Farewell to my Cusco

I leave on Monday. I´m not sure how I feel about it. To sort out my feelings I decided to make two lists.

Things that I will miss in Cusco:

• The people! My family: They are truly wonderful people, especially my hermanita that always begs me to play with her and show her all my pictures. My friends: My friends at church are incredibly strong and always seem to be happy and cheerful. Also, my friends from the program and the clinic. We have been on so many adventures together that I don´t think I will ever forget them. The nurses also became some of my favorite people here. We would talk for hours about Peru or the U.S. None of them let me leave without a big hug and a picture. In general, the people in Peru are kind, generous, and lively. They know how to have a good time and how to care for one another. They know how to love and they understand how important your family really is. The people were my favorite part.
• The food: I will definitely miss my sweets here. Things like Alfajores and Tres Leches always made my day. Also, Rocoto Relleno became one of my favorite Peruvian dishes.
• The combis: I know that sounds funny, but I will definitely miss the adventure of taking a combi everday. You never know what´s going to happen when you get into a combi.
• The volunteer work: I was lucky enough to see 12 births! I will so miss the miracles that I got to experience. If all goes as planned, hopefully it will become part of my daily life.
• The random things you see here: Examples: The uses of toilet paper can range from anything like a defroster for your car to blowing your nose.
• Being able to see wonders of the world like Machu Picchu or other beautiful sights

Things that I´m excited for in the U.S.:

• Seeing my family and friends!
• Flushing my toilet paper down the toilet. I´m more excited for this than you can probably imagine. I think I´m going to celebrate the first time I use my bathroom. 
• A shower that is always hot
• Water that won´t suddenly run out for the day
• Heating and Air Conditioning
• In-N-Out
• BYU sports!
• Exercising: It´s not so great to go running here. The pollution is really bad and the drivers are worse. I think it´s more healthy for me not to go for a run.
• The beach, need I say more :)
• Cooking my own meals, especially curry or pad thai

So you see, I´m kind of in a tight spot because it´s going to be really bittersweet. I will always miss my Peruanos. I now consider myself a Peruana even though I don´t quite look like one. I think I will always be one at heart. My experience here has been truly unforgettable. If you want to know how to live a wonderful, lovely life, come to Peru! They will certainly teach you what it means to really live. I am so grateful that I have had the opportunity to have this experience. I will always look back on it as one of the best times in my life.

Machu Picchu? Check!

Fact: I have officially seen one of the wonders of the world. Machu Picchu is checked off of my bucket list! I can still remember the first time I saw a picture of it in my Spanish class. I remember thinking that one day I would go there. One day. One day. Finally, that day came! It was the most beautiful place I have ever been to in my life. I kept on telling myself that I was there, I was actually on Machu Picchu. Confession: I might have cried a little. Just a little. One tear.You can´t judge me until you go there. On Friday I took a bus to Ollantaytambo and then a train to Aguas Calientes, which is the little town below Machu Picchu where everyone stays the night before. The train ride was hands down the best train ride I´ve ever been on. It had windows everywhere so you could see the jungle and the mountains. It was all so green and beautiful. We followed the Urubamba river all the way. It´s still hard to believe that places like that exist. After I arrived in Aguas Calientes I spent the night getting to know the town and enjoying the sudden pouring jungle rain. The next morning I awoke early and took a bus up to Machu Picchu. I could have peed my pants I was so excited. Fog seemed to cover almost everything and I felt like I was living in the clouds. I wonder what it felt like to wake up every morning living in the clouds. I hiked up Huayna Picchu first thing when I got there at 6:30. Huayna Picchu is the mountain that you always see behind Machu Picchu in the famous pictures. The trail was a little adventurous. It was all stairs and they were so narrow that we had to hold onto something like a metal rope or rocks on the side. By the time we arrived at the top the fog had mostly burned off and we had the most incredible view. It was probably my favorite part. There is no better view of Machu Picchu or the amazing jungle surrounding it. It seemed like everywhere I looked it just got better and better. I had to take a picture of every view I had. After Huayna Picchu we hiked down the mountain the the great cavern, which unfortunately was nothing really, but the views were worth it. At 11:30 I got back to Machu Picchu and started a two hour tour. I learned about the things that grow and live there and the kind of life the people had when they lived there. We´re so lucky that the Spaniards couldn´t get to it because it would have been destroyed like most of the other ruins. When the tour was over I found myself just sitting on a ledge and thinking for an hour or so. I would go there everyday or so if I could. I guess I will just go back in my mind and remember the awe I felt. I ended up hiking down the mountain back to Aguas Calientes and spent the night in the train and bus. There isn´t much more I could say about it because there aren´t words to describe it. I hope the pictures can do it some justice, but they are only a fraction of the beauty I saw. What a beautiful world our Heavenly Father has created for us!

Aguas Calientes

First sight of Machu Picchu

Living in the clouds

Huayna Picchu Trail

One of my favorite views

Machu Picchu flowers

The mountain in the background is Huayna Picchu

Arequipa and Colca Canyon

I would like to first say that I am so sore. So. So. So. Sore. Okay, now my whining is done. Yesterday I got back from my wonderful trip to Arequipa. I went with my friends Anna and Sofia for our four-day hiatus. We started out for Arequipa on a 10-hour overnight bus, which was a little rough with the smelly, snoring peruano next to me, but nonetheless we got there excited for our adventure.

DAY 1:

After our adventure of trying to finding breakfast at 6:30 in the morning, we sat down to a cafe on the plaza del armas. Arequipa is beautiful. It actually reminded me a little of Irvine. Palm trees line the clean and organized streets. It was a nice break from the pollution in Cusco. After breakfast, we went on a tour of the city on the top of a double decker bus. We got to see everything in the big city. We found lunch in a perfect little place that had amazing tomato basil parmesan pasta and headed off to see the famous monastary. The monastary is now just a tourist attraction, unfortunately there were no monks for tourist guides. The place was huge! It had hundreds of little rooms and scary catholic paintings that lined the walls. After we got lost in the maze of the monastary, we met Juanita the ice princess in a museum. There are 6 volcanos that surround Arequipa and during the Incan times they would sacrifice a child to the gods on the top of the volcanos to protect them from natural disasters. A couple of years ago they found Juanita on one of the volcanos. She was special because the cold of the snow had frozen her body to make her a natural type of mummy. We finished off the night early because we were exhausted.

DAY 2:

I woke up early in the morning to go to church, which luckily was just a 15 minute walk away. It was probably half the size of the ward in Cusco, but they made up for their size with their kindness. Practically everyone shook my hand and introduced themself to me. They even introduced me in sacrament meeting as a visitor and had me stand up. Oh how I love these people :) Most of the tourist attractions are closed on sunday, so we took the day to relax and spent a lot of time eating. We tried this place called Crepismo. Oh my goodness it was amazing. They had over 100 different kinds of crepes. I had the avacado chicken crepe and the pear, apple, lime, cinnamon crepe for dessert. Needless to say I was well fed and happy. 

DAY 3: Start of Colca Canyon trek

We had to wake up at 2:45 in the morning (if you can even call it morning at that point) and get on a tourist van. The drive to Colca Canyon was 3 hours long and very bumpy. I never get car sick, and I really thought I was going to vomit. Finally we arrived at a look-out to see the ¨condors¨. We didn´t really see any. After an hour and a half more, we started our trek. We had our own tour guide to tell us all about the canyon and the people that live there. The canyon is like the peruvian version of the grand canyon. It´s absolutely gorgeous. The hike down was 4 hours of a very steep slope. My knees started to give way because I have tendonitis and I ended up falling flat 5 times. I´m good though, I laughed most of them off. I´m used to falling. It comes naturally. Once we got to the lunch site we were utterly exhausted. We had alpaca for lunch and it was actually quite tastey. We got an hour and half break and then hiked another 3 hours to our huts. This part was probably my favorite because it was like a little garden of eden. There was a stream running beside us and we had to push through trees and bushes. There were peach, pear, avacado, and lucuma trees that followed along the path. If only that could have been the whole 3 hours. Unfortunately the second half wasn´t so nice and easy, but we made it. We stayed the night in the oasis in the middle of the canyon. It was beautiful and we ended up going to sleep at 7:30.

DAY 4:

Wake up at 4:45. Ouch. My whole body hurt. A lot. The tour guide was just a little too peppy for that early in the morning as we started climbing. We hiked up the mountain for 3 hours. To say that it was difficult is an understatement. To say that it was crazy is more like it. We climbed up 4600 feet on a 6 km trail. Pretty much  the hardest hike I´ve ever done, but oh how it was worth it. Once I got to the top, the sights were incredible and I got to see some condors! We got lunch at a buffet a little later and headed back to Arequipa and then to the bus station for another overnight bus back to Cusco. I got back yesterday and slept most of the day. I´m still having troubles with stairs. My whole body hurts, but it was so worth it. I love a challenge.

Plaza de Armas

 

One of the volcanos in Arequipa

Monastary

More of the monastary. I took this one for mom and granny, I thought they would appreciate the flowers.

My dessert crepe.... mmm

Colca Canyon. Nope, not a painting.

Me on my favorite part of the trail :)

See that green spot, that was the oasis. This was half way up the 3 hour  hike on the second day.

Llamaface!

I really love llamas and alpacas. Too bad they run away everytime I try and hug them.

My I Love Lucy Episode

I know that I just wrote yesterday, but I found some time today and I won´t be able to write until I get back from Arequipa on Wednesday or Thursday. I HAD to write about one of my favorite experiences yet. My dream come true, learning how to make chocolate! Best. Day. Of. My. Life. There is a place by the plaza called the ChocoMuseo that makes their own chocolate right there. When you walk in you are overwhelmed with the smell of chocolate. I could´ve cried I was so happy. Sofia, Anna, and I booked a two hour class to learn to make chocolate for last wednesday. They took us and five others through the step by step process from the bean to the bar. First you have to ferment and dry the beans, but that is done in the place they are picked. We started with the roasting. It´s really simple, you just take a pot and heat them for 10 minutes. They kind of smelt like they were burnt, but I guess not. After that, you have to peel the husks off. They usually make a coco bean tea out of the husks, which is quite good. We put the nibs into our individual mortar and pestals and our teacher declared a prize for whoever could grind theirs the best in 3 minutes. Naturally my competitive side came out and I hustled to work. I took second. The only man there got first and won a bag of coco husks. Darn men and their superior strength! Once you grind them, you add sugar and get dark chocolate :) They put it in a machine for 24 hours to make it smoother and then temper it to make it shiny. We received a bowl of chocolate to put into molds and add things like peanuts and raisins. I picked up mine yesterday and I am thoroughly enjoying them. I´m going to bring back several bags of coco beans so that my mom and I can make some when I get home.

The beans on the right, roasting away.

How to make chocolate

This is what happens after 3 minutes of quick grinding.

Lake Titicaca

Fact: I have officially been on the highest navigable lake in the world, Lake Titicaca. Late last Thursday I boarded a bus headed to Puno with my friends Alex and Laura. No worries, the bus was really nice. We paid an extra $5 each way for the large first class reclining comfy seats so we could sleep through the night. Worth it? Oh yeah. We arrived right during sunrise and found ourselves wandering the city at 5:00 in the morning in search of breakfast. Unfortunately, nothing was open and we didn´t meet up with our tour until 7:00. Therefore, we walked down to the lake for a bit and then found a cafe open at 6:00. It was a gorgeous day and the sky seemed to blend in with the beautiful blue of the lake. The lake itself is huge. It´s the largest in South America and is the border of Peru and Bolivia.Our tour began with a boat ride to the Uros Islands, also known as the floating islands. There are 63 on the lake and on each there are anywhere from 5-10 families. They taught us how they are built and maintained (see picture below). It was so cool. I couldn´t believe people actually live there. I could feel the whole island rocking with a boat came near. After the Uros, we had a 3 hour boat ride to the island of Amantani. There we were assigned host families that live on the island. We had lunch and dinner with them and then hiked the volcano on the island to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous. That night they dressed us up in traditional clothing and we had a fiesta. Man, I don´t know how those women do it. The belt was almost a corset and they hike up the volcano everyday with a baby on their back and things in their arms. They´re either crazy or really in shape. The next morning we woke up to pancakes. Score! We boarded the boat again for another 3 hour tour ;) I hope you got that reference. We got to another island called Taquile and hiked up to the top for lunch over looking the lake, which by the way is so big that it´s almost like an ocean. I was sad to leave the lake because I just missed being by water. We stayed in a nice hostel for the night and woke up early the next morning for our bus. I´m sorry it got a little rushed at the end here. It´s been a busy week and I´m out of time now. I hope the pictures will at least keep you satisfied.

Add caption

This was their miniature island to demonstrate. How to make a floating island: 

 

bottom: a very light dirt topped with about 3 meters of reeds 

These are the reed boats that they used to use, but now most of them used motor boats. These are just kinda there for the tourists.

Sunset on Amantani

Alex, Laura, and I in our traditional outfits.

Taquile

Sorry, it kinda downloaded funny. Ignore the weird line.

The tiny doors that are used in most of the houses. It was fun going in and out.

Take a tour with me

Hello there! I hope this is finding everyone well and that the week is going great. I had a adventuresome weekend with my friend Sophia Marie from Germany. We bought this thing called boleto toristico which is a ticket that valid for 10 days and it gets you into all the major museums and ruins around cusco. We booked two tours for Friday and Saturday so that it would be easier to get to all the sights and so that we could learn all the interesting facts. Friday took us to Koricancha, Saqsayhuaman, Pukapukara, Tambomachay, and Q´enqo. Saturday took us to the sights in the Sacred Valley: Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and Chinchero. It was seriously an amazing experience. I learned so many things. Instead of blabbering on and on I just decided to put captions to a bunch of pictures. Slideshow time.

Where´s waldo? This is the inside of Koricancha. There are three Incan temples on the inside of these walls. Unfortunately the Spaniards came and tore down 80% of it and built a convent up ontop of it.

The incans built their temples so perfectly that nothing had to be put in to hold the stones together. This tiny one is special because it´s only the size of your thumbnail but its length is about a foot long. They said it´s almost impossible to get a stone like this. The legend is that if you touch it, you die within 7 days. Ooooo.... you gotta be careful around those incans.

Saqsayhuaman (pronounced something like sexy woman). It was one of my favorite sites. You are only seeing half because I´m standing on the other half.

This rocks were HUGE! They said that this is only 25% of what it really was. The spaniards went and ruined everything as usually. Apparently, the shortest wall was over 12 meters and the largets was over 30. (I´m 1.83 meters)

This is the view from Saqsayhuaman over Cusco.

This is Tambomachay, also known as the waters of fertility. The women would come here and bathe and drink from the water. You would bathe from the top if you wanted a girl and the bottom for a boy. 

The Sacred Valley and Sacred River.

The view from Pisac. How would you like to wake up every morning to that?

Sofia wasn´t quite ready haha. The top of Pisac. Those steps were carved into the mountainside to cultivate and help hold up the mountain during rock slides.

If you look closely, this is the ruins of Pisac. At the top there were little houses. It was quite a workout to climb it.

Sofia and I at Ollantaytambo. Behind us is the unfinished temple of the sun. While they were building this, the were fighting the spaniards and never got it finished.

The mountain side of Ollantaytambo. Guess what this is? Food storage! No joke! I took this specifically for my mom :) They used to store their food there in the case of a bad season. The little windows served to keep it cold, like a natural refrigerator!

Chinchero was a little town that still pratices the old ways of weaving. They said it talks 5 hours a day for 2 months just to make a runner for a table. It´s sad because they can only charge about $60 for it, which means that they earn a dollar a day. They showed us the process of turning the alpaca fur into yarn and dying it with natural dyes like roots and beetles.

Well thanks for coming on my tour! Love you all!

Dar la luz

One of my favorite phrases in Spanish is dar la luz. It means to give birth. Directly translated though, it means to give the light. Today I saw three women give the light to three precious baby girls. After three weeks of working in the clinic, I was so excited to hear that a woman was ready to deliver today. Little did I know, I would get to see three! My friend Alex and I were so excited becuase we have been waiting so long. They have about 80 births a month in this clinic, but they always have happened in the middle of the night or after we leave for the day. Here they give birth sitting on something like a stool, so you really do have to catch the baby :) Most of the women give birth without anybody with them because their family has to work to earn money. It´s sad to hear the nurse ask if anyone is with them and they have to say they´re alone. The first birth happened around 10:30. They asked Alex and I to help out, one with the baby and one holding the mother. She sat behind the mom and held onto while she was pushing, while I waited for the baby. It was the first time I had ever seen a vaginal birth and it was truly incredible. There was another intern there just to watch for a second and then go back to work in a different part of the clinic, but he didn´t think it was that incredible. I think he was a little shell shocked. His reaction reminded me of how Keith said that watching once was enough. Right after the baby came out a nurse gave me gloves to help with the baby. We washed, weighed, and measured her. Afterwards the nurse had me dress her and give her to her mom. She was just so precious. I felt like I could do that job for the rest of my life. Alex and I were in sitting in awe of how incredible it was when the nurse came to tell us another woman was ready. Like before, it was amazing. This time though the mother had some difficulties and she ended up tearing. Because it´s basically a free clinic, they only give a little bit of lidocaine if they have to. Therefore the mother had to get stitched up for about twenty minutes on a bit of lidocaine right after she gave birth. It was painful to watch. The poor girl´s legs were shaking. While I was dressing the baby, she opened her eyes for the first time and looked at me. I kind of felt like the welcoming committee. I´m the person that gets to welcome them into the world and introduce them to their mother. I think that is probably the best job in the world. Alex and I couldn´t believe that after so long we got to see two births in one day. After another twenty minutes we heard some labored breathing from the other room and a nurse said there was another one! This time Alex and I switched spots and I sat behind the mom and she took care of the baby. I definitely had not prepared myself on how much she would push back on me. I almost toppled over. I could feel the baby pressuring to get out. It was interesting to be on the other end. The mother was so sweet. She looked at me and asked if it was a boy or a girl. She couldn´t wait to hold her baby. This was the one I was most excited about. I watched the mother´s face as she held her baby for the first time. I watched her touch her child´s cheek and whisper that she loved her. All I could think was that she really did give the light to her child. She didn´t just give her light, she gave her love. Then again, what is the difference between light and love? I think they are one in the same.

Come fly with me, let´s float down to Peru!

I had a great week here in llama land. I wanted to blog earlier about my adventures, but unfortunately the internet can be kind of spotty here. I always got too impatient and the computer wouldn´t load my pictures. Finally I found a computer working well this morning! My big day this week was Wednesday. Centro Tinku had their 8th year anniversary, so they planned a hike and lunch for all of us. All of us played hookie from our volunteer jobs and hiked up near these ruins above Cusco. It was a three hour hike and it was absolutely gorgeous. The british owner of Centro Tinku has been living here for many years and has studied the history, so he became our tour guide. He showed us this temple that was in between cities so it could be easily accesible to many people. It was amazing! He also told us about how the Spaniards came in and converted all of them to Catholics. They chopped off every head of their statues of animals that they worshiped. It´s a shame because of the sheer difficulty and artistry of it all. By the end we were over looking all of Cusco. It was a great sight to see. We ended our day with a lunch at a classic Cusquenean restaurant. It was my first time really going to a restaurant because I´m always fed by my host family. My friend Anna got this soup that our director called UFO soup (Unidentified Floating Organs). She said it was really good so I tried it and it wasn´t too bad. After we ate he told us it was Tripe and other intestines. Yup, I ate stomach and intestines and didn´t detest it. I ordered a famous dish here called Chicharron. It´s roasted pork with a side of these big pieces of corn that they eat with cheese. It was delicious! I definitely couldn´t eat it all. Afterwards a couple of us walked around the plaza and looked around in a mercado. I bought a Peru futbol jersey, so it´s official I´m a peruana now! While we were walking down a street near the plaza, This group of older men came up to me and said How does BYU basketball get here? (I happened to be wearing my BYU basketball shirt, I gotta represent) They got really excited when I said that I was here doing an internship in the clinics. They were a group of doctors here for a medical conference and told me that it was a great idea to help me get into medical school. I should wear BYU shirts more often, you never know where you´ll run into members. They are everywhere :) On thrusday, it was an exciting day at the clinic. We spent most of our day sitting with a woman in labor. Unfortunately we didn´t get to see the birth because it was after we left. The women here usually are all alone when they are in labor, and they definitely don´t get any drugs. This woman we were with was 19 and she was quite dramatic. I mean I know I have yet to experience it, but even the nurses said that it doesn´t hurt that bad while you´re in labor. She was screaming at the top of her lungs that she wanted to die over and over again. There was another woman in labor there that just kept staring at her like she was crazy. It was quite an interesting five hours. Yesterday, guess what I had for breakfast? CAKE! It was my host mom´s birthday, so we had cake and alfajores for breakfast. I have officially now learned how to deal with eating cake for breakfast and not feeling sick the rest of the day. I just eat an orange and nothing else until lunch. Speaking of lunch, once again it was fabulous. Ivan made lasagna and we had my favorite soup. The lasagna was really good, but it was different than in the U.S. My favorite soup is called semila soup and it´s like this cream of wheat-like base with cilantro and carrots and french fries. I know it sounds weird, but it´s SO good. I´m going to learn how to make it before I leave. Luckily, last night wasn´t quite as crazy as Ivan´s birthday. They danced a little and drank a lot, but it ended by 10:30. While they were drinking their Pisco Sour, I drank my nightly hot chocolate. When we cheered to Milagros everyone thought it was hilarious that I was cheering with a mug of hot chocolate. Then we watched the Peru vs Paraguay game and we won!!!! Woot Woot! It was super exciting. I think I´m really becoming a fan of futbol. Viva Peru!!!!

Some of the ruins we saw on our hike



Can you find the headless monkey?





UFO soup



Chicharron