told me I look like Amanda Sinfeild which I've never heard before, what do you guys think?

It was quite late by this point and so our guide took us on a night hike. The other people on my your turned out to be a family from the states who seem very stereo typically American to me. The two old, pretty fat parents were  not impressed with the lack of amenities or the fact that they were in the Amazon, and they had two grown daughters, one being stereo typically chubby and also not very understanding of the significance of what's around her, but the other one Nataly being very nice and worldly. It makes me wince to see why people don't like American tourists. I will try to appreciate the rain forest and understand it's importance.

Third wildlife spotting, this adorable frog! Awwww! 

Fourth wildlife spotting: a pretty elusive three toed sloth! Yay!

    

Fifth wildlife spotting: a wild cat! Although not exactly a Jaguar this cutie did wander in from the jungle and will attack if his demands to be fed aren't met! I've got the scratches to prove it! His name is creatively Gatto (meaning cat in spanish)!

Day 18 - Even more ruins!

Thursday July Sixteenth

     The Virgin Carmen festivities are still going on and so I actually got the whole day off today! It's amazing how strong the catholic culture is here!

      Anyway it was soooo nice to get to sleep in! I think I actually forgot what that felt like! 

      But after a relaxing morning me and German Caroline were ready to go do something so we decided to go explore yet more Incan ruins! Just for a change 😐

      However the ruins turned out not to be the most exciting part! The small town of Pisac where the Pisac ruins are accessible from was having this awesome celebration for the Virgin Carmen. We couldn't even get into the town on our bus because the streets were so full! However we were all to happy to get out and walk as the twisty narrow mountain roads we had taken to get there were quite sickening for poor Caroline!

   

Saw this crazy guy in a parade they were having. That mask though!

You can see the huge shrine they had to the virgin in the back of this shot (side note: do you have to capitalize virgin?!)

     

Seriously what's up with all the masks and beer!

Another tradition seemed to be to hang dead baby alpacas from your belt, which was very shocking.

    Anyway so then we had lunch and I got a sandwich. I don't know when I last ate a sandwich but it had been far, far too long! Certainly not since I've been here, no, I've really only eaten potatos, so many potatos! They are in everything here! I've completely gone off them as I just want to taste something else! Oh I will never again under appreciate two slices of bread with cheese and meat. It's the simple things. 

     While we were there Caroline saw a scarf she really liked and I then witnessed the best bartering I've ever seen. It was truly amazing.

    Caroline: "how much for this?"

    Seller: "80 soles"

    Caroline: looks unimpressed, "50"

    Seller: "70"

    Caroline: "55"

    Seller: "60"

    Caroline: with a forceful tone "55"

    Seller: "60"

    Caroline: with a very forceful tone "55"

    Seller: "Deal."

    I couldn't believe it, she halved the price! If that's not a prime example of German efficiency I don't know what is!

Caroline in her awesome scarf!

    Then instead of taking a taxi up to the ruins we decided to hike! I am so glad we decided to hike up! We got to use the ancient Incan paths that led up through their ancient farming terraces which were spectacular!

 Wow!

And the view! Those amazing Ande mountains!

You can see the festivities still going on down in the town square! We were so high up!

Those mountains though!

A place that is so amazing it really affects you!

Some of the ruins which were far less impressive than the terraces and the surrounding mountains, I didn't even get any really good pictures of them so found this one online.

So many stones!

Me watching the sun set over the golden valley. Wow, so, so beautiful! 

Day 17 - El Dia del Virgin Carmen Fiesta

Wednesday July Fifteenth

      The first thing I noticed this morning was that I had titled all the previous posts with the wrong month, June instead of July! Haha! It's so hard to keep track of time in the summer! I think I fixed them all know though.

         Today was a very exciting day at work because we were celebrating the day of Virgin Mary, or as she is known here virgin Carmen, and being a very catholic country the celebration was huge!

Here the teacher's assistant in my classroom Mary is doing my hair, and they also gave us the traditional clothes I am wearing!

The final result! Pretty cool ecspecially the hat ☺️

Me and the shrine for the virgin.

Just when you thought the kids couldn't get any cuter!

Not that they cared too much for the historical significance of the clothes as it hindered their ability to play!

Hunter with Christian who appropriately chose devil horns as he is a trouble maker! But too cute not to overlook that :)

Hunter with some more kids :)

Coincidence! Me and the other girl in the class called Adrianna happened to be wearing the same thing! Haha!

Finally found a picture of Matt...in traditional clothing.

     After a service by a priest who came specially for the occasion, a band started playing and unexpectedly, for me anyway, we all started marching out onto the busy streets with 80 three, four and five year old's, are we crazy?!

The first road we marched on which was relatively quiet, that is relative to the next one.

Then we went right out onto the main road, six lanes across with a median in the middle! What the heck?! Who planned this?! How insane?!

No one had told the traffic control or anything like that and being at the back of the parade I was constantly trying to make sure my kids weren't getting run over by the ominous mass of annoyed cars following us! Literally one of the craziest things I've done!

It was a little to far for Avril!

    I got home tired but very happy, what an experience! 

    When I got home we celebrated U.S. Caroline's birthday with some delicious cupcakes! She's one of the funest people! I hope she has an awesome year being twenty three!

     Then Colleen one of the other volunteers came over with some other big news, her boyfriend had proposed at Macchu Picchu! Isn't that the most romantic thing! What an awesome place to be proposed to, at the top of the world! If I ever get proposed to that would be the perfect way! 

     It was also Collen's last day so we took her last minute gift shopping and out to dinner.

Hunter, Collen, German Caroline, U.S. Caroline, and me at dinner! And yes that table is a fish tank

Here are the fish to prove it!

Actually it was just a really cool restaurant in general!

Pillows!

Bye Collen! I'm really going to miss you! Your so much fun, but also really smart! Thanks for sharing your experiences from running! Love this picture of you, 😜

Day 15 - We met Bambi and ate Starfruit

The Monday July Thirteenth

    I was the only one who decided to go to work this morning, with German Caroline's and Hunter's terrible bus ride experience, and U.S. Caroline still being sick (since she volunteers at a hospital it isn't the best idea to go to work sick). So I got ready and ate breakfast by myself trying to not wake up anyone else.

    I was really busy at the kindergarten which was good, I think I'm starting to find my place! But the language barrier is making it pretty hard to get to know the teachers well, my Spanish is still pretty bad.

Corali the little monkey climbing all over me! Aww :)

Guiliana found my sunglasses 

Edceline (isn't that the prettiest name) and Ariana photobombing :)

    After the lunch me and German Caroline went out to the mall and a zoo in the University across the street

And Caroline

At the mall! My face is so sun burnt from Lake Titicaca it's as red as the sign behind me! To bad it's so cold that's the only part of me that's going to be at all tan, the rest being shocking white from having been covered up the whole time!

At the zoo! Me and a deer we dubbed Bambi who followed us around the whole time!

A condor, which was cool to see as it is an extremely important animal in the Incan culture, having been thought to be the messengers to the gods. The Incan culture has three really important animals, the condor, the puma, and the snake. The snake represents the underworld like it does in most cultures.

The Zoo's Puma, they're literally the most terrifying animals! In traditional Inca culture the Puma is the lord of the earth, a sacred creature. 

And the most awesome talking parrot ever! He could say Hola so well me and Caroline thought it was a child for the longest time! And he could whistle, imitate our laughs, and say Aurrora! It was crazy!

    In the evening me and German Caroline decided that we had eaten too much carbs, rice/potatoes/bread/so much bread! It was time for something fresh, so we decided to go to the supermarket and buy every fruit we didn't know. This was the result

We also bought a jar of Nutella and made it a fondue night, just in case any of the fruit were too terrible to eat by themselves! Thank god we did!

We had papaya, pineapple, plantain, passion fruit, granadia, some orange berries, some weird lemony thing, that I was not expecting to be so sour!, a fruit that tasted like a clean bathroom, star fruit which was sooo sour, a fruit that tasted like apple but with a cardboardy texture, and cactus fruit! Phew that was a lot of fruit, but I didn't like any of it really it didn't even look like we'd eaten anything when we finished!