Day 6 - 4th of July

Saturday July Fourth

      Happy Independence Day! It's weird to think that no one here even knows that's happening today! It reminds me how far away I am.

      Oh god was it hard to get up at six after staying out so late last night, but there couldn't be more of a motivator than knowing I was going to Macchu Picchu! I got ready and scrambled the last few things together just in time, that is a common trait with me, if it can be done last minute, I'll do it last minute.

       I had booked my trip through an agency that covered everything from my transportation to a tour of Macchu Picchu, and so was picked up by them promptly at eight. Me, Hunter, and Tommy were going in this trip and both of them had left even more to do last minute than me, which never happens to me, and the person who came to pick us up was quite mad at all of us for holding him up. We then rode in a van for one and a half hours, which wouldn't have been that bad if it had just been the three of us, but it wasn't. The lovely Chelsy joined us, and by lovely I mean annoying.

       I mean she was very nice, and a good person but we just didn't get along very well and therefore I found her a little annoying. There was also another a broader view volunteer on the same trip, Cecilia.

One of the many spectacular views from the car ride.

       Then after the hour and a half bus ride we had an hour and a half train ride to a little town near Macchu Picchu where we would stay the night before going up to see the ruins tomorrow. It was also crazy because it was Hunter's first train ride, including Subways! How crazy!

From left to right, me, Hunter, Tommy, Chelsy, and Cecilia drinking hot chocolate at the train station as it was freezing!

          After we arrived at the small town called Auguacalientes, or in English, hot water, named for it's hot springs, we decided to go for a hike to a botanical gardens, however the hike there turned out to be far more interesting than the gardens! First of all we went exploring on some giant rocks in the river that were just gigantic!

Cecilia, Chelsy, and Tommy

Hunter, Tommy, Cecilia

Gorgeous picture of Hunter

So many amazing photos!

    Then we hiked along a little more until we found a butterfly pavilion, which was way less fun than the river rocks and we had to pay! 

This baby just..,hatched?! What is it called when a butterfly comes out of its cocoon?!

      We walked along some train tracks...

Hunter

Tommy, right after we took this picture we saw a sign telling us not to walk on the train track to which Tommy yelled 'I don't want to be part of your system!' Then literally two seconds later we heard a train horn and a train screamed around the corner! After it had gone Tommy said 'Ok I want to be part of your system again!'

       Then we happened to notice a little path on the side of the tracks that lead down to the river, and we thought would go check it out. But we weren't prepared for what we saw.

It is the most beautiful waterfall I've ever seen! The rocks look metallic, and if you look closely you can see two wedged together in the middle, how majestic! Chelsy had kind of wandered off in front of us at this point which was weird.

      Then after all that we finally reached the botanical gardens which were nothing compared to the walk!

At the end of the botanical garden hike

The surrounding mountains, I'm in the Andes!!

      We had to walk back in the dark as since it's winter here the sun sets at like five which is really disorientating coming from summer in the U.S.! Then back to our hostel where we decided to play cards instead of going to check out the Hot Springs because reviews of it on lonely planet said things like, the dirtiest hot springs I've ever been in, if you want to smell like pee go right ahead, and I would get checked at the hospital after going in these waters.

The amazing view from our room!

Playing cards

Day 5 - Sexy Woman

Friday July Third

     I'm starting to feel the lack of sleep, I always seem to be the first one up and the last one to go to sleep. The days are busy, and tiring. Today it felt especially so because I didn't get breakfast at the Kindergarten, and so spent the morning hungry.

      However it was teacher appreciation day today, and the kids gave me the cutest card complete with a drawing of me! How awesome! I didn't really expect anything considering I just arrived and how little I do!

The card and a pen that I was also given!

And the completely accurate drawing of me - especially the grey hair :)

     I'm starting to realize that toddlers are actually more like adults than I give them credit for, we all just want love and attention don't we?

Benyamin with a milk mousy ache! Could he get any more adorable?

   We learnt musical instruments today and I think my ears are still ringing! I say we because I was learning all the names of the instruments just as much as the students! 

The kids learning musical instruments! 

    When I got back home my mother María had cut her finger pretty badly but luckily we have three Med students in the house! If there was ever a house to get hurt in it's my host house! Then Hunter came home and she had burnt her finger pretty badly at the Kindergarten using a hot glue gun, so now they have matching injuries, who knew working at a kindergarten could be so dangerous!

      In the afternoon me and German Caroline went to visit some Incan ruins just outside the city. We couldn't get over the name though, Saqasyhuaman (pronounced sexy woman)! After we got very lost heading to the bus we went up, up, up.

       I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw the ruins! Wow they were just stunning! At first me and Caroline had the place practically to ourselves and it was so cool exploring the narrow passages and the walls with absolutely massive stones! 

The massive stone walls

Our shadows :)

     Me and the sprawling city of Cusco

Caroline actually teaches art back in Germany and is an awesome photographer, and she took some amazing photos!

Caroline taking a photo

A photo Caroline took

Me taking a selfie of Caroline taking a selfie. Selfiception! When I came here, I was coming alone, and I had to put all my trust in the faith that I would meet people, and I wouldn't be alone the whole time, and it paid off! Sometimes the scariest things to do have the best results :)

    The best part about the ruins was the rockslides though, they were these huge natural slides that formed in some of the rock faces around the ruins. They are really slippery and you go really fast! Caroline and I found this out after we landed hard at the bottom of our first slide, ow!

Look how perfect these rock slides are!

    I thought Caroline was pretty shy at first, but today I saw she is actually pretty adventurous. 

Caroline and me in front of the Jesus statue I saw from the Cristo Blanco church. Here's to new friends.

Love love love the llamas here!!! Caroline took this photo too, just presume if a photo looks really good she took it.

Another amazing photo by Caroline. Although the kids look really happy in this photo, we paid them to take their photo, and they pretended to play for our camera. It's a sad reminder of how dehumanizing the tourist industry can be for locals, who will do anything that tourists will pay for. Even kids as young as these siblings know how to get money from us foreigners. I hope by volunteering in the kindergarten here I can help stop this cycle of poverty, and help kids like these have more of a childhood and not have to worry so much about money. Education fights poverty.

     That evening we decided to go salsa dancing again. Since being here I've gotten a close up experience of what a college students life is like, living with three of them. Tonight it was an insight into their drinking. Before we even went Tommy, American Caroline and a volunteer from a different house Colleen decided to do some pre-gaming by playing a drinking game. Caroline quickly became very drunk and Me and Hunter quickly realized that we would be babysitting the older kids. 

      As we walked into the salsa club, the flickering colorful lights filled me with excitement. I eagerly went out on the floor to dance, but sadly found my partner very drunk. Even worse he kept trying to get me to dance with him again for the next hour, how annoying! However soon enough I lost him and my whole night turned around, and became one of the most fun nights I've ever had! I got to try out my newly learnt salsa moves and found myself to be reasonably good at it, how awesome! Then after eleven things got really crazy, the energy rose, the music got louder, and we all had a lot of fun!

       We went home around 1:00, Germany had joined us by this point and so all six of us piled into one taxi, me laying across everyone in the back seat, what a crazy, fun night!

Here we all are outside the salsa place. Me, then German Caroline, Hunter, U.S. Caroline, and Tommy!

Day 4 - I survived the commute

Thursday July Second

    I realized this morning, I'm a month into my summer vacation, a month?! That can't be true, I feel like I just got out of school! I also just received my SAT score from June and I got a 2070, I'm very happy I didn't get below 2000, I was so sure I was going to get 1999 or something! However I still hope to retake it to see if I can improve a little.

      I had to make my way to work by myself today which was an adventure. That's one thing about Cuzco, even the smallest things are exciting, drinking water requires you to boil it first, walking down the street requires fending off people selling things while simultaneously keeping an eye on your bag, crossing the road requires a sharp eye and a lot of faith, taking the bus to work gives you more adrenaline than a roller coaster! The busses barely stop at your station unless you wave them down, and even then they're practically still moving as you jump on! I really can't watch as they're driving! I spend the whole time constantly gasping and clutching the seat in front of me as the bus driver plays chicken with another bus for a spot in a lane, while everyone else on the bus is relaxing and practically drinking their morning tea! Needless to say I can't imagine having to drive here! 

        Incredibly I arrived safe and sound to the orphanage, and started off the day with helping Guiliana, who felt very sick, curl up on a doll's bed which was the cutest thing ever, and fall asleep for the majority of the rest of the day. Then Missyryan's ear piercing got extremely Infected so we had to deal with that as well.

     Then story time. Which only required keeping 32 four year olds quiet and still for ten minutes, easier done than said... Between my complete lack of knowledge of useful commands, like sit down, or be quiet, and them being four this proved to be pretty difficult. Bianca and Guadilupe proved to be the most troubling, they are both very intelligent and very curious, which means they are never still, and they WILL take advantage of you if possible. For instance I'm pretty sure they were telling me the wrong names when I asked them to tell me the names of some of the other kids! However the good far outweighs the bad in these adorable kids! Most of the time they are the sweetest, nicest kids I've ever met! I still feel like this is not the experience I wanted but I know I also know this will be good in a different way, I will learn how to take care of kids and I will also learn a lot about the Carholic culture and the Quetcha culture which the kids are also learning about. I hope to do some more volunteering at a local high school teaching English to try and get the experience I wanted.

Gabriel (and company) after I caught them hiding under their desk during lesson time! 

Fabiana, also playing under a desk!

Corali attached to my leg :)

      In the afternoon I went out with María Elena to do some errands. In the Plaza de Armas, I asked her to take some pictures of me  but she ended up taking three one second videos, haha! Although she has been nothing but extremely nice to me, today she annoyed me ever so slightly. The thing is he always has such a clear idea of what should be done, and how it should be done, and it's very hard to change her mind. I wanted to book a trip to Macchu Picchu and she was just so sure that I should book with Latino Tours, that she didn't even give me any other options, I guess the company is okay but I didn't really want a tour guide at all, but she wouldn't let me go otherwise, I also didn't really want to spend a whole day at this hot springs which I'm now doing, and I kind of wanted to hike up to Macchu Picchu, and also go check out some other ruins a bit above Macchu Picchu, which I'm now not doing. It was kind of annoying how set in her ways she was, I almost felt like she had some sort of deal with the agency to send all her volunteers through them and they would give her a commison. However I couldn't really argue with her because I am her responsibility for this month, and this is what she was comfortable with me doing. She's still amazingly nice, today was just a little frustrating.

A screenshot from one of the videos!

Another screenshot!

You can see the flag of Cuzco flying high and proud atop this Carholic Church. Look familiar? Oh yeah that's because it's also the LGBT flag, pretty sure that's just the opposite of what this church believes in!

       In the evening me met up with Jorge, Ana, and three of their friends to go out to dinner, we started out trying to find a restaurant that serves Quoi, a local delicacy of Guinea Pig (Thank you auto correct I had no idea Guinea was spelt like that!), but luckily the restaurant we ended up going to didn't have that! Phew, I still need to work up to eating something that cute a little more! However all adventurism was not lost as I ended up getting a local hamburger, with banana in it! It was so delicious, who would have thought? It was also huge! Only a few people could finish their meals!

It was twice as big as my mouth!

      Dinner was also a good opportunity to get to know Hunter, a new volunteer that just arrived today.

       Hunter: Beautiful, a little shy, but that could just be because she's only sixteen! I'm not the youngest one in the house any more, yay! She also has an adventurous side as she does rodeo! She barrel races horses, so we have that in common, horses not barrel racing! 

        After dinner Caroline (German), Hunter, and I went for a hike up to a church called San Cristobal, it was pretty high up the side of the valley so was a good workout! The night brought a whole new perspective to Cuzco! The cobblestone streets and old houses seemed even more magical, and the view from the church was amazing! The lights, the dark mountains, the huge statue of Jesus that was bright white in amongst the dark mountains! What an awesome night!

Hunter and Caorline walking the moonlit streets.

The view from the San Cristobal Church!

The Jesus statue shining brightly. Almost as strong as the catholic faith here in Peru

         

Day 3 - My New Life

Wednesday July First

     It was hard to get up early today, but the salsa dancing last night was totally worth it! It was my first day volunteering at the Kindergarten. María in her constant kindness personally accompanied me all the way there, and explained everything about twenty times for when I had to go by myself.

      The Kindergarten. Busy, busy, busy, there are over two hundred kids under six in one building! It's tiring just watching all the activity! It's also a very catholic school and so the first thing they did when I got there was a religious service recognizing the virgin Carmen, whose statue was holding a baby, but that was never really explained...

The courtyard in the Kindergarten

And my classroom

The kids are learning the Thriller dance right now! So cute to see them all pretend to be zombies!

        I was also surprised by how modern it was, the kids have uniforms and school bags, every classroom has a microphone and speakers for the teacher to use, and they don't appear to be lacking anything supply wise. While all this is great for them, I'm honestly...disappointed, I had imagined that I would really be doing something to help others when volunteering, but in the Kindergarten I'm almost useless. The only thing I did all day that was actually needed was teach the kids how to count to five in English, but that was ten minutes of an otherwise long morning.

        At lunch time I returned home to another huge lunch, and found another volunteer in our house who had just returned from a trip to Lake Titicaca,

         Aton: Laid back, self sufficient, smart, and self motivated, the only thing is I always feel it's kind of hard to become close to people like this who don't need anything from anyone. He is also a medical student at university, which means that all the A Broader View Volunteers are medical students except me.

        Then I went with María to drop off Mckayla and Mary at the airport as it was their last day. They were both extremely sad to leave, and I wondered what I would feel in three weeks time. I also tried to withdraw some money from my credit card while we were there, but as usual with that sort of thing, it didn't work, and now I have a big problem. I think the farther away from home you are the more problems you will have.

Goodbye Marya and Mckayla!

       In the evening there was a large dinner at our house with all the volunteers from all over the city. 

       Jorge & Ana: A couple from Spain who are probably two of the most enthusiastic and personable people you'll ever meet.

         Eric & Sarah: Not a couple, but both from the U.S., they were both quieter people who seemed very smart.

         We all watched a soccer game, which is an awesome part of Peruvian culture, and then had a delicious dinner ! So although the day didn't start out so good the ending was nice.

Here are all the volunteers starting with the back row, Aton, Tommy, Eric, Jorge, German Caroline, Ana, Me, María, Sarah, U.S. Caroline, mother of the two girls Gabby and Ellie, one of the two girls, the other one, and their nanny who for actually accompanied them to volunteer. 

Day 2 - Culture Shock

Tuesday June Thirtieth

    Coming to a new culture will knock the wind out of you, you lose all sense of orientation, and feel totally at a loss, but if you just stop fighting it and move with the culture, you'll start to really enjoy the differences. That's what I learnt today.

        In the morning I had my first Peruvian experience, I went with the German Caroline to explore the city center. The culture was just so in your face it wasn't very enjoyable. It was very rude how all the street vendors came up to you and forced their goods on you, I was constantly defending myself against the next attack. I did have to keep reminding myself that it was coming from a place of extreme poverty and desperation.

       I most blatantly noticed how little street sense I had when I tried to take a picture with two women dressed up in traditional clothing, I got the picture and one of them asked for two soldi. I gave her five thinking that was 2.5 soldi for each woman, however when I tried to walk away, the woman that I hadn't given money to started asking for five soldi as well, however I only had a ten soldi bill. I tried walking away but she just kept bugging me and bugging me until finally I gave in and bought some chocolate from a nearby cart just to get change to pay her! A ten soldi picture in the end! I felt so uncomfortable in that whole situation, at least the picture turned out good,

    The streets were just crazy though, narrow, crowded, noisy, and sometimes very smelly. So different from the empty, desolate streets in the U.S.! I enjoyed the excitement of it all but it was sensory overload! It was a real workout going around those steep, mountainous streets. We saw some crazy things too!

This thing definitely haunts dreams

These giant Incan stones are so exactly matched they were stacked without mortar! 

Love these cobblestone streets!

        We got back just in time for lunch, another huge meal. You finish the first course feeling very full, and then she brings out a second overflowing plate! It was as usual delicious though!

         After lunch I tagged along with Mary, María, and Tommy to El Mollino, a black market... I guess I've always thought of a black market as a seedy, dirty, dank, underground operation, but El Mollino was a pretty much open air market that looked like any other! The only difference was that shop keepers weren't paying their taxes to the government. I didn't buy anything.

And this is what a black market looks like...

        Back home there was a really big football (soccer not American football) game on which was Peru vs. Chilie, apparently they've been super big rivals ever since some ancient land dispute, and mother María got really into it! Sadly Peru lost 2-1, and actually the one goal they did get was an own goal by Chile so they technically didn't score once. The football culture and spirit down here is really awesome!

         After dinner we all went Salsa Dancing! Which is with out a doubt the funniest thing I've done so far! Forget twerking, this was actual dancing! It was up in this hot, colorfully lit loft, that felt almost like a nightclub, the music was loud, and the dancing was awesome! Tommy's ballroom dancing experience paid off awesomely! The steps were easy to learn and combined with lots of twirls and even a few cool group dances! We came home very late but it was so worth it. At the start of the day the energy and craziness of the culture had intimidated me, but by the end I was embracing it and loving every second!