The last leg

Wednesday, 14 Jun 2006

Hello everyone,
I am back in the United States and the U.P. I flew into MSP on Thursday, June 8, 2006 at 11 am. I made the drive back up to the U.P. on Sunday. I had CPR training today and have my first day back at work on Thursday night. I didn't get as many hours as I would have liked, but oh well, there isn't much I can do. To fill all of you on the last part of my Peru journey.

After saying goodbye to all of the kids I also had to say goodbye to all of my English students and other people who I had gotten to know during my time in Peru. This was not as difficult as saying good bye to the kids, but it was difficult as well. Megan, Shawn, and I made an "American" dinner for our cook Eugenia and all of the other volunteers, giving her the night off and showing our thanks to her for all of the wonderful food she prepared for us during our stay in Chiclayo. We made a lettuce salad, tuna pasta salad (pasta with tuna, salad dressing, and veggies), and sloppy joes. She was really appreciative of it, she asked for our recipes and as she was leaving, had tears in her eyes. After English lessons, we packed our bags and went out on the town for our final night in Chiclayo. We first went to a bar that had a band playing, but were kicked out when the bar got shut down by election officials for serving alcohol on a night that it was illegal to serve alcohol. In Peru during the election (the weekend before, starting Thursday night until the elections are over, it is illegal to sell or serve alcohol). We then went to El Premio, a dance club where we danced the night away with our Peruvian friends and fellow volunteers. On Friday morning we woke up early and headed to the airport where we got on the plane for Lima. We had a couple of problems at the airport because Megan and I had 40 minutes in Lima to get off the plane, gather our bags, recheck them, and get on a different flight and this was a problem because we were on two different airlines, STAR Peru from Chiclayo to Lima and LAN Peru from Lima to Juliaca. They switched our flights so we were on the same flight as Shawn, which gave us a longer layover in Lima. Our flight went from Lima to Cusco to Juliaca. We landed in Juliaca where we were joined by another NMU student, Becky. When we landed, we didn't have any plans or ideas of what to do except that we were going to Puno that night. I had to go to the bathroom, so I did, and when I came out a man asked me if I spoke spanish, I told him I did and then he asked me if I would like to share a taxi with him. I told him I was not traveling alone, but had 3 other friends with whom I was traveling. He said that was wonderful (cheaper taxi ride). We got in the taxi with the plan of going to the bus station, but our Spanish friend continued to talk with the taxi driver and discovered that the bus tickets were about 30 sol per person, but the taxi driver would take us there for 70 sol total. We opted for this option, but it meant that Shawn and Megan rode on top of each other for the 1 hour ride. By the time we arrived at Don Julio, our hostel, neither of them had much sensation in their legs.

We (our Spanish companion) bartered the cost of the hostel down to 25 soles per person per night, which included breakfast in the morning as long as we let them book our travel to our next destination and our trip to the islands on Lake Titicaca. We were okay with that, and so we had a room. They had initially told us that there was only a room with 3 beds in it, which we said was not a problem, because we would just push the beds together and Megan, Shawn, and I would all sleep in one big bed or two of us would just share one bed...we didn't really mind. They were like, okay. We got up to our room and there was a knock at the door, and there was a man standing there with a bed, not just a mattress, the whole bed, frame and all! Then we tried to tell him that we didn't need bedding because we had sleeping bags, but he would hear nothing of it. That night we went out and wandered around a bit, looking for somewhere to eat. We were accosted by people trying to sell us hats, mittens, and socks on the street. I broke down and bought two hats from one lady because I was freezing! At that altitude, about 3, 860 meters, it gets quite cold during the winter when the sun goes down and I was caught unprepared. Anyway, as I was making my purchases, another lady walked up to us and was like, come eat in my resturant. We were like, sure...free Pisco Sours never hurt anyone. We walked up the stairs to this resturant, and were like wow! It was so cool looking--the walls were covered in reeds and it was heated by a fire...just very cool. We had our Pisco Sours and ordered our food. I ordered an alpaca sandwich and fries. The meat was super tender and had a very good flavor...too bad they waited until everyone elses food was ready to serve it to me...it was on the luke-warm side. We then headed off down the street, not really with a good idea of where we were headed, we were going in the right direction for the hostel, but we were just kind of wandering. We ended up wandering into a wool market where we ended up buying a fair amount of merchandise. I bought a sweater and another hat. It was very nice stuff and very cheap as it was all alpaca. We headed off to our hostel after that and went to bed since we had an early morning the next day. Also being at altitude that none of us were used to and having traveled all day, we were quite tired, so going to bed at 9pm didn't really phase any of us.

The next morning we woke up and went down to breakfast and then waited for the shuttle to come pick us up for our boat ride to Lake Titicaca. One of the people we picked up on the way down to the docks was someone I had gone to high school with! I hadn't seen her in about 4 years, so it was kind of crazy to see her in Puno, on the way to take the same tour of Lake Titicaca, what are the odds?! Lake Titicaca was beautiful! The floating islands of the Uros were really cool. They are islands made of reeds that the people build. Each island lasts about 15 years and then the families build a new one and move. On the islands we visited, there were four families living on one and 9 on the other. The families earn their livings mainly through the tourism that is generated by people wanting to visit Lake Titicaca, the largest, highest fresh water lake in the world (it is far from being the largest lake in the world, but its claim to fame is its altitude). We took a ride on a reed boat from one island to the other, pretty cool experience, and then we got back on our boat and headed to a land island about 3 hours away. We had lunch here and a bit of time to wander around. This is probably the point in our journey where the altitude affected us the most. We had to hike up a lot to get to our destination. I didn't feel it too bad, except for the fact that I was out of breath, but Shawn and Becky felt it much more and were feeling quite poorly. Our lunch was soup, bread with slasa, fried potatoes, rice, and fried rainbow trout. We then took the boat back after walking down some very steep steps.

We woke up early the next morning and were shuttled to the bus station for what we were promised would only be a 6 hour bus ride to Cusco. We needed it to be a 6 hour bus ride (starting at 8 and ending at 2) because we had a city tour of Cusco to catch by 2:30 pm. We were lied to. The bus didn't get to Cusco until 4 pm. We were rather irate about that! Never trust a Peruvian to tell you the truth about time, because most of them operate on Peruvian time where it doesn't really matter what time you get somewhere! So instead of taking a city tour we went to our hotel and checked in to our rooms. We then wandered around the town looking for a bank and internet. We made it back successfully and Yuri, the man who was responsible for picking us up at the bus station was there waiting for us, in a panic because we were not where we were supposed to be...he expected us on a bus at 5:30, and when we were not on it, he began to panic that something had happened to us. We were safe and he was very happy about that! On Monday we woke up at 4:45 and ate breakfast and were shuttled to the train station where we caught a train to Aguas Calientes. The train ride was beautiful! We saw many things...mountains and changing scenery from the train. We were also able to see some Incan ruins from the train. It was really spectacular. We reached Aguas Calientes and then caught a bus up to Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is amazing. I don't know how the Incans moved all of those rocks...they are huge! Many of them are so smooth and fit together perfectly, it was so crazy. They took a long time building it and it isn't done. The Incans had to abandon it when they heard the Spaniards were coming. The men went to Cusco City and the women to the forest and the mountains. It was truly a sight to see!

We then had a bit more time in Cusco after Machu Picchu--for dinner we tried cuy, fried guinea pig. It was interesting and like nothing I have ever seen before, the whole guinea pig shows up on a plate, minus the fur (it was a bit difficult to eat, we laughed the whole time because we were a bit weirded out by it all). We left Cusco on Tuesday at 2 and arrived in Lima at around 6. We went to our hostel and just hung out around there. The next day we left Peru at 11:55pm. On Wednesday we went to the Plaza de Armas and saw the changing of the guard and the president, Alan. We also went to El Mercado de Indios, an amazing place with lots of things to buy, for very cheap.

My experience in Peru was amazing and I am so glad I went. I am glad to be home, but still wish I could work with the kids! I will keep in touch with all of you and will keep you on my e-mail list for my trip to Chile, which begins July 16, 2006 and lasts until December.

Love,
Kathy