En la casita!

7/03/11

On the plane back to Miami from Lima, I sat by a sweet lady who lives in Florida but is Limeña. One last Spanish speaking experience. I got to speak to her the whole flight in Spanish and we just talked about how much we loved the people of Peru and how big their hearts are. She understood exactly what I was talking about, how something about them, especially the children, is just so loving and warm. Once you meet a Peruvian once it’s like you’ve known them forever. It’s embraces and kisses and smiles from then on. It sounds cheesy, but they really do touch your heart. We had a great time talking and she was so so excited that I study Spanish and that I spoke well and what I had done in Peru. She has family here that she comes and visits once a year and she goes to the public hospitals like we did and gives out donations every time she comes. Seriously she was like such a little angel sitting next to me. I told her about how I am studying Spanish, but am trying to enter med school this year I hope. First of all, she was so complimentary and impressed with my Spanish and second when I told her  “Ojala que entre en la facultad de medicina el proximo ano…” she looked at me and said “NO, VAS a entrar en la facultad de medicina, no ojala.” Even though she knows me from nowhere it was so comforting to hear someone speak with such confidence. Then when we landed she was precious, we were talking about being excited to be back home and she just kept putting her hands together as we landed saying “Gracias a Dios!” and “Estamos en casita!” (We're home!) with a huge smile on her face. I have really met all kinds of people on this trip from young world travelers bouncing from hostel to hostel across the world to sweet old people to gorgeous loving children, to the wealthier older travelers. This morning I was standing in line for my boarding pass and started talking to a rich limeño businessman traveling to Bolivia for business when we saw a group of musicians in front of us in line with all matching jackets, who he explained to me is a famous salsa group from Peru (AC Orquesta) touring and he recognized the main singer and introduced himself who then introduced himself to me and started talking to me a bit. Funny to meet a Peruvian celeb, because they are just traveling the same annoying airport way as the normal citizens, not like US celebs in private jets. Also, they served my favorite Peruvian meal on the plane one last time, lomo saltado! And free wine and chocolate?! I’ve never heard of that on the plane- LAN is awesome…I will NEVER fly Star Peru again!

Wow…I didn’t really realize how sad I was going to be to leave Peru until I was finally alone and on my own again. After Lena and I parted in the Lima airport this morning, I just wandered around on my own for the very first time in a month. I literally have always been surrounded by someone if not all of our group at all times. I now realize how close we all became, I truly gained a little family in Peru. Also, when I walked around the international departures part of the Lima airport I became sadder and really realized I’m leaving Peru for good when I saw all the stores asking American dollar prices and speaking in English to people. I am going to miss hearing and speaking Spanish all the time so much! It is such a beautiful language and English is just so boring…Also, holy crap I’m going to come back a tight wad. Everything in real Peru is sooo cheap! About 2.8 soles/1 dollar. But in the airport, everything is touristy and like double the price of Huancayo. I miss my Huancayo home and family already!! After yesterday’s fiasco in the airport all day in Cuzco I was soo ready to get home. Maybe it was just because I was worried I wouldn’t make it home when I was supposed to. Although I still can’t wait to get home to see all my lovely family and friends, I am now really having Peruvian withdrawals. I feel like I have become partially Peruvian over the past month of living here without even realizing it until I am torn away. L Regardless, it has been an amazing experience. I have learned so much, met so many wonderful people from all parts of the world, and built relationships with so many beautiful loving children that I will never ever forget. I don’t want to just leave those precious faces and never do anything for them again, so I am hoping I can keep writing some of them and maybe our group can join forces and fundraise to do special things for them, like at Christmas. I thought at first I would just chalk this up as a great experience, but never really want to come back to this part of Peru because there isn’t that much to visit and tour and I have already seen it once. However, the more I think about it the more I would love to come back and bring other people to experience this second home of mine some day and visit all of the children when they have grown up a bit.

Reverse culture shock for real…When I landed in the Miami airport I am wandering around like a lost puppy. I swear I feel more like a foreigner here right now with all this English. It’s weird to have everyone ignore you and not stare at you all the time because you are the only white blond girl around! Also, I keep saying little instinctive comments to people in Spanish…like my incredibly white waiter at the restaurant I just ate dinner at. I said “La cuenta por favor.” (Check please) and Permiso…(Excuse me.) when I was walking past him. He just chuckled…ahh plus it’s sooo freaking expensive here!! And tax and tip! There is no tax on anything in Peru and no one tips, it’s just not a custom…So what the price of something is is exactly what you pay. I was shocked when I saw my bill and how expensive it ended up being…But omg the water…I just downed like 3 glasses of tap water because I havn’t been able to just drink water in so long without buying a water bottle! So glorious! And toilet paper everywhere…I can’t complain. It’s good to be back. I think I have come back a lot less vain. While I was there I hardly ever looked in the mirror, as we shared one tiny one with 9 people. I hardly spent any time on myself or getting ready, which was really really nice. It wasn’t so much about me for a month, it was about anything and everything we could do for those struggling around us. However, within a few days of being back I can already feel myself getting sucked into the materialistic American life again, which I hate! It’s so hard not to get sucked into the daily blowing money on totally unnecessary things here. But I do feel like when I left Peru I brought back with me their sense and knowledge of what is really important in life, which is God, family, friends, relationships, and showing love. Nothing else really matters. They don’t care what their houses or cars look like, they don’t even have cars! Hot showers and clean water don’t really bring you happiness. (Although I might argue this one! J)Though most Americans probably wouldn’t believe it, I found out that you can live quite happily without all of the extra excesses, in fact often these things just add extra burdens and stresses that you don’t need. I had little to no stress while I was living in Peru, and within a day of being back I already feel all the stresses of the things I need to be doing. I’m going to miss Peru, but I definitely came back a new person, or at least with a new and refreshed outlook on life in its raw and beautiful form.

THE DAY FROM HELL!!!

7/02/11-Living on a prayer—literally!

So we left pretty early in the morning on Saturday and got to the airport around 9:30 to catch our flight from Cuzco to Lima at like 10:55. However, when we got there they told us our flight was about an hour delayed because of the weather still being so bad. No big deal, we’re used to delays now…HAH little did we know they would continue to delay it every hour without giving us any real information until finally around 2 or 3 pm we begin to freak out thinking we were not going to get out of Cuzco and make our flights to the US the next day. I remained optimistic, but Lena was seriously freaking out! Because the weather was not even bad at all in Cuzco, but it’s kind of like Telluride, CO in a bowl in the mountains where you have to make a really fast steep descent to land and since the cloud coverage was so thick and low no flights were able to land, so the problem was the airport was completely shut down and we had no planes to fly out on. Except, LAN the way more expensive airline was flying out all day because their planes had the better instruments to land. One of the most frustrating/exhausting/emotionally draining days of my life! It was so funny though because everyone trying to get to Lima on our flight had befriended each other and it was like one big comradery. The thing that was so awful was when other airlines began to have flights coming in, though many flights were completely cancelled, and we just waited in agony watching for the Star Peru planes to land, everyone jumping up and getting excited every time we saw a small plane come in only to be disappointed to see the damn LAN symbol! The worst part was that there was no communication, no one knew what was going on and we couldn’t get any information from the airline. Finally, this awesome man paid for internet on his iPad and would go around updating us, bringing us good news about 2 Star Peru flights finally taking off from Lima heading to Cuzco. So around 3 or 3:30 we got so excited with relief knowing we would make it back to the US after hours of agony and uncertainty wondering what in the world we should do if we miss our flight and get stuck in Cuzco because the weather for the next 4 days looked just as bad and how much it was going to cost us. (And how bad my dad was going to kill me!) So pretty much all of us on our flight went and got a Cusqueña (Peruvian beer) and toasted in excitement! Only to be incredibly disappointed later after the first Star Peru flight made it out and we, the very last flight and people in the airport, boarded our plane which finally arrived around 5:15 in a frantic rush as the airline was hurrying us to board because in Cuzco it is law that they have to take off no later than 5:30 because of the dark and the steep mountains. (Hilarious chaos to watch!) So we get on the plane thinking we have finally made it only to be deboarded about 10 minutes later and after waiting in the airport for another hour told that we were going to try and fly out at 6 am the next morning. So now we are pissed after wasting about 10 hours in the airport all day and freaking out again that I won’t make my connecting flight to the US at noon the next day. So we head back to Pirwa hostel, where we were greeted with looks of surprise by the staff who thought we were long gone. We told them our horror story, went to grab some good dinner and a calientito (hot mulled wine) and hit the bed only to get up at 4:15 again to go back to the dreaded Cuzco airport where we waited in line for like an hour and finally boarded and Gracias a Dios made it back to Lima by like 8:20 am!! Such a miracle because this morning it was still bad weather and cloudy, but the cloud coverage was higher above the mountains so we were able to take off and I made it with tons of time to spare for my flight home! The most awful and painstaking flying experience I’ve ever had, especially being stuck in a foreign country. It was a real bummer because we were supposed to reunite with the rest of our group in Lima last night at the hostel and spend one last night together, but I didn’t even get to tell them bye because I just stayed in the airport. Lena didn’t fly out til late tonight at like 10 pm, so she got to go back to the hostel and hang out with them today. Bummer, but so so so thankful I was able to make my flight back to the US! Made me very ready to be home!

What a day…a NIGHTMARE, but a patience building experience, let me just tell you. Crazy though because if this had happened in the US and how poorly they communicated to us there would have been cuss words and fists flying. But we had the most chill group of passengers, we were all very patient and just hung out together all day in the airport. We got to know a funny group of Brazilian guys, some old American men, and 2 older women who were like our moms. I was just proud of Lena and I for being able to handle the chaos in another country in a foreign language and making it back to the hostel and everything just fine. Also, another hidden blessing from the horrible day in the Cuzco airport was Lena, who is Jewish although not necessarily a practicing Jew, and I got to have about an hour and a half long religious conversation about Christianity in the airport. It was weird because I had been praying for an opportunity as such to be able to share my faith on this trip with my group members, many of which were actually atheist or non religious. I’m not even sure how the conversation began but she ended up asking me to tell her all about the history of Jesus’ life and what he taught and why he was crucified, none of which she really even knew about before. It was really great to if all else fails at least inform her of what Jesus was really all about and what Christianity and my faith is really all about in the midst of all her poor misconceptions of Christianity due to the bad rep it gets from many extremist and crazy “Christian” churches and groups. Thankfully I had just taken a World Religions class this semester and so I knew enough about Judaism to relate and not sound totally ignorant. She said she really does want to learn more about Jesus’ life and Christianity and so I directed her to certain parts of the New Testament and gospel to read and I pray that she really does read more on her own.

Machu Picchu finally...

7/1/11-Friday…Machu Picchu:

So after basically no sleep, we got up early at like 4:45, the hostel cooked us breakfast and coffee which was awesome! (We only had to pay like $15 for all of this) Then we bundled up, with no rain jackets since we didn’t bring any, and headed out to take the bus up to Machu Picchu park in the rain. Thankfully they were selling cheap ponchos, which didn’t really work well. A girl from Australia, Anthea, traveling South America on her own tagged along with us all day. It rained ALL day long, and at first when we got there it was so cloudy and foggy in the mountains you couldn’t even see anything, so we were really bummed to have spent all that money and energy to get there. Thankfully, it began to clear up a little and the clouds and fog would come and go. Actually, the clouds around all the mountains and ruins made it seem even more magical to me, like a truly hidden city. The only downfall was the rain was so cold and we were soaked and miserable, I mean miserably cold all throughout our tour of the ruins that morning. We found a guide outside pretty cheap (like $10 a person) who was really good and walked us through all the ruins, explaining all of the history for almost 3 hours. Then we were so miserable we had to sit out of the rain for a few minutes and get some coffee at the café. Since the weather was so bad and visibility was not good we didn’t even bother to hike up Machu Picchu mountain, which was kind of a bummer. But, we ended up hiking up to the Sun Gate temple ruins, about an hour hike half way up the mountain, which has the typical postcard incredible views of the ruins from really far away. From there, the city of Machu Picchu is tiny, like you could hold it in your hands and the view of the surrounding mountains is the most incredible view I’ve ever seen. These are a different type of mountains because Machu Picchu is on the border of the high jungle. It truly looks like the floating mountains from Avatar, especially with all the fast moving floating clouds between them. They must have copied these mountains for that movie. It is truly mystical and magical. The crazy thing is even though about 4,000-5,000 people visit this top 7 wonders of the world site every day, when you hike up to sun gate it’s pretty much just you and it’s so so quiet. The Incans had built a stone path all the way up to this temple overlooking the city, which was an amazing path. It continued to rain off and on on us but it cleared up enough most of the way to have amazing views. People always say to see Machu Picchu in person is such an amazing experience because there is just so much energy there and I never really understood that. But it’s really kind of true, it’s amazing how smart the Incans were in how they constructed everything and it was really neat to learn about their religion and how the way in which they constructed and placed everything all had religious purposes. They worshipped all the powers of nature, but especially worshipped one supreme being, Pachamama, mother earth, which they saw in the form of a mountain, Huaynu Picchu in particular. I don’t blame them.  If I lived in the setting they did I would probably depict God and see God in the breathtaking creation of the mountains surrounding their city as well. It really is a very spiritual place, creation at its finest and in its most natural form. Walking among these mountains or just sitting and looking out at them really does give you a sacred feeling. If I were to visualize Heaven in any physical earthly form, it would be a whole lot like this area. It’s just majestic. Yet at the same time throughout the day, we felt like we were in Hell we were shivering from being soaked, cold, and wearing soaking wet tennis shoes all day! It was funny because all the people we passed going up the trails I would automatically instinctively greet in Spanish, hola…Buenas…It was interesting because this was my first instinct even to all the non-Spanish speaking foreigners. I feel like I have become partially Peruvian and while in Peru I am Peruvian and should speak to everyone in Spanish. Plus, it’s kind of fun to fool people and confuse them on where the blonde girl is from! It’s also amazing how much has held up for so long. They say the Incans built Machu Picchu for about 500 residents around the beginning of the 15^th century. It was then discovered by an American, Hiram Bingham, in 1911, which was cool because this year is the 100^th year anniversary of it’s discovery. (really rediscovery—it was known about by a small village of natives in the valley of the mountain but nothing was done about it and it was all covered in vegetation…it wasn’t until Hiram Bingham arrived that he had it all uncovered and researched). I’ve always hated history, but even I found the tour and history of the Incans fascinating because it’s amazing what all we can know about their lives just from anthropologists investigating all the architecture.

After a tiring day exploring Machu Picchu, we headed back to Cuzco on the 3 pm train, where it was still raining. We had reservations at Pirwa Backpacker’s hostel in Plaza San Francisco, which turned out to be awesome!! By far the best hostel I’ve ever stayed at. The staff was awesome, so friendly, some spoke English. The people staying there were really nice and fun and it was just a cool place with a courtyard inside open to the outside and all the rooms around it (which made for a cold night though). They even had a little restaurant/bar upstairs and a hangout room, so we never even left the hostel for dinner or anything. Plus it was only $9 to stay there! We had a delicious pizza and Brazilian caipirana drink to warm up and thaw out. We were living out of only our backpack for these few days, so we were beginning to run out of dry clean clothes. We met all kinds of people on all kinds of treks around the world (from Israel, London, a cute couple from Texas!, Peruvian girls who work there, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, all over!) They always have activities there at night making it a fun hostel. The night we were there they had a dance class upstairs taught by some of the Brazilians staying there who were amazing dancers! (Calypso mostly) It was so much fun! We just had our own little party and danced and attempted to learn Calypso and other Brazilian dances and other people’s dances from all over, like the Mexicans, all night! We stuck together with the Texans making fools out of ourselves but having a great time trying! I love Peruvian music and dance. There is actually a style and skill to it unlike American grinding…I’m really going to miss it, I’m just going to have to find somewhere to Latin dance when I get back! It’s funny because now even when American music would come on we would find ourselves dancing with Latin moves and footwork even to normal music, haha it’s contagious you can’t get it out of your system! I have really enjoyed all the hostels we have stayed in in Peru. It’s such a fun way to travel and meet all kinds of cool people.

last dinner with mi familia peruana in Huancayo :(

Machu Picchu mountains...majesticly amazing

Lena and I...surviving the cold and rain

Machu Picchu from afar, from the hike to the Sun Gate temple ruins

Adventure to Machu Picchu...

6/29/11-Wednesday—6/30/11-Thursday:

After having our last Elena dinner with our whole Peruvian family, so sad, Lena and I left Huancayo at 11 pm on the night bus with Cruz del Sur. We were pumped because these buses are so comfy and roomy and the seats lean all the way back so you can sleep. However, this time we got stuck on the top layer of the double decker bus and didn’t have quite as enjoyable an experience. As soon as we started winding through the mountain roads we felt like we were going to tip over constantly! We just looked at each other and burst into a hysterical giggle fit because we just knew our plans of getting 7 hours of good sleep on the bus just came to a quick hault, much less the possibility of getting sick just increased dramatically up there. However, somehow with the help of some Dramamine I was knocked out soon and didn’t wake up until we got to Lima! Miracle. We were so tired and out of it when we got to Lima, but I had to wake up enough to scramble around and get us a taxi immediately to the Lima airport, without getting the complete gringo rip off. We managed to make it to the airport in perfect timing for our 9:15 flight. We were able to leave our huge suitcases in storage at the Lima airport, which is a blessing because we could have never made it around backpacking with those things. Somehow, to our surprise the two of us gringas were making it around all our many transportation connections flawlessly so far! Everything was working out too easily; we couldn’t get over our luck. We flew Star Peru, one of the cheaper airlines, to Cuzco. It was a smaller plane and we ended up in the very front row with by far the most leg room I’ve had in a month in Peru! (the people here are tiny short!)—Seriously, we were wondering how in the world we were getting so lucky considering how difficult it was to book and plan all of our quick travels to Machu Picchu. We were bouncing off the walls after an awesome Dunkin Donuts breakfast and coffee…Ahh felt like America!... and stealing a ton of chocolate covered espresso bean samples from the Café Britt store in the airport. Working on little to no real sleep we were full of adrenaline and ready to go for the day once we arrived in Cuzco after the short 1:15 flight. However, typical Peruvian time, naturally our flight didn’t take off until the time which we were supposed to land in Cuzco (10:15 am). By this point, this doesn’t surprise me in the least. Peru has definitely taught me patience and to give up stressing about time. We have yet to go anywhere without waiting or people showing up late. They just don’t worry about it. Once we arrived we just wandered around Cuzco, with no real plans for the first time in this busy month. We had a great afternoon, just leisurely walking the cobblestone streets of Cuzco and following my guidebooks walking tour map like we were on a treasure hunt! It was kind of hilarious because I was walking around reading from my guidebook like a tour guide about what we were seeing and then we would get so excited when we actually found where we were supposed to be. We kind of just wasted the afternoon away admiring the neat Spanish architecture of Cuzco and views of the town all over the mountains. Then we stopped and had the best pina/naranja fresh fruit juice batidos (kind of like a natural smoothie) that I have had since I’ve been here. We walked around some more then saw the glorious yellow ice cream cart girl walking around , which you see all over the highlands area of Peru where you can get this amazing flavor of ice cream cone for only 1 sol! (like $0.40) Us fat gringos, everytime we see them we have to get one! Later that afternoon, we caught a combi (like a small minivan public bus) through the gorgeous Valle Sagrado to Urubamba and then to Ollantaytambo, where we caught the train to Aguas Calientes (the town right outside Machu Picchu). This combi ride was hilarious!! We were on there with one precious older lady who talked to us the whole time and like 4 other men and a super fat driver who our lady friend kept calling Gordito (Little Fatty) to his face! She laughed and explained to us that in Peru, unlike the US, it’s ok for people to say that to each other and no one gets offended, in fact it’s cariño, a kind of an endearing term. The music on the radio is always hilarious and a pleasant surprise to hear old American hits mixed in with current Latin music. You never know what you’re going to hear. This ride was particularly awesome. Our gordito driver went from jamming out to Rocky, Eyes of a Tiger to Make it Hurt So Good to Put Me in Coach to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun…to salsa…They were loving it because Lena and I were singing Karaoke to all the English songs in the back and they kept wanting us to sing louder. It was like a discoteca in a combi the whole way there as we speed through the winding mountain roads at what felt like about 90 mph! We stopped briefly in Urubamba to drop off the sweet lady, which is a pueblo set in one of the most gorgeous mountain settings I have ever seen, with towering steep snow capped mountains ride in the backyard of the town. Then we headed on to Ollantaytambo, our stop, which is also such a cute little mountain town along the Urubamba river. It was kind of like a Peruvian twist on a Colorado ski village. We got there in time to have an awesome meal at a little restaurant called Orishas along the river. It’s cold here, so it was so nice to go inside by the fire and have cappuccinos and my favorite meal I’ve had here, alpaca bruchetta (like kabobs with the llama like animal, alpaca, meat and veggies). Still, everything was going perfectly and we were so happy. Then finally we got on the train to go to Aguas Calientes at 7 pm and got there around 8:45. The train was the cheaper backpacker train so it was filled interesting backpacker types from all over the world. So fun! You sit at little tables of 2 people facing 2 people. My seat was with a precious about 30 year old couple of singers from Argentina (Buenos Aires) and a 25 year old Brazilian guy. They were so interesting to talk to and I had Spanish convos with them the whole time and actually really kept up. I felt almost Spanish, like I was one of them and I even understood most of the Brazilian’s Portañol (the equivalent of Spanglish between Spanish and Portuguese). I was surprised because I had never really heard Portuguese before but it’s a beautiful language, very similar to Spanish but with a more pretty Frenchy flowing accent and different words for a lot of things. In fact, he claimed he didn’t know Spanish very well and that I was better at Spanish than him! It is hard to tell when you are somewhere if your Spanish is really improving, but right then I really felt like I have improved because I am so much more comfortable now to just converse without thinking first or having planned out what to say. Sure I still screw up all the time just as much, but I now feel comfortable enough to just improvise and on the spot speak to people before even thinking about what to say. I think teaching all of the health lessons to the children and mom’s really helped me with this because being the only real Spanish speaker, I was forced to be the one to improvise and just speak to them rather than just reading a lesson. Cool feeling! When we arrived in Aguas Calientes, it was freezing and raining! In the whole month we have been here there has hardly been a cloud in the sky and no rain because it is the dry season and of course when we go to Machu Picchu it is awful weather…our luck begins to turn drastically starting about then…But we were met at the station by one of the workers from the hostel we booked, who was so nice and walked us back to our hostel, Supertramp, no it’s not a brothel, I have no idea why it’s called that but it had great reviews and it was actually really neat. The staff was super helpful and explained to us exactly what to do the next morning to go to Machu Picchu. Unfortunately, because of the bad weather our plans had to change a little. All along we were planning on getting up at about 3 am to be in the first 400 people to enter the park so that we could hike Huaynu Picchu (the steep mountain overlooking Machu Picchu). However, the hostel people warned us that if the weather continued it would be pointless because you won’t be able to see Machu Picchu because of the clouds. Also, they said it is overrated and overhyped just because there is a limit set on the number of people because of the narrow and steep trail. They recommended to us to instead climb Machu Picchu mountain if the weather was good, which is a longer hike and actually the tallest mountain by Machu Picchu with a much better view of the ruins and usually only about 40 people a day do it because no one really knows about it. Plus we only had to get up around 5 am, not 3. So we were excited, but the rain didn’t stop all night and I couldn’t even sleep it was raining so hard and loud on the roof.

picnic at the parque with HIV kids

Divertilandia-Peruvian Disneyworld!

Claudia y Sajhurdi rocking my shades

Valentino so excited for the motos!

Last day in Huancayo...

From Wednesday, June 29...

Today was such a fun/bittersweet day. Last day in Huancayo. :( We took the HIV shelter kids to a park this morning to play futbol and volleyball and just have a fun day away from the shelter since they don't get to do that much at all. We took all 20 kids today, some of which we hadn't met before because they are usually in school when we are there in the afternoon. At first I felt awful because the "park" we went to was horrible. Just a crappy concrete volleyball court that we had to pay for just to play for an hour and rent a ball. So we ended up leaving and taking the kids to another recreational park, called Divertilandia (Funland) way far out from Huancayo. It is like the third world version of Disneyworld in Peru. haha Once we got there it turned out really well and the kids had a blast! It was still like a kinda crappy place, but it was fun because they had little paddle boats to rent in this tiny little creek, old, dirty, disgusting horses and ponies to ride, and little four wheelers to ride. You would have thought we were in the nicest amusement park in the world though! We had bought food ingredients for the "moms" of the shelter to make arroz con pollo and chicha (the purple corn juice drink that tastes like grape) for all of us and the kids, which we brought with us and had a big picnic first. It was just so fun to watch the kids have a great time, free, with no worries, and to be able provide everything for them that they wanted to do. We paid for them to each choose one activity. The little girls were soooo excited to ride the horses and do the paddle boats, things which they had never ever done. The girls were so excited/terrified to ride the little horses at first, even though they barely moved and the man walked them around in a field for a few minutes! The little boys were pumped to ride the four wheelers around too. So so fun to watch and take pictures as they screamed with excitement and laughter. After, a super sweet girl from France who is fluent in Spanish, Laura, a volunteer from the organization that Betsy works with, Expand Peru, who came with us today, bought all the children ice cream! They loved that! We just spoiled them all day. Then they just ran wild all around the park with us chasing them around making sure they didn't fall in the water. The girls found a stick with a net on it for fishing and got so excited to try and catch all the little minnows swimming around in the nasty water. I was chasing around 7 energy filled girls who kept almost falling in and ended up with mud covered tennis shoes by the end of the day! They were absolutely precious. We stayed there from about 9 am til about 3 pm. It was crazy on the way there. I was packed in a small taxi with I think 10 other kids, crazy! But they had the best time just on the way there. On the way back all 20 kids packed into Henry's 9 passenger van, while we waited on him to return and get us, nuts! So sad to tell them bye, as they were all giving us tons of kisses saying "ciao tia!" (they all call us tia instead of senorita) And gracias gracias gracias....LOVE these kids! I was able to give Sajhurdi, one of my favs, a bag of my clothes this morning when we picked them up at their house, which she was soo excited to have. I wish I had more room in my suitcase to bring like all my clothes to give these kids and those at Rosario. I don't know know how much difference we really made in any of these children's lives or if we made any at all, but I do know that we were at least able to provide entertainment and put smiles on their faces for the past month and they definitely put a smile on my face and love in my heart which will last a while...

We had to tell Henry (our driver) bye...so sweet, he was genuinely sad, said he was going to miss us much. I LOVE him, he and I finally started to talk a lot the past few days, about how he and his precious wife met. He gave me a hard time about my love life/asking me about if I have a novio...telling me about the boys in Peru who are quick to fall in love, asking if the boys in the US son honestos...HAH

Tonight was our last dinner with Elena. :( She made us her famous pisco sours and gave us all gifts, these gorgeous Peruvian color filled tapestries. I was really sad to tell her bye. As Lena and I packed our backpacks for Machu Picchu I really felt like I was packing to go on a trip from my actual home, that's how much at home I feel here. It's like I'm leaving my family of 9, so sad to leave them, we spend every waking moment together, but we will see them again in Lima on Saturday night.

Soo pumped for Machu Picchu but so sad to leave my home...Brasilia, bumpy dusty road filled with mangy dogs and cats, oh how I'm going to miss you...