Me encanta Peru!

Our adventures at Cumbe Mayo

Us loving Peru




Chillin in the back of the dirt truck- so legit
So on Saturday neither of us could stop saying “I LOVE Peru!”  It was a perfect Peruvian day!  We started out in the perfect, clear, sunny weather (a blessing since it can decide to pour rain at any minute without warning).  We took a bus to Cajamarca where we began hiking straight up the mountain. 

About 45 minutes in (I was already tired), sad I know, but it was steep!) we got a truck hauling dirt to stop and give us a ride.  We rode up the mountain in the back of the truck- yeah we’re that legit.  It was perfect because we had a view of the gorgeous mountains and Cajamarca below.  Feeling the breeze and having an unobstructed view was worth the bumpy ride (I’m pretty sure I still have a couple bruises).  We decided this was a true South American, once-in-a-lifetime experience.  I can’t begin to tell you how perfectly happy we were in the pile of dirt in the back of that truck. 

Some of the beautiful views of Cumbe Mayo

We got dropped off at the road leading up to Cumbe Mayo and paid the nice truck driver a sol (about 35 cents) each for the half hour drive.  We finished walking the rest of the way up to Cumbe where we got to hike around and see all sorts of cool rock formations and aqueducts.  It was so awesome!  We got to climb around a little on the rocks and look at cool petroglyphs!  The aqueducts were personally my favorite part (I know that sounds a little nerdy, but trust me, they were awesome).  They were pre-Incan, so over 2000 years old.  I have no idea how they made them so straight and smooth and made them run at perfectly right angles. 

At any rate, we saw the cool stuff and then we were considering taking one of the tour buses back down the mountain.  Until we found out it cost 10 soles (about $3.50), so we decided to walk home.  I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony that we, the supposedly rich Americans, were too cheap to pay $3.50, but all the Peruvians had paid more for the ride up and a complete tour.  So we started walking down the road hoping that there would be another truck hauling dirt.  Luckily one of the tour buses we decided was too expensive was full of a group of people who decided to convince their bus driver to give us a ride for free when they saw us walking!  They were nice and we told them Cynthia is Shakira's sister (a favorite prank of ours).  I hope they didn’t actually believe us, but I don’t really know. 

They dropped us off in Cajamarca and we took another bus to Baños where we had lunch/dinner.  The restaurant was a little sketchy, but we are glad to report no one got sick! We got soup (which we didn’t eat), lemonade (which we also didn’t drink) and Saltado de Carne (steak and fried vegetables, which we did eat!).  All of that for only 4 soles! (about $1.25)  We of course chased it down with dessert from a delicious dessert shop down the road.  I got Maracuya Mousse and Cynthia had Crocan de Chocolate.  Of course that didn’t stop us from making oatmeal cake that night.  At any rate, it was an awesome day.  And I love Peru!

Bonita, No?- Erin

Where we live

Everything is going great here in Puylucana.  We are a lot more comfortable knowing where things are and what sorts of things the kids like to do.  I think that by the time we go home we will have done enough puzzles and played enough memory for a lifetime.  We’ve also had a chance to do more with the kids.  We have had two pre-Carnival water balloon days.  (Side note about Carnival: From what I can tell the holiday consists of some parties and throwing water balloons at random people walking down the street.  I am still trying to discover why they celebrate Carnival.  I have asked some of the Peruvian people and the answers range from “to celebrate a Greek god,” to “Because it’s fun.”  In Cynthia’s guidebook it says it is to celebrate the days leading up to Lent, but I haven’t had any people tell me that yet.)  During the first one we taught about the importance of washing clothes and some of the kids brought T-shirts that we washed.  We wanted to wash clothes again with them on the next water balloon day because we thought we could get more of the kids to bring clothes to wash since they knew what was coming after, but not a single kid brought clothes.  We had lots of fun with the water balloons though!  

 Washing clothes with the kids

 

We’ve also been trying to do some activities to improve their reading and math skills.  One of the hard things for the summer is that we have a small group of kids with a huge age range, so we usually end up playing games that are more basic so that the little ones can play with us, but it doesn’t really help the older ones learn as much.  For example, they LOVE to play the Dice Tally game.  All you do is roll a die, count how many dots there are and then put a tally next to the number that corresponds.  You win when you have five tallies next to each number.  It’s good practice counting and learning to tally for our four, five, and six year olds, but the girls who are ten and eleven like to play too and tend to win.  We try to have more than one “winner” so that the little ones still like playing.  The kids also like to cheat.  We are thinking we might have a lesson about honesty sometime soon… We love finding games that are “cheater-proof,” like Spanish-English Bingo. 

On out hike to Otuzco

After the kids leave and on Saturdays we go on our own little adventures.  Our first Saturday, like Cynthia said, we hiked a mountain behind our house.  The second Saturday we went to the city of Baños del Inca to go to the Baños del Inca, which are hot springs.  Because we don’t have any hot water in our house this was especially wonderful!  They pipe the water so that you can go swimming, get a private hot tub, or shower, all with warm water! They also have a few remains from when it was actually used by the Incas that you can look at.  This last Saturday we hiked/walked to some ruins known as Otuzco.  It was cool to see, but my favorite parts were the beautiful views as we walked there and at the top.  Our “tour guide” was one of the guys from our ward, Jose Miguel.  He is super cool and we do a lot of stuff with him.  He comes over in the mornings and we all study the Book of Mormon.  He and Jake read in English and Cynthia, Liz, and I practice our Spanish.  He also took us to where he works, which is for someone in the ward who makes paintings for souvenirs that are sold all over Cajamarca.  The paintings are mostly of places in Northern Peru, but because he is LDS he also does some of temples.  It was cool to see how they are made.  Jose Miguel also brought us homemade queso fresca and yogurt, which were delicious!  He has promised to show us how to make queso fresca and manjar blanco (which is a sort of caramel spread).  We are really excited!  

Us and the Peruvian women who asked to take pictures with the "gringitas bonitas"

Church here is great.  Personally I get a lot of time to ponder because I usually catch the title of the lesson and not a whole lot more, but I am getting better.  We went to the baptism of a little girl this week.  It was supposed to start at 7:00, but in true Peruvian style the meeting actually began at 7:45.  There was a talk and time for some pictures and then the actual baptism.  It was probably about 8:30 by this time and we were thinking it was getting close to the end.  Oh how wrong we were!  There was still lots of singing (which is always an adventure at church because there is no piano and key and tempo don’t seem to be important concepts here) and testimonies.  They also took a picture of every single person who was there with the little girl.  While they were taking pictures some people brought around cheese puffs, candy, and some herbal tea.  Then we sang happy birthday (three different birthday songs in a row, including the English one), and then they served some good cake.  By this time it was 9:45 and we had to leave so we could get a taxi to go home.  We think it probably ended around 10:00, but we don’t actually know.  The moral of the story is that we are having way too much fun and learning a lot along the way. 

Hemos llegado! - Cynthia

Peru is awesome. We wrote out an entire blog plost full of our adventures from the last day and then I left it on my computer which is back at our place... So this summary will have to do. 

 Saying goodbye to my wonderful cousins who dropped me off at the airport.

Lima is very humid, and the people here are crazy drivers! There are three established lanes but no one seems to notice, 5 cars at a time will all be driving and honking and cutting eachother off and waving each other forward. The streets are full of huge tour buses and taxis and combis as well as dogs. Lots of dogs and lots of people. 

  

 This is Zara, and this is Erin and Zara enjoying ice cream while we hang out at Josue´s swim lesson. 

We were lucky enough to have the wonderful Zara for our contact here in Lima, she picked both of us up from the airport, helped me practice my spanish and let us rest and eat at her house. She has a wonderful family and a very cute son named Josue. We learned that Josue likes: to wake up Erin by staring at her an inch from her face, he like soccer but not swim lessons and he enjoys singing along to David Archuleta. 

We left Lima yesterday afternoon on a "baller" tour bus- according to the other intern Jake. It has cool reclining seats, dinner, and an odd choice of music. We were on it for 16 hours...

Hanging out with Josue.

We arrived in Pulyucana this morning, thanks to more help from the Bishop here. It is so beautiful in Cajamarca; misty mountains, rolling green hills and a lot trees I don´t recognize. I am excited to explore more of our new home, but for the past few hours we have been pretty busy meeting everyone. Our new friend Jake is hilarious. He showed us around "El Bichito" where we are working for the next three months, and had great commentary on all of it´s oddities. Sorry for the scatterbrained post, and Erin will tell you all about where we live and more about the wonderful kids we get to work with next time!