this past saturday some friends and i finally decided to see if the rumors were true…that there are penguins in puerto eten. being the great planners we are, we started our adventure by asking people where the combis were for puerto eten. why did you have to ask multiple people? wellllll….let’s just put it this way, we got about 10 different directions, so we slowly put it together. once we got there, we just started on a path on the beach. this was my first time to the ocean since being at site, and oh my goodness, it was needed…and i will probably start needing to frequent it.
our path along the beach was, apparently, the path less traveled as we were going up and down a lot hills and cliff-sides but i will say that it was probably the prettier of the two paths. we also made sure to be super safe in our adventures, ergo of course we climbed on the rocks!
eventually, we reached a strange looking shack with bags around it with a penguin-looking symbol drawn on it. so we asked where the penguins were, to which the guy replied, “do not get any closer, there are dogs. and the penguins are at the bottom of the cliff.” so, we hurriedly made our way down the cliff. as it turns out there is an obnoxious green fence surrounding them, as they are an endangered species and they working on repopulating the breed. so, the view from above was great, and you could make out their outline on the ground. but the best part of this adventure was being the only three people on such a quiet beach. we ended up chasing some waves and just hanging out and getting sunburned from our fun in the sun. needless to say, it was a little day-cation…or really half-day-cation, but even that much made all the difference in the world.
i will be back there in just a few short days. in less than two days my first visitor arrives and i could not be more excited. i am excited to share my day-to-day nuances with someone, have them meet my community, and i am just excited to spend some overdue time with them. so if you don’t mind. i think this is my sign-off until the new year. i hope your holidays are merry and bright. i know mine will be, and i will update you on all that happens between now and then, but for now i have a dream boat to attend to.
gocta falls is the third largest waterfall in the world and was only discovered a little more than ten years ago. pause and ponder about how incredible that is…considering how small the world we live in today and that so much of it is only now being discovered…wow…
anyways, it was quite the adventure out there. it was a 30 minute drive to a town. once you get to the town, you must take a local guide with you, and you proceed to begin your 4.5 mile hike each way (taking 2 ½ – 3 hours each way), where you hike up and down 2 ½ mountain sides to get to the base of the falls. you do have the option to take a horse for 25 soles…which i highly recommend….in fact, you are crazy, like me, not to. the hike back was probably one of the more challenging hikes i have even done, but every bit of it was worth it. to put it into the perspective, there were probably 25 people in our group. only one started on a horse…the pregnant lady. half-way through the hike to the falls, there was a chance to request a horse for the way back for 20 soles…at that point 20 people were requesting horses…
on the hike you will see plenty of toucans, and if you are lucky you will get to see some monkeys…and if you are not lucky, you will see a puma. i only saw toucans, which was more than what most other people saw. and even though i just about died while hiking, i can easily say that this place was one of the most beautiful, majestic places i have ever seen.
the view on the drive out to the falls.
view of the falls from the town where we started the hike.
view while hiking….there are going to be a lot of pictures of waterfalls in this post….not apologizing…
white orchid.
our first uphill hike of the day…this uphill lasted a good 25 minutes…
the view of the town where we started from…
i was there.
sunburned from the day before, and my legs still itch from the mosquito bites…
a really awesome-looking mushroom.
when we finally were able to see the base, but no longer the top half of the falls.
i did what any normal person would do after hiking in hot, hot heat for 3 hours to the waterfall: i rushed to climb and swim underneath it…duh…
don’t worry mom, i was being careful…ish…carefulish…
way off in the distance, you can see two pale-people spots directly underneath the waterfall…the one on the left is me…the power of the water was incredible.
i could not get over the folds.
the green was absolutely breathtaking.
some awesome-looking beetles.
what i should have taken…no regrets…
right before i hiked 1 hour straight uphill…nbd…(i obviously had no idea what i was about to encounter…).
warning: there are a ridiculous amount of pictures in this post…it was just too hard to not share all of these…also, i live in the flat, brown desert, so the green mountainside just captivated me.
for our first day in chacha, we took a tour to kuelap, which is an ancient incan fortress about 2 hours outside of chachapoyas.
view from the car ride.
behind me are some more ruins where people had created homes inside of the mountain.
more scenery.
the fortress from below, before we started our hike. historians have concluded that if the incans had made kuelap their center capital, then the spaniards would not have been able to conquer them and history would have been forever changed…
entering the park…
zack, robert and i right outside of the ruins.
more of the incredible view.
one of the three entrances into the three-level fortress.
you can see where it’s raining.
hiking up the entrance to the first level. i am convinced that the incans had to have incredible legs….
the crew with some of the ruins and the incredible view.
robert’s dream pose.
pretending to lose my balance and fall…or that is exactly what is happening…that is up to you to decide….
a tiny cottage LITERALLY in the middle of nowhere.
this picture seems pretty accurate.
i was there.
the incans buried themselves in the walls there. not creepy or anything…
the three lines mean: god of the heavens, god of the earth, god of the underworld.
one of the kitchens…the line of the rocks on the right are thought to be where they stored their cuys (guinea pigs).
eye of the puma.
sepent and eye of the crocodile.
it was said that more than 3,000 people lived in this fortress. also, loved that there were llamas EVERYWHERE.
a mochika face.
some pato (duck).
the crew with the the bottle-shaped “great temple.”
the exit…nbd…
robert making the hike down.
the most breath-taking exit i have ever encountered.
during thanksgiving, i was able to FINALLY take my first vacation since being in peru. it was nice to have a few days to finally be a tourist and see a new part of the country after being here for 5 ½ months. also, it was a great distraction from missing time with my family in the states.
the plaza in chacha.
for my first vacation, i went to chachapoyas, which is located in the department of las amazonas. i took a 35 soles bus ride there on a 10 hour overnight bus. when i got on, the bus attendant handed out plastic bags, i didn’t understand what this was for until the middle of the night. i awoke to people rustling their bags so they had some where to put their waste as they were car sick since the road to there is 80% curving around and going up-and-down mountains. needless to say i turned the music up on my ipod.
a view of the town center.
once i arrived, i found a hostel on the town square to stay at and my friends and i took off on our first tour. if you are ever to visit peru, i highly recommend chachapoyas. i plan to return as i could have spent 5 more days there without having repeated a thing. the town itself is pristine and surrounded by beautiful green mountainsides. it also has consistently made some of the top up-and-coming travel destinations in the world.
i was sad i only had 2 short days there, and reluctantly boarded my 24-hour bus ride to lima for eist. at least i had the very front seat of my bus…which made for an incredible view.
you guys. i know. i know. it’s been a while. i’m sorry. i wish i could say it was all because i was busy, which is probably about ¾ true, however it is also finding the time and patience to upload photos.
overall life is good. and busy. but good. i have been spending most of my free time working on my community diagnostic, which will ultimately be a very lengthy document about my community, which i will have written in spanish. needless to say, it takes up most of my energy and time. especially processing and analyzing all of my surveys. translation: a lot of tedious paperwork.
but here are some pictures and anecdotes about what filled my time when i wasn’t working on my diagnostic:
despedida!
i attended peru 16’s despedida (a goodbye party for peru 16…to put into context i am peru 19). it was a lot of fun. we all learned the gangnam style dance and went around chiclayo and performed the dance.
practicing for our big debut.
dancing in the parque principal in the center of town in font of a crowd of people.
we went all around town and ended up getting a huge crowd and following. after, we went to ICPNA (the english school that is partnered with the us embassy) and there was a break dancing group that performed for us. after, we all got pizza, hung out at the hostel and then went out to a club and just danced the night away and into the morning. i have never been a going out person, but i have since found it to be quite a release of mounted up energy from being in site all the time.
hanging out at the hostel.
artesanos de tucume.
my friend, cinthia, asked me to help her take pictures of her and the other artisan’s products at the museum in lambayeque. their products are quite impressive and all made by hand and out of organic material. the materials are dyed using local, natural, organic resources and the women turn the organic cotton into the thread that is used to make the products. they are an incredible group of women who take their craft very seriously and i am so excited to be working with them and to learn more about all that they hope to achieve while i am here and help them realize their potential. i also helped them set up a facebook page, check it out here!!!!! (also, don’t forget to like it!) i am also grateful for the friendship of cinthia.
just an example of their style/color palette of their products.
an example of the silver working as well. also all made by hand.
getting around town.
i finally got it. i have my own cruiser…a mountain bike that is. and to that end i am grateful. it has cut my travel time to the museum in half, and it is nice to get out and about and see more of the rural parts of tucume. i had my site visit today with my supervisors and people repeatedly made commentary about me and my bike…i guess they now know that i make good use of it…
my family got a kick out of me, my bike, my helmet and my camelback. samia seriously took an entire photo shoot of me on my bike.
speaking of samia and bicycles…in true bff form, as soon as i started speeding around town on my bike, samia decided that she wanted to start using her bike as well. i carried her bike all the way across town and to the outskirts to the grifo to use their air machine to fill her bike’s tires. then i carried it all the way home. we then spent the afternoon at the park, where i taught her to ride the bike. there is still training wheels, as i am teaching her how to pedal (she likes to pedal forward once and then pedal backwards a lot).
watch out tucume!
bike mongers.
halloweeenie.
fact, my second favorite holiday is halloween. luckily, my friend, casey, had a halloween parade and party planned with the youth leadership group in his site, patapo. i dressed as cat, and made ears out of my hair and drew a nose and whiskers on my face. little did i realize that this would ultimately result in me drawing cat nose and whiskers on 30+ teenage girls’ faces as well. needless to say, i am professional cat whisker drawer….don’t worry, i will be adding that to my resume.
all of the volunteers with the mayor of patapo.
stephen and i on the back of mototaxi. riding through town shouting happy halloween to everyone.
michelle and i at the halloween party. i was so exhausted that i am pretty sure i was passed out shortly after this photo was taken.
all of the volunteers at the party!
the day after.
the day following halloween was dio de los muertos for peru, which meant a federal holiday here. this meant that most of our families ventured to the cemeteries to pay homage to their lost loved ones. this also meant that none of us had anything really going on in our sites. so we decided to go up to changoyape and visit stephen and tina.
changoyape is right on the border of cajamarca and kind of where the sierra region begins. stephen gave us the grand tour and it was just breathtakingly beautiful there.
the volunteers visiting changoyape.
while we were getting the grand tour, i found an odd spiky looking fruit growing. so i did what any normal person would do, which was to break it open. i still couldn’t decide if it was edible or not, so i did the next most sensible thing: i walked over to the old man pulling guava from his tree and asked him if i could eat the fruit in my hands. while he was explaining that i should not eat the new found fruit, i realized that he was pulling guava for his pet monkey. let me repeat that for you: his pet MONKEY. needless to say i won the award for best find of the day.
dreams coming true!
oh you know. best friends just hanging out and being natural, you know.
before we left, the old man was super kind and took a long reed pole and pulled down some guava for us to take on the road with us.
starting to enjoy the fruits of our labor
for those of you who have never actually seen real guava. it looks like a giant pea pod, and you stick the giant seeds in your mouth, but you only eat the white part. then you spit the seeds, which are a little bigger than the size of a quarter.
tippy taps.
i am still going on caserio visits with vaso de leche, but now i am trying to work with the ladies on making tippy taps for their homes. water is not readily accessible and with tippy taps it will help them save and have accessible clean water to wash their hands. these are made by using household items that they already have lying around. a HUGE challenge with this is getting the ladies to bring their plastic bottles. but the good news is that plenty of cute kids still come!
mujeres jovenes.
i just love my mujeres jovenes. thursday nights we have our activity nights. every month has a value theme and the first week of every month we work on a personal progress experience within that value, and the other weeks we do fun activities. i only have 3 young women, but i hope that it slowly expands. right now the three that i do have are so incredible and have such amazing testimonies.
for the month of november, we are concentrating on knowledge. for last week’s activity, i brought a bag full of ingredients for a dessert. i turned it into an object lesson for the importance of directions and following those directions and seeking out knowledge and direction as well. then we made homemade whipped cream with strawberries. it was their first time to try whipped cream. it was an obvious success.
enjoying the fruits of their labor (budunching!)…
loving it!
as soon as their mom’s heard i was teaching them a dessert to make, they were quick to join as well. it’s true, food really is the way to the heart here.
honorable mentions.
not mentioned above but of note, is that i have been working on getting my world map realized for the past 6 weeks. it has been an exhausting going to the muni daily to follow-up in order to get things done. last monday ended with a frustrated erin in the park crying (a normal peace corps response…honest), and an equally frustrating one that i am currently addressing.
i have been working on the iñikuk pageant that is going on tonight. this has included multiple meetings and rehearsals for the girls.
i had my site visit today, and overall it was just fine. i just need to keep on trucking on with my diagnostic. guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
i have started to work with the museum, and i am working on an environment club for this summer.
i am busy in the colegio doing charlas. i have done a number on self-esteem, including a fun activity with balloons. apparently it was a hit with the kids, as i was asked to come back to do the sex ed charlas. (read the sex ed charla to learn more on the outcome of this).
i voted. and then watched election night with all of the volunteers. it was a lot of fun and involved a lot chips and guacamole.
i think this more or less brings us up to date. hopefully i can keep up with this. whew. glad we made it through that one.
oh hey! long time no see! sorry for the hiatus, especially after such a bleak one. i suppose i should update you on the activities that i have been up to. though up until last week, my work had been slow, i was still going out daily and working on charlas and encuestas with the ladies at vaso de leche.
doing my diagnostic in cruz blanca.
more encuestas being completed!
i also went to mocupe to help another volunteer with an event she planned with her school: an english singing competition! it was great. all the kids had planned a song to sing as a group and even choreographed and coordinated matching clothes. it made for a delightful afternoon. after which, i stopped into to chiclayo for some dinner on my way back, where i learned that there is a place that serves RIBS! obviously, it didn’t beat texas, but it will hold me over when i have my real red meat cravings.
phil, hallie and i served as the judges panel. too much pressure if you ask me. who wants to crush a child’s dream?
these girls were performing “wake me up when september ends” by green day. they even had a group of fans with balloons and posters.
my weekends here somehow always end up being way busier than the weekdays, which goes to show that peace corps really is a 24/7 job. a couple of weekends ago i was invited to a friend’s grandfather’s 80th birthday out in la ramada, which is a caserio in the sierra for salas. it was my first time to the sierra since being in peru, and it was breathtakingly beautiful. peruvians are marathoners of parties. this party started at 7:30 am and was still happening when we left at 8:30 pm. needless to say, that by the end of the day of eating, hiking, dehydrating, dancing and speaking only in spanish all day…i was exhausted!
la ramada, salas.
we went on a couple of hikes through miguel’s family’s land, which led us to a couple of rivers. while hiking through the lush, dense land we happened upon a lot of beautiful flowers, fruits and more.
this is the plant that they use to create the reed islands and kayaks.
banana tree.
this is when i felt like i was on an episode of LOST.
while hiking i tried a lemon dulce from its tree. it looked just like a lemon and smelled like one too. i thought my friend was trying to prank me, but instead it was just pure deliciousness. it seriously tasted like lemonade in whole-fruit form.
a view from one of points of the river we hiked to.
an ancient moche lunar calendar we happened upon while hiking.
the birthday boy. eighty years young!
this guy was great. he would come up say every single word he knew in english to me in one breath. i then realized what i sounded like when i spoke spanish. but really, he was just a hoot.
i also helped with a nationwide fundraiser in my town, called teleton, where my town had a 2-day event in the central park. the schools all performed different traditional dances, with some kids performing some solo numbers. it was quite a treat! and quite an eight-hour work day!
a performance and our booth in front of the muni.
i also took a much needed break and met up with some friends for some karaoke. if you know me, this is the best form of self-therapy (after bowling of course) for me, and turns out the place we went to had tons of country! i am not just talking about pop-country, but i mean REAL country (george strait, waylon jennings)!!!! needless to say, my fellow texan and i performed plenty of country songs with a number of “yee-haw’s!” to boot. we were far from the karaoke bars favorite customers, but at least we felt a little piece of home here in peru.
as i had hoped/predicted the eighth week was much busier. the huelga with the schools lifted, so now the kids are in school six days a week to make up for the lost time. my socia at the health post is back from her month-long vacation and people in my town are finally starting to recognize the only gringa in town. i forgot to have my camera with me to prove my activities, but i was back with partnering with the health post on charlas. i did a fun self-esteem one with balloons. it was a hit.
i also did a mini intro-session/charla of the peace corps to some business-owner friends. i have started to do some initial stages of planning with the police. i met with an artisan and plan on working with her artisan group and help them establish an internet presence and other marketing ideas. i went to an event out in morrope the other day with another volunteer, terrace. we hitched a ride back from the caserios in an enormous dump truck. while the fellow was out of the truck trying to take care of something, we replaced his cumbia cd with a cd that terrace made of herself singing environmental verses in spanish to the tunes of hit american pop songs. all i can say, is that he will be delightfully surprised when he next turns on his stereo. i mailed my early-voting ballot in. i have been eating CHIPS AND SALSA…chips and salsa, people!!!! i attended another wedding last night and took my place as the token gringa dancing the night away with all the old men.
of course there are still plenty of challenges to come: por ejemplo, my socia at the health post is going on an indefinite huelga starting this wednesday. but i will take a week full of positives for now.
sangre. an important word that i should have known. a word that because i didn’t know, left me feeling ill. a word that proved that sometimes what you eat really is mind over matter.
vaso de leche had a training meeting for the chapter presidents who also do commodores populares (a small-scale soup kitchen-esque type program). they were teaching a great/easy/tasty/healthy snacks for kids and adults, with the key ingredient being sangre. again. the keyword that i did not know.
i arrived, and the meeting started 2 ½ hours late. when i walked in, i glanced over at the table and saw a paint bucket full of red liquid. it looked like watered-down red paint, and i thought to myself, “wow, i guess peruvians really do add water to their paint.” (my host mom and i had a discussion about this last week).
then later, once we started the activity, they poured the red liquid into a blender. again, i didn’t think to much of it. peruvians are quite resourceful with their items, and so i figured they needed to further blend this new fruit/veggie that i had never heard of. this is also plausible, because there are a number of foods here that are entirely new here, and are not served in their natural form (e.g. maracuya).
the part the stuck out as weird was that we then boiled this liquid, which in my mind really confirmed that this must be a liquefied vegetable. the part that was truly strange was that the red vegetable turned brown once cooked. we then cut up more veggies and fried them in pattie form for croquettes, which were quite tasty. i was taking a lot of notes, because it seemed like a dish that i could refine and make back in the states.
after, we took the left over cooked sangre that was not used for the croquettes, and put it in the blender with vanilla, cookies and, of course, sugar, and made a really tasty mousse. i was about 2/3 of the way through my mousse, savoring ever bite, when i finally asked what the significance for sangre was…biggest mistake i could have made that day.
it was then explained to me that it cow blood, and very nutritious and helps with anemia. well, there went my appetite. it truly was an occasion, where not knowing would have been in my best interest. my stomach did not settle well for the rest of the night, purely because my brain was freaked out. in fact, it still gets a little tussled with the thought.
but seriously, who makes a dessert with cow blood?
oh well, peace corps, right?
ps. did i mention that i picked out a live maggot out of my salad this week? don’t worry, i didn’t eat it…at least that one…
my friend/socio doris, invited me to her house on sunday. i made the voyage to chiclayo and then her family and i piled into their van and drove out to sipan for the day. now, mind you, that was my first time in a privately owned vehicle in more than 3 months. it was quite a different feeling to not be sharing my transport with 20 other people.
in sipan, we visited the ancient burial grounds of moche leaders. sipan is famous for it’s untouched tombs and mummies. it was awesome. and really, it was such a great day to spend with my socio and her family.
the museum.
everyone looking at the mummy of el señor de sipan.
doris (third from the left) and her family.
on our way to see the burial grounds.
the excavation site.
inside the excavation.
a tomb.
pottery in abundance was found in the tombs.
the view from sipan.
while traveling back, we drove through a lot of smaller sites in between. doris’ brother-in-law made an even extra point to drive through zaña for me. there they have a number of historic spanish colonial church ruins as well. the amazing part, is that they were normally on people’s land, and so now they just have crops planted around the ruins.
the citizens of the town built their own footbridge to cross the river, since this was not going to be provided by the government.
the entrance to the footbridge.
we then had a VERY late lunch at probably one of the nicest places i have been to since being in peru. it almost reminded me a bit of a country club. the seating was outside, there was a fancy/modern interior, a very appealing pool, and even a cute wombat!!!!!!!!!!!!!
my friend, doris, who happens to be one of my socios at the health post, took me out to a couple of the caserios in tucume: tucume viejo and las rayas. the district of tucume has a little less than 21,000 people living in it, with about 17,000 in tucume proper, and the other 4,000 in the caserios, which are the more campo (rural) parts of town.
we first went to tucume viejo to visit the health post there.
walking through the chakra.
the chakra.
while the obstetrician showed us around her post, we happened upon one of the first spanish colonial churches. it amazes me how much history is in peru, and yet it is just left to the wilderness.
we then traveled to las rayas. there we visited the health post, and visited the primeria school there. they were lucky enough to have a computer lab, with laptops provided by the an ngo “laptop for every kid.” the school was quite proud of this receipt, which they should be.
perusing peru... 