The time in Peru has finally come to an end. And what an end it was! After my time researching in Huaraz, I returned to Cusco where I lived in a hostel with my 3 closest friends from the program. We lived there for about 10 days, literally working day in and day out on these Independent Study Projects. Every day consisted of some sort of glorious breakfast (as seen below), working for a few hours, getting bored and going out for lunch, working and procrastinating more, and going to bed way before 10 PM. We all enjoyed this schedule for the most part, although the constant hours of writing academically in Spanish isn’t too much fun. We made up a bucket list of stuff to do in Cusco, so we worked diligently at completing that as well. I had one more goodbye with my host family in Cusco (me and grams are lookin' good in the pic below).
And obviously, since my body has been a bit funky these past 3 and a half months, I came down with a bout of food poisoning the day before the papers were due. Pretty miserable. I was able to turn in my paper a day later, but man, it was rough. I was so looking forward to being totally done with the damn thing. Eventually, I did complete all 35 pages in Spanish about the development of the tourism industry in Huaraz and the roles of the guides and the agencies in protection of the wilderness and the Parque Nacional de Huascarán. Finishing this paper really proved to me how much my Spanish has improved—I’ve never even had to write that much in English! Feels pretty damn good to be done with it all.
We spent 4 days in Urubamba in the Sacred Valley, at the same glorious place we had orientation, to do our presentations on our projects. Yet again, after completing a 25-minute presentation in Spanish on my topic, I was floored at my speaking abilities. Who knew I’d actually improve at a language this much. It was a glorious 4 days filled with happiness that we’d all finished this major project, but also much sadness that our time in Peru was coming to an end.
We returned to Cusco for 2 more days before heading our separate ways. And wow, saying those goodbyes were seriously rough. I’ve met so many amazing people on my program and I’ve been so lucky to have this experience with such unbelievable people. I really hope we’re all able to stay in touch—it’s crazy because we’re all from different parts of the country which makes it more difficult but also gives me more excuses to travel around the US. We had a final dinner in Cusco as an entire group and that was heartbreaking as well. It was incredibly difficult to say goodbye to our amazing academic directors who provided so much for us during these 3 months. I know that when I come back to Peru in the future I’ll make sure to see these awesome people once again.
And then, on Saturday evening, my post-program adventure began with a 12-hour bus ride all the way to La Paz, Bolivia, with one of my good friends, Beth. I’ll write another entry on that when I’ve got more time. But for now, I’m on my way back to Cusco for one more final time and then I’ll be heading back to the good ole United States of America. Where did these 3 months go…
