Wowzer. It's been awhile, a testament to how damn busy and overwhelmed I've been with how much fun I'm having. Between Cuzco, Eco Truly Park, Ica, and Iquitos, I was living it up every weekend in April! And between all the traveling, I was trying to keep up with school, capoeira, determining important things for next year (like my classes, where I'm living, and Alternative Breaks), and exploring Lima with my amazing host family.
K, where to begin seeing as it has almost been 2 months? Oh, yeah, CUZCO and MACHU PICCHU! I went there :) During Santa Semana, the weekend leading up to Easter.
Highlights:
Tours of Saqsaywaman and other ruins in SPANISH! Even though I might've missed a few things, I really need the practice listening. And I even learned a few words in Quechua, the native language of the area.
Cuzco is BEAUTIFUL. Maybe it's just the contrast to the smoggy-foggy Lima skies, but the sky there was always so epic. And the landscape was so GREEN and lush and mountainous. We had a free day where there were no organized tours for us, so I went to Pisaq with a few friends, a village that was a beautiful bus ride away, and we rode horses up to some ruins. My horses' name was Fantaseria, and she was very well-behaved unlike my friends horses. I can't remember why, but everyone else was having a lot of difficulties. I think my success with Fantaseria was due to my words of encouragement and constant spouting of flattering remarks.
The nightlife in Cuzco was also cool. I've never been into the whole 'clubbing' scene, but it seems to be the thing to do and it's pretty fun. It's mostly a lot of drinking then running around and dancing and more drinking. Mama Africa was the name of one of the popular places there, and I couldn't tell you what distinguished it from the rest except that for some reason there were large-screen tv's with white-water rafting videos playing. Maybe it's because I don't normally like to get drunk enough to really appreciate those places, but I definitely prefer hanging out in more chill settings where I can actually talk to people.
After 2 nights in Cuzco, we took a scenic bus ride that included a stop in this village where we watched women dye alpaca wool, and another stop to try chicha (!). First we played a game called 'sapo' (frog) that can be best compared to bags--you try to toss these coins into the mouth of a frog that's centered on a borad with other holes that are worth different amounts of points. I guess it's a pretty common game here as it's been at every hotel we've stayed at since, and I'm getting the hang of it ;) Then we got to learn about and try chicha, a drink made from chewed and spit out corn that is fermented (ohman i miss kombucha!) RiquÃsimo!
Then we took a train to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu. A group of us decided we wanted to hike the whole thing rather than take the bus to the entrance of the Huayna/Machu Picchu hikes. So we woke up at 4:30AM, ate some continental breakfast, and set out on an hour-long hike under the moonlit periwinkle sky. Then, it turned out that they didn't have enough passes for everyone to do the Huayna Picchu hike, so myself and a few others did the MACHU Picchu hike (which was a lot higher, no big deal ;) ) The day was a blur of a TON of stairs, epic views(see facebook for pictures), good people, and me trying to understand the tour guides when they talked about Incan history in spanish.
Then I went to the 'hot springs,' which weren't like the hot springs I was envisioning (a) because no one was naked, and (b) because they were cement and outside of a bohemian-style restaurant and not nestled in the mountains.
K, that's all for now. Adventures in Eco Truly Park and Ica coming shortly!
Amor!
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