Lists

"A man walks down the street,

It's a street in a strange world.

Maybe it's the Third World.

Maybe it's his first time around.

He doesn't speak the language,

He holds no currency.

He is a foreign man,

He is surrounded by the sound, sound....

Cattle in the marketplace.

Scatterlings and orphanages.

He looks around, around.....

He sees angels in the architecture,

Spinning in infinity,

He says, Amen! and Hallelujah!"

You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon

"Do you think about me now and then?

Cause I´m coming home again

Do you remember when

Fireworks at Lake Michigan

Now I´m coming home again

Maybe we can start again"

Homecoming - Kanye West

As my time in Peru comes to a close I find myself making lists: what to pack, what I want to eat when I get home, what I want to do, other countries I want to visit, how many days are left at work, time in Huancayo, time before my flight, etc., etc., etc. I´ve become obsessive about my lists. I´m looking to the future. I´m excited. I´m coming home. But, for a little while at least, I should reflect on my time here - what brought me to this point - before my memories fade with the coming of old friends, family and the comforts back home.

A few months ago I was talking to a friend of mine from college. He and his wife spent a year or two volunteering in China (I only add this because I feel like he can relate to my situation here somewhat). Anyway, he asked me the obvious question that surprisingly no one else has asked: if I feel like I have given sufficiently during my time here. Frankly, my answer is no. I´m not sure I have done anything that wouldn´t have been done if I weren´t here. On the other hand, I am sure that I have received much more than I have given. My friend´s response: ¨Yeah, that´s usually the way it works."

I have learned so much from Peru. My eyes have been opened to another culture. I´ve picked up a new language. I´ve come closer to knowing what the word "patience" means. Peru is unlike anything I have ever seen before - unlike any of the countries I have visited in Europe or even Peru´s four neighbors I now know in South America. No other country that I know is so rich in minerals and natural beauty yet so devastatingly poor. Peru is both beautiful and frustrating.

Peru can do so much more. Hopefully the upcoming generations will learn - learn to take care of their land, their wealth; to not tolerate corruption; love their brothers despite social status or skin color; treat kindly those from the outside; move forward without forgetting the past. It´s a lot to ask but I think the younger generations are getting closer. Either way I promise you Peru will be a completely different country 10 years from now than what it is today and light years away from what it was 10 years ago. I have high hopes for this country.

So that´s the direction I predict Peru will go in. And where will I be 10 years from now? Who knows. My future is so wide open right now. I could go anywhere. So until my next adventure...

Muchas gracias por seguir mis aventuras. Nos vemos muy pronto. - Heather

Things To Do Back Home

GET A JOB!!!

Take a hot shower

Train for a marathon

Train for the Chi-Tri

Take Spanish and German lessons (...and maybe French too!)

Eat

Drink

Be Merry... and Fresh and Loose

Food I´ve Just Gotta Eat

Pizza

Pancakes and Sausage

Starbucks

Brownies

Cookies

Omelets

Sushi

Oysters

Good Wine

Steak

Cereal

Toast

Italian Food

Fajitas, Guacamole and Salsa

Nana´s Spaghetti and Meatballs

Burger

Christmas Dinner

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

Real Coffee

Chinese Food - Mixed Vegetables, Egg Rolls and Dumplings

Places to Visit Next

Morocco

Egypt

Botswana

Galapagos Islands

Brazil

Easter Islands

Nepal

Cartagena, Colombia

French Polynesia

Alaska

Mumbai, India

Lima Part 2

After our trip of a lifetime to Machu Picchu Amy, Michelle, Rachel and I flew back to Lima. It´s amazing that it can take literally days by bus to get from Lima to Cusco but hop on a plane and in an hour you can be back in Peru´s capital. It just goes to show how crazy the Andes Mountain Range is. So anyway, to avoid going stir crazy on a bus back to Lima we found a cheap flight and hopped on. And you should be proud, all four of us girls packed so little for our two week vacation that we didn´t have to check a thing... until Michelle decided that she wanted to take her walking stick home from Machu Picchu. She needed to check her stick.

Michelle´s stick riding along on the baggage claim belt. What kind of person checks a stick anyway!?!

And so we commenced our last night in Lima. Hello Pisco Sours! Fabulous!

My brilliant Peru roomie, Rachel, has a degree in Spanish Translations. So we decided to quiz her on American English slang. Here´s her translation for ¨pop, lock and drop it,¨ a must know for anyone travelling outside of the country. Rachel´s translation, ¨pop, cerrar y bajar.¨ Good enough for me!

And a Spanish toast, ¨¡Arriba. Abajo. Al centro. Adentro!¨ While it was me who taught this toast to Amy and Michelle, I think it is me who is screwing it up in the video. I guess one pisco sour is my limit. Who knew.

Michelle leaving for her flight at 4:30am. Good times, good times.

Luckily, Amy got to stick around for another day. So what did we do? We tackled the infamous cuy of course.

Dead cuy! I showed this picture to my co-workers and the rodent was so big, they were convinced we were fed dead dog. Oh boy.

We ordered half a cuy to split between the three of us. I´m so glad they left the head on our half. Yum!

This is my all time favorite video. I just can´t believe I forgot that this website won´t let me flip it into portrait. So I apologize that the video´s sideways. Anyway, enjoy Amy´s expression while she´s cutting into her first piece of guinea pig. Priceless!

After our cuy experience we went out to eat at a real restaurant and then got ready to send Amy on her way to Chicago. It was so hard to see her leave!

And so ended our vacation. Such a great time. So many life long memories. I´m looking forward to seeing Michelle, Amy and everyone else again one week from today when I head home. Miss you guys bunches! See you soon!

Merry Christmas from Lima!

Machu Picchu

The Inka Trail and Machu Picchu are two of the most amazing things I have ever experience. It´s spiritual. It´s beautiful. It´s mysterious. It´s beyond words. A Life Long Memory.

Amy, Michelle, Rachel and I decided to do the two day one night trek to Machu Picchu. So early Friday morning we hooked up with our guide Nélida (btw if you ever want to do the Inka Trail I definitely recommend Llama Path and our guide. She was brilliant.) and took off from Cusco stopping three hours later at kilometer marker 106 to start our hike. Nélida warned us that the first half of our day would be grueling. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into...

Michelle and Amy crossing the bridge just moments after disembarking from our train.

The start of our hike - if you look closely you will see four figures on the bridge... that´s us.

Inka ruins at the start of our trip.

We started our ascent upwards. Michelle and I, being the nerds that we are, starting singing and dancing (a little bit) to We´re Off to See the Wizard. It was a magical moment, really it was, but Nélida quickly silenced us with her broken english, ¨Maybe you don´t talk right now because you be tired later. After lunch we sing and dance.¨ Oh boy, are we running a marathon here? Conserve your energy? Don´t jump and holler at the starting line? You´ll need you´re energy to finish the race? Yikes! So the four of us put our heads down and started trudging upwards. I don´t think I ever knew what hiking was until I met the Inka Trail. Hard does not even begin to describe it. Yet, this was probably my favorite part of the Trail. The pure challenge of it was exhilarating.

After finishing the morning portion of the Inka Trail 1 hour and 15 minutes ahead of schedule, we stopped in Wiñay Wayna (Quechua for Forever Young... try to get Michlle and I to stop singing that!) for lunch. Please note that I am absolutely covered in sweat and the workout was so intense I could barely eat a thing.

Ruins at Wiñay Wayna.

The four of us looking spectacular with our walking sticks.

Looking through a window at Wiñay Wayna.

Stuck in a window.

Michelle running away from the rest of the group.

Wíñay Wayna included a religious sector meaning that the Inkas had to shower off to purify themselves before entering the area. This is one of the showers.

The notches in the sides of the walls were used for wooden beams to support the roof.

Luckily the afternoon portion of our hike was easy going - mostly flat terrain with a few non-threatening up downs. A few hours into our hike, Nélida asked us to close our eyes and hold hands. She then guided us to a look out point (successfully... no one fell of the cliff) where we saw Machu Picchu for the first time.

My first glimpse of Machu Picchu (the light green area to the left of the photo).

Michelle focused on taking a photo.

Another photo of me in front of Machu Picchu. I really just like this picture because it looks like I have a stick for an arm. It´s my pirate Heather look. ;-)

A photo of us at the Sun Gate (Intipunku) where we had our first glimpse of Machu Picchu.

Then it was back on the trail to make it to Machu Picchu before closing time.

We encountered some llamas on the way.

Amy thought about taking a couple of them home. She picked out these two.

The Inkas used llamas for a variety of reasons - food, clothing... and sacrifices. Since Amy was unable to capture the llamas she wanted to take home, we had to sacrifice Michelle instead at this conveniently located llama sacrificing alter (seriously that is what it is). Thanks, Michelle, for taking one for the team.

And then we reached it... Machu Picchu.

Machu Picchu archaeological site is located on the light green terrain. Huayna Picchu is the mountain located to the right of the photo.

My rain poncho really posed for this photo. I just love the way it flows.

The entrance into Machu Picchu.

THE shot. Machu Picchu is in the forefront with Huayna Picchu in the back. The mountains keep rising in the background but the clouds were so dense you can´t see them above the cloud line.

Posing in front of Machu Picchu donning my fancy poncho and ever useful walking stick.

The four of us. We made it!

Love this photo.

Another money shot.

Heading back down. This photo puts into perspective how large the site really is.

We went back to Aguas Calientes that night exhausted but completely satisfied. We got to see Machu Picchu with hardly any other tourists on the site. Absolutely amazing. The next morning we were scheduled to rise and shine at 4am to catch a bus back to Machu Picchu for a more in depth tour. We slept like rocks.

Rachel, Amy, me and Michelle waiting for our bus.

Amy and I decided to entertain everyone with a little song in Quechua. Oh yes, it was fabulous. Too bad we couldn´t remember more than two lines of the song.

And then we were back at Machu Picchu. Here´s a quick video of just a small portion of the archaeological site.

On day two the clouds rolled in. It was eerie and beautiful to look off the cliffs and see nothing but white.

View from a window.

The clouds. Sometimes it was difficult to even see a few hundred meters ahead.

Trying to entertain by showing off our multi-lingual skills... because there´s just not enough to do at Machu Picchu. I wish I could say Nélida put us up to this but it was probably our idea, not gonna lie. Michelle is saying ¨hi¨ in Frech; Rachel Spanish; me Quechua; and Amy Mandarin.

City in the Clouds.

The Inka´s architectural model of the site. The lump to the left is suppose to symbolize Huayna Picchu which is the mountain usually depicted behind Machu Picchu in photos.

Intihuantant - this stone shows the position of the sun during the solstices. It´s also suppose to have power that might just rub off on anyone who place their hands near the stone. We thought it was worth a try.

More clouds.

View through a window.

One last look at the site.

After we were done with Machu Picchu we had just enough time to hike Huayna Picchu, the mountain behind Machu Picchu.

Michelle, Amy and Rachel at the begining of the hike.

At the top of Huayna Picchu. This is a different, less popular view of Machu Picchu that wasn´t any less spectacular. We were fortunate enough to get to the top during a break in the clouds. Five minutes later all that could be seen from this point was the whiteness of dense clouds.

After we reached the pinnacle it began raining, we carefully made our way down, back to Aguas Calientes and ultimately back to Cusco. This was an unbelievable journey that everyone should see at least once in their life. This is the beauty of Peru. I am forever grateful.

Cusco

Nasca (Check). Puno (Check). At this point in our journey we just wanted to get to Cusco, acclimate ourselves for a couple days (even though Cusco is 1,000 or so meters lower than Puno) and tackle the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu. Peru had different plans. Hello strike. Hello there are no buses going from Puno to Cusco. Oh boy. Luckily, we went to the bus station anyway and found that our bus - our brilliant Inka Express bus - was the ONLY bus going to Cusco that day. But instead of taking the fun little six hour trip with four stops to visit different archaeological sites, cathedrals, etc. we would be partaking in a 12 hour minimum ride by way of Arequipa with absolutely no stops. Yikes! But what can you do, we happily obliged and jumped on our bus for our twelve hour trip.

And what a ride it was! While Amy and Rachel slept sweetly in their seats Michelle and I bounced along with the boulders we were riding over and under. We did all we could to not vomit from the motion sickness (and in my case altitude sickness). The ride took us to well over 4,500 meters above sea level. Michelle´s head and eyes swelled (seriously, just ask her) and my stomach churned. Gotta love it.

A video from our time on the bus. Sorry, the windows are encrusted with dust but really there´s not much to look at anyway. (Btw, Michelle interrupts in the middle of my soliloquy saying ¨dokeys!¨ disappointingly not ¨monkeys!¨like I thougt she said.)

During our ride we also encountered a little traffic jam. Great time to get out, stretch our legs and take a few pictures.

Finally, we arrived in Cusco about 12 and a half hours after our early morning departure. I´m pretty sure we didn´t do much more than just go to bed that night. The next two days in Cusco were spent shopping (yeah we´re super cultured like that) and looking at a few historical items. Here are some photos.

Amy, Rachel and Michelle with Michelle presenting Plaza de Armas.

More Plaza de Armas.

Michelle and baby llama.

Bell Tower.

Random dog at door.... yeah, I´m pretty sure there are more things to see in Cusco but this is what I got.

Finally some culture - A wall perfectly constructed by the Inkas. I´m pretty sure you´re not supposed to be touching the wall. Oops!

Another random door. I think it´s my architectural training that has made me obsessed with passage ways. Who knows.

Amy and Michelle found a local woman to make them custom made boots. Thanks to the translations of Rachel and myself, this ordeal maybe took up 75% of our time in Cusco, but hey, what else are you suppose to do? Amy and Michelle ended up (after some trial and error) with two beautiful pairs of boots to take home with them to the frigid land of Chicago.

And that was our time in Cusco. Two and a half days after our arrival we were off to begin our adventure of a lifetime doing battle with the Inka Trail and Machu Picchu.