Sibayo, Alpacas and a Little Bit of Heaven...

The gloriousness did not stop at Lake Titicaca. It only got better. We woke up on Friday and made the drive to Chivay, the last main town before the communities in Colca Canyon. We woke up early on Saturday morning, packed up our stuff and met up with our families for a breakfast buffet! I lived in Sibayo, two of the higher up communities that we were split up into. 4 others and myself lived in the two higher communities while everyone else lived lower down in the Canyon. My homestay family was FANTASTIC!! I lived with mom, 15 year old sister, 3 year old sister and dad. It was incredible. I love my homestay family in Cusco, but this experience was phenomenal. We clicked right away and Mom and I got to have lots of great conversations and I got to play many a game with the girls--I was ecstatic.

After breakfast, we divided up and headed to our communities. We got to Sibayo around 11 AM and I immediately got to help out with cooking for lunch, which was great. It's sometimes difficult in Cusco because my family never lets me help out with stuff. It was great to finally help with every aspect of daily life... you feel much more involved, even when you're just doing the dishes. After lunch, mom, lil' sis and I went for a walk around town. This town was spectacular. Sibayo means "Town of Rocks" and the rocks in this town rock (teehee). We hiked up to the overlook of the town and got a fantastic view of the area. The mountains surrounding this city were phenomenal as well... I couldn't have been happier. I was well-rested throughout this 5 day experience because these rural communities tend to hit the hay around 8 PM, which allowed for lots of reading, journaling and sleeping. It was great.

The next morning I awoke to a breakfast of trucha (local trout) and then headed over to another family's house to watch the sheep-shearing process. It was crazy to watch it all happen. I also went to church with my two sisters. It was a service in Quechua and Spanish, so although I couldn't understand all of it, I was impressed with how much I've learned (even of the Quechua!). After lunch, I went for a brief hike up into the mountains with the other girl from my program in the community and it was glorious. I crashed early again, preparing for the big adventures of the following day.

The third day in Sibayo was the day we left for the estancia, the ranch in the mountains where they raise the alpacas and llamas. After lunch, the bus from our program came and picked all of us up who lived in the higher commnities. We drove a short way up into the mountains and then hiked for about an hour to the estancia. All of our time in the mountains involved lots of coca leaf chewing to avoid altitude sickness. I'm pretty obsessed with coca now and I'm bummed that I can't bring any back to the US... the cocaine industry sucks. Anywho, we got to the estancia and were completely floored. It was this beautiful little ranch tucked into the mountains.. it was unbelievable.

After settling into our home for the night, we began our first adventure of hunting for viscachas, little chinchilla like creatures that live in the mountains. We saw so many of them, but failed miserably while hunting. We were supposed to create fires in their homes in order to smoke them out... but alas, there was no success. We headed back empty handed and then hiked up to help herd the alpacas and llamas down to their corrals. We got to witness one of the most amazing sunsets of my life and I had another one of those, "Holy shit, I'm in Peru" moments, so it was pretty fantastic. We went to bed early woke up the next morning real early to help cook breakfast and prepare for the day.

After learning a bit about the glorious animals, we helped herd all of the alpacas into a corral. Then, we got to help shear one, which was absolutely amazing! After shearing the alpaca, we all got to keep a good chunk of the fur, which is so incredibly soft. When I brought it back to my family in Sibayo, my mom helped me start spinning the fur in the traditional way into yarn, so I am well on my way to becoming a traditional Andean indigenous woman. We left the estancia at around 10 AM, hiked out, stopped at the local hot springs, and made it back to our families. I slept deeply that night awaiting my last day in Sibayo.

My last day in Sibayo was also amazing, like every day in this part of the world. I went on a short hike with the other girl from my program and her host mom to the local mummy! It was amazing to see archeological evidence in these mountains... so cool. I also helped gather rocks down by the river on this day, which was obviously awesome as well.

We left real early on Thursday morning and I was pretty heartbroken. I have fallen in love with this town and the people I lived with and I truly hope to make it back sometime in my life. I felt like my Spanish improved greatly during this time, and I feel like I learned SOOO much just from living in this family. It was an unreal experience. We all met up in Chivay and then made the drive to Arequipa. We had one day in Arequipa, but it was great to check out yet another part of Peru. Ah, Peru...

We're now in Lima and I'll explain all of that the next time around. Until then, ciao!

The Highest Navigable Lake in the World.

I'm still a bit speechless after our visit to Lake Titicaca, even though it was over a week ago. That lake is something that everybody should get to at least once in their lives... it is truly unbelievable! 

We left Cusco last Wednesday and began our massive excursion throughout Southern Peru. We drove south to Puno, the city right on the edge of the highest navigable lake in the world. We settled into a great hotel and snagged some dinner before crashing due to the big day ahead of us. We awoke on Thursday morning to luckily, sun! We grabbed our gear and went down to the water's edge.

Obviously Puno is a major tourist spot. There are hundreds of boats along the pier, it's crazy. We loaded up  into one and along with a local tour guide (who surprisingly wasn't too annoying), we hit the water. Our first stop on this glorious adventure was to Las Islas de los Uros. These islands are un-freaking-believable. They're made of reeds. Seriously. Reeds from the lake. It's insane! The native people on these islands (who speak the language of Aymara) are completely content living on these islands. It's a super interesting set-up--there are like 5 families that live on each of the mini-reed islands and each mini-reed island has it's own mayor (who can be a female, which is big for Peru). They've fully utilized the tourism industry to benefit their personal economic growth, which is also really interesting.

We got to have a brief tour of two of the islands, including inside the homes of these people. We all purchased little things from their mini-markets as well. It was a crazy amazing experience. When you pull up to these islands, you're honestly floored by the amazing structure and architecture involved in these people's homes. It's unreal.

After our amazing tour of the Uros, we embarked on a 2 hour boat ride to our next island--Isla Taquile.  The ride to the island was great--it was so refreshing to be traveling by water once again. As a Minnesotan, I definitely got a full dose of water on this venture which I'm extremely grateful for. We arrived at Isla Taquile and hiked all the way up to the top of the island. Puno is at an even higher elevation than Cusco, so we all suffered briefly from the altitude. We eventually made it to the center of the island which is jaw-dropping as well. 

Taquile is a decently large island with a Quechua-speaking population on it. It's a pretty amazing set-up, and it's much different than the Uros. One of the most interesting things is the major difference between the gender roles on the two islands--women have a lot of power on the Uros, but in Taquile, the women have to walk a certain number of steps behind their husbands. The differences regarding gender roles throughout this country are nuts! This country is crazily diverse.

We got to explore the beautiful artisan market on Taquile (they're incredibly well-known for their weaving) and then had a glorious lunch overlooking the water. We eventually hiked back down to the Marina and headed back to shore. What a glorious adventure. The water was eerily reminiscent of the massiveness of Superior, so I definitely felt like I was home. Overall, the Lake Titicaca was almost too much for words... I hope some of these pictures do it some justice... More on everything else to come soon!

Oh, What a Life.

And what a week it has been! After returning from the Amazon, we have enjoyed just about 2 full weeks in Cusco. This Wednesday we head out on a 17 day excursion throughout Peru—down south to Lake Titicaca and Colca Canyon, where we’ll live with families in rural homestays for a week, and then up to Lima. We’re all so excited to go, but I know I’m going to miss Cusco when I’m gone. As much as city life drives me insane, I truly love Cusco and I have loved getting to explore so much of the area around me.

Speaking of exploring, last Saturday a small group and I embarked on another adventure to ruins.  This time we took a bus to Moray, an unbelievable site.  We hiked for about 2 hours through the glorious countryside with the mountains at our side until we reached the ruins. And these ruins were fantastic! Moray consists of circular shaped ruin walls in one of the valleys outside of Cusco. It’s unclear what exactly the ruins were used for, but they are unbelievable nonetheless. I have loved exploring places close to Cusco and this was a fantastic adventure. The hiking was also a huge high for me—it felt so good to get out again and see those mountains I am so desperately in love with.

The rest of our two weeks have been filled with the learning of Quechua, the major indigenous language in Peru. And let me tell you, it’s rough. The language is nothing like Spanish and I feel like a first grader in class every day as we go over basic words like dog (alqo) or how to say hi (Allianchu!). Although the language is incredibly difficult, it’s awesome to have a small amount of knowledge of something that is so important to this country. This Sunday we all attended a Quechua mass at 6 AM and despite the early rising, it was awesome. We also went on a short field trip on Tuesday to a community in the mountains that speaks Quechua (pictures seen below). I’m really glad that I’ve gotten to learn even more about this amazing country and hopefully I’ll be able to communicate some more with the families in Colca (who speak Quechua and Spanish).

Craziness hit our program on Tuesday night, when 8 of us went to the clinic to get tested for Salmonella. Somehow (we’re assuming in the jungle), a bunch of us managed to contract Salmonella, which still seems so bizarre to me. On Tuesday morning, we learned that 4 of the kids on our program had been diagnosed with Salmonella, so we all headed to the clinic to get tested that evening. After about 5 hours of being poked and prodded, I lucked out and scored a negative for Salmonella. But alas, it didn’t stop them from diagnosing me with a throat infection, most likely strep. It’s been years since I’ve gotten strep, but I embraced the diagnosis and am just about done with antibiotics. The final count of “Salmonellitas” (as our assistant director Donaldo calls them) was 9, 2 with Salmonella and Giardia, and 3 who had to spend the night in the hospital. Nuts! We’re all almost back to healthy so hopefully we’ll make it through this big excursion with little medical problems. Cross your fingers!

Our other major excitement was our overnight trip to Calca, to a local art and music place. We worked with this unbelievable couple—a Swiss woman who speaks perfect Spanish and her husband who speaks Quechua as well. The woman taught us all about pre-Columbian art, which included us having the opportunity to paint outside on their gorgeous property.  The guy taught us all we could ever want to know about local music and it was awesome. I’m pretty damn good at the Zampona now and it was amazing to learn some real native songs. We even ended our excursion with a musical performance around the bonfire outside at night… as we danced and played our musical instruments, I had a moment of realization about just how lucky I am to be doing this in Peru right now. So thanks Mom and Dad J

This weekend was low key in Cusco with lots of Christmas present shopping which was great. We’re getting amped up for our next big adventure, which should include many stories and tales about the new places we are venturing off to. I’ll have Internet again in Lima, so I’ll update y’all then on all the things we’re doing. Paqarinkama! (goodbye in Quechua!)