Sierra, Selva and Costa - All 3 in 1 Weekend!

On Friday, March 30th, Jeremy and I left Huancayo (in the Sierra) and headed into the Peruvian Jungle (Selva) for the first time since November. This time we went to La Merced in the Selva Central with 11 other volunteers from Mosoq Ayllu. We were quite the group and really packed in a lot for a weekend!

When we arrived at our hostal-like accomodations just outside of La Merced, we ate dinner and had a lighter-fluid induced bonfire with fruity marshmellows and choco-crackers. We played a game that had us naming various fruits in Spanish until the rain started pouring before going to bed.

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The Waterfall

On Saturday morning, we woke up before our generously scheduled wake-up time (9:30am), and packed for our day trips. Then after a breakfast of fried egg, fried yuca, platano larga and fresh oj, we had a stunning bus ride and hike to some incredible misty waterfalls. Jeremy wasn't feeling great, so he didn't go in, but the other volunteers and I did... It was slightly cold with a rocky floor underwater that continually had me checking my balance, but great! With two of the other volunteers (Sadie and Isabel), I hiked barefoot in my swimsuit up a steep, rocky, muddy, vine-y, trail to the top of the waterfalls. Shortly, after I started climbing, I considered turning back because there was a group of wasps to cross on the path. But when I looked at the path behind me, I decided it would be better to continue... As we climbed, I was constantly trying to find the next place to put my foot and the next insect-free and strong vine to grab. We also got VERY muddy, so much so that I joked that we were getting a free mudbath. It was very much a Tarzan and Jane kind-of-moment, but lots of fun. The view at the top of the waterfalls was well worth the difficult hike. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring our camera with me for the hike, so, it'll have to stay in my memory!

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Visiting a Native Ashaninka Community

After our trip to the waterfalls, we visited a native Ashaninka community called Pampa Michi. It was a bit staged and touristy, but there, we dressed up in native clothing, heard a story from an elder, and danced to native music (flute, drum, and singing) with some of the women and girls. They also have artesans, and I bought a couple things from them there as well. We also saw an interesting animal there called a machetero -- kind of a cross between a beaver and a badger, that they will eventually eat when it becomes bigger. It was very cute.

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Saturday Evening

We finally had "lunch" around 6pm at an open-air restaurant with a thatched roof. There we had fried chicken, fried yuca, fried plaintains and rice with orange juice to drink.

After eating, we returned to where we were staying to find that temporarily, there was no electricity or running water and that it was getting dark. I ended up taking a nap to the sounds of a rushing river and chirping insects while Jeremy and some other volunteers played a game of sardines (kind of a reverse hide-and seek). When it was Jeremy's turn to hide, he found a spot in the rafters of a thatched shelter and only Eli found him!

We had dinner at the place we where staying. Because the electricity was still out, we ate by candlelight: Aji de Gallina with plantains, a kind of nut called pan de arbol, rice and potatoes. After dinner, Elizabeth and Neto (Mosoq Ayllu's Spanish teachers and tour guides), gave a demonstration of how to make Pisco Sour with a blender that didn't quite work. Then we fell asleep to a soft pitter-patter of rain on the tin roof above our heads.


Sunday Morning

On Sunday, we slept in a bit until our tour guide Neto mentioned that the hostal-owners had found a "tiger puppy" - a baby tiger that was no bigger than to fists put together. Very cute! Unfortunately, our blurry picture doesn't do it justice.

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After our breakfast of fruit salad with yogurt, egg, fried yuca and fresh oj, we helped our bus driver push the bus to get it out of the mud. It proved time-consuming, but eventually, with the help of 15 extra people, we were successful and on our way to the local botanical gardens.


Botanical Gardens

Our visit to the botanical gardens was relaxing and beautiful. You´ll find that I ended up taking tons of photos of the amazing plants we saw. Two of the plants we saw included a mini-fern-like plant that closed up when touched, and a tree that when cut, bled sap that is used as a disinfectant.

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The Waterfall Hike That Wasn't

After a brief stop by the hostal to retrieve some medicine for Jeremy and an episode of Jeremy's poncho flying out the bus window, we arrived at a cable that crossed a river. There was a cablecar on the other side of the river that we had scheduled to take so that we could hike to some additional waterfalls. After much waiting, and many hits on high-pitched piece of metal to gain the cable-car operators attention, we decided to forgo the hike.

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By then, we were hungry again, so we went back to the open-air thatched-roof restaurant for a lunch of chicken with vegetables, rice, fried plaintains and yuca, and fresh juice. Afterwards, we returned to the place we were staying to pack for our return trip to Huancayo.


Back to Huancayo

Before we left however, Jeremy and I had an errand to do in downtown La Merced. We had a bus reservation to go to Lima (on the Costa) that evening, but Jeremy wasn't feeling very well still, so we wanted to postpone our reservation. Unfortunately, it didn't work because we needed to be at the Huancayo ticket office 4 hours in advance and needed to present our tickets. We weren't going to be able to be in Huancayo that early and we had our tickets with us.

We left La Merced at around 5:30pm and entertained ourselves by playing the "alphabetical country game" where you take turns naming countries in alphabetical order (Austria, Belguim, China, etc.) and the "name game" where you name famous people whose first names start with the last name of the most recent name mentioned (Penelope Cruz, Cat Stevens, etc.) After 5 hours of driving, we arrived in Huancayo at around 10:30pm, but our traveling was far from over.


To the Costa!

Jeremy was feeling a bit better, so somewhat reluctantly, we had the bus from La Merced drop us off at the bus station for our trip to Lima. It sounds crazy I know, but our tourist visas were about to expire, and we didn't want to have to pay even more to Peruvian immigration officials if we overstayed our visas. Our bus left at 11:00pm and besides sleeping during our 6 hour ride, we watched "Must Love Dogs" with Spanish subtitles.

We arrived in Lima on Monday morning at 5:00am. Nothing was open yet, so we decided to navigate the bus system and head towards the neighborhood of the immigration office in search of breakfast. We found a small cafe that was barely open by the time we got there and they put down some chairs so we could enjoy our meal of empanadas.

Half an hour before the immigration office was to open at 8am, we went to stand in line. We had been told by Sadie (another volunteer) to get there early and that the normal visa extension process takes about 3 hours with lots of waiting in lines. She had just gone through the exact same process the week before. Even at 7:30, we were already around 10th in line. Happily, our extension process took much shorter than we expected. Though we stood in lines to get the paperwork to fill out, to make copies of our passports and immigration cards, to pay the fees we needed to pay, to turn in our filled-out paperwork, and to wait for our passports to be processed with the new extensions, somehow, we managed to get all of this done within an hour.

By 9am we were on our way to buy our return bus tickets to Huancayo which we scheduled for 1:30pm that same day. We wanted to get back to our volunteer positions in Huancayo for the next day.

We were insistent on enjoying a bit of our short time in Lima, so we headed to Miraflores´ fancy shopping area directly on the coast called Larcomar. There, we had a tasty lunch on a patio overlooking the Pacific Ocean at a restaurant called Mango's and I had an Iced Chai from Starbuck's.

After that, we headed to the South American Explorer's Club office where some of our luggage is stored to take out some items, and then rushed to make our 1:30pm bus. We were there in Lima all of 8 and a half hours, but we did what we came to do. On the bus, we watched some movies ("Just Like Heaven", "Ladder 49", and "Little Man") and finally arrived back in Huancayo at 8pm. Because we didn't have any food at home, we immediately went to the grocery store before getting home to have dinner and falling asleep in our own bed.

Celebrating Jeremy's Birthday!

As many of you know, Jeremy's birthday was on March 12th. He didn't want to do too much and didn't want a cake (I wanted it more than he did!). After our regular volunteering duties for the day that included the girls at Francisca Mayer singing "Happy Birthday" to Jeremy with 3 different songs, he wanted to spend the evening with our friends here in Huancayo. So the night of his birthday, we went out for pizza at a restaurant here called La Cabana with Eli, Sadie and Brian.

A few nights later, we had some friends over for a small get-together: Delia (the live with), Rafael (our Spanish teacher), Aurora and David (our former host family), and Sadie and Eli (two of the other volunteers). Sadie and Eli surprised Jeremy by bringing vanilla milkshakes (one of Jeremy's favorite desserts), a homemade birthday card with photos from our Ayacucho trip, a some movies to watch (one of Jeremy's favorite things to do). It was a fun night.

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Weekend in Ayacucho

It's been a while since we've written... We've been busy! This is the first of a few entries that we hope to post within the next week or so, so keep checking!

On the night of Friday, March 9th, after we’d already packed to go to Ayacucho for the weekend, our volunteer friends Eli and Sadie came by and said that the road there was likely blocked by a mudslide. There was no way to know for sure, but it had been said that it was a common occurrence in the rainy season. Plus, Eli and Sadie said that a new volunteer, who had been scheduled to arrive earlier in the day from Ayacucho, had not yet to arrived and was supposedly not expected to arrive any time soon. Despite all of this, we decided to go to the bus station and see what we could find out directly from them before scrapping our weekend excursion. We were told that the road was blocked and that we would be going on an alternative route that was safer but would take a couple of more hours. We discussed it and decided to go anyway.

Shortly after our bus headed out, a bus employee announced that we would be taking the route which was supposedly blocked. The bus passengers started yelling out (as well as all of us) that we were told that the bus would take the alternate route at the ticket office. We demanded that they take us back to the ticket office to get our money back. Instead of taking us back or letting us off, the bus remained stopped until the bus employees agreed to go on the alternate route. At one point they attempted to extort 5 soles more per passenger for the extra gas needed to go on the alternate route. But in the end, the passengers won, and the bus continued on without us paying a centimo more.

Later (after returning to Huancayo from Ayacucho) we found out from the new volunteer that his bus had been blocking the road because it had tipped over on his side. Apparently, the driver was the only one in the bus when it tipped because everyone had been told to get off before the bus attempted the turn. I can only assume that the bus company was not willing to tell us the truth about how the route was blocked. Chances are that the employees on the bus expected that the bus would be cleared in time for our passing and as such were inclined to go that way. At the same time, they were probably told not to say the real reason the road was blocked. Begrudgingly, they obliged the passengers, but as we were to find out later maybe it wasn’t the best option after all.

About six hours into our trip and four hours away from our destination, the bus got stuck trying to get around a sharp turn on a very muddy and badly eroded road. The bus was in a very tough spot. It looked like it was either going to have to stay where it was or end up sliding into a riverbed. Fortunately, after four hours and a lot of hard work, the bus employees were able to get the bus out. For the four gringos on the bus who had all of the time in the world, it was a bit of an adventure. We took pictures and made some friends while eating a popular favorite, a cactus fruit called tuna that grows in abundance in the region.

We reached Ayacucho about noon the next day. We then headed to a hostel to leave our stuff before venturing off. We got lunch and wondered a bit until we saw a mirador. We headed there to get a good view of the city. Then, we continued on a bit further. When we saw a playground, the boys (Jeremy and Eli) simply had to try it out. Once we got further up, we took a couple of group shots.

That afternoon, we took a well-needed catnap. Some of us only managed to get a couple of hours of shuteye on the bus ride there. We happened upon a great Italian restaurant and had the best pizza yet in South America.

The next day, we lazed around a bit. Not much was open and it seemed that was a good option. We had breakfast, watched a weekly ceremonial parade in the plaza, and ate lunch. After lunch Eli and Sadie went on another hike while we went to do a bit of shopping in the market. Jeremy had seen quite a few places earlier on that morning while roaming the town that looked especially good for school supplies (for the girls at Francisca Mayer) and shoes (for Jeremy). Afterwards, the four of us rejoined at the mirador and ate dinner at a restaurant with views overlooking the city and live music before our uneventful bus trip back to Huancayo.

And here are the pictures!

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Where We Live in Huancayo

For the month of February, Jeremy and I lived with a wonderful host family here in Huancayo. We had our own room, access to kitchen and laundry facilities and cable tv! Aurora, David, and their 22-year-old son Albaro were our host family members. They are related to Mosoq Ayllu´s program coordinator and have a nice home located in the same location as Mosoq Ayllu´s volunteer residence, so it was also in a very convenient location. With the family, we ate, watched t.v., and practiced our Spanish. We really enjoyed our time with them and hope to visit them often.

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When we decided to stay another month in Huancayo, we realized that we needed to save a bit more money, so we decided to find our own place while still participating in the volunteer program with Mosoq Ayllu. We found the place through Sarah´s Spanish teacher and are very happy! Not only is it cheaper, but feels like a bed & breakfast! We live with one woman (Delia) who owns the house, but who will be leaving soon to join her family in Lima. She is very nice and we still have an opportunity to practice our Spanish skills with her. For now, we´ve agreed to stay here through the end of March with the possiblity of renewing the lease afterward.

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Hiking to Huaytapallana - Our First Glacier!

On February 24th, we went for a 6-hour hike to our first glacier with some other Mosoq Ayllu volunteers. It was freezing cold and snowing, but absolutely incredible! The glacier is called Huaytapallana.

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More Volunteering in Huancayo

It´s been a bit since we´ve written. Although we haven´t been traveling the continent, we continue to have some really great experiences here in Huancayo. So great, in fact, that we´ve decided to fore-go our trip to Brazil (we even had our visas already!) and stay for the month of March as well. Through the end of February, our time was spent working or preparing to work with the guys at Inabif and the girls at Fransica Mayer, in addition to having Spanish lessons daily. Now in March, we are going to focus our volunteer work on literacy initiatives with the girls at Francisca Mayer.


Our Daily Schedule

Jeremy has Spanish class from 8:00 to 10:00 so he is up early. Sarah has Spanish at the same time in a different location on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Through the month of February, we headed over to Inabif to work with the guys at 10:00. We worked with them on some hygiene instruction, greetings, and basic literacy. Since March began, we´ve been running errands in the morning. Noon is lunchtime, so we´ve been heading home to eat and to finish preparing for our second volunteer placement in the afternoon. We catch a combi at 1:30 so that we can be at Francisca Mayer for 2:00. We were starting at 3:00, but have since added an hour so that we can spend more time teaching there. And sometimes Jeremy is there at 1:30 to help the older girls with their homework. We´re usually there until about 5:30pm and then walk back home so Sarah can make it to her other Spanish classes from 6:00-7:00. After Sarah´s Spanish class, it´s time for dinner. Then we plan for the next day, relax a bit, and head to bed. As you can tell, each day is quite full!


Highlights at Inabif

Some of the recent highlights at Inabif included making paper wind socks in an art class with the boys, having a party for the day of friendship with dancing and snacks, playing soccer and other games, and doing some planting together in their garden. These guys are lots of fun to hang out with as well!

Hanging Out with the Boys at Inabif


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Planting at Inabif

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Group Photo on Our Last Day with the Boys!

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Highlights at Francisca Mayer

Sarah has been working with two girls one-on-one to help them to develop basic literacy skills. She´s been able to put her special education skills to use! After administering an assessment of basic reading skills for each girl, she got to work. One of the girls (Rosa Luz) has made a great deal of progress after only 2 weeks. 2 weeks ago, she only knew how to name and write a few of the vowels. Now, she is reading sentences that use up to 12 different letters! The other girl (Karla) is not quite as motivated to learn, so Sarah is working on different ways to include her artistic interests to motivate her. So far, they´ve used modeling clay, letter and number stencils, and different colored markers. Next week, they´ll try some new things as well.

Jeremy has continued on teaching Spanish literacy to the more advanced students. He works with the secondary (high school)students from 2:00 until almost 3:00 and then he works with the younger (middle school) students from 3:00 to 4:00. He is helping the girls develop their reading comprehension skills. They´re reading a book that Jeremy had bought for himself to improve his Spanish literacy and supplementing the book with other non-fiction reading materials he finds on the internet. They´ve also been doing alot of geography instruction lately.

Besides all the work we are doing with the girls, we have been spending a lot of quality time with them, from 4:00 til about 5:30. All the girls are really sweet and really enjoy the company. There are three little girls named Yoana, Yenni, Mariela, and Karla plus a little boy named Kelvin who require a lot of attention. Having two other adults around (especially ones that they aren´t with 24 hours a day) helps. We spend a lot of time holding them, spinning them around, dancing, putting together puzzles, etc. Up until the end of this week, a volunteer was working with the girls doing a lot of different art projects while we taught the older girls. Hopefully a new volunteer can take on that role.

Jeremy plays soccer and volleyball or whatever game that the older girls come up with. Sarah usually joins the games for a bit, but ends up spending the last part of the day playing mostly with the younger girls. We´re both pretty tired by the time we leave, but we´re loving it just as much as the girls.

This month, we had a few parties at Francisca Mayer as well. In addition to the Day of Friendship celebrated on February 14th, two of the girls had birthdays. We bought cake, candles, and soda for each party because, unfortunately, the orphanage can´t afford things like that for the celebrations. Maria turned 12, and Elizabeth turned 15.

Carnival was also this month which means we also got wet quite a bit. Sarah got hit more than a couple of times by water balloons boys threw at her in the street. The tradition is to get the opposite sex wet by whatever means. One woman in our volunteer group got drenched by a boy with a bucket of water. Actually, it was an accident because she ran into the boy carrying the water while running away from a group of boys shooting water guns at her. Jeremy got his turn at being wet when the girls at Fransica Mayer had a carnival party. He managed to recruit some girls to be on his team so it wouldn´t be just him against 16 girls. That day everyone got really wet and it wasn´t just because it happened to be raining at the time.

Playing with the Girls at Francisca Mayer

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¨El Dia Del Amistad¨ at Francisca Mayer


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Elizabeth´s 15th Birthday!

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Huancavelica

The weekend of February 10-11, Jeremy and I took a train to Huancavelica, a remote town in the Central Highlands. We caught a six-thirty early morning express train from Huancayo. It was our first long-distance, train ride in Peru and we were happy for the change of transport. It was a really nice ride with really nice scenery of the surrounding mountain and farm area. Also, we got there in just over half the time it would´ve taken us had we taken the regular train.

Huancavelica was a nice place to get away for a weekend. The town, itself, is very simple, but nice. There are very few tourists who visit here mostly because of it´s remote location, but we really liked being in a small town again. We spent our time there, relaxing, putzing around, trying out some local dishes, and climbing up to a mirador overlooking the town with a great view of the surrounding mountains.


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Week Two in Huancayo

Our time in Huancayo is passing quickly. As usual, we´re keeping busy. We're volunteering at 2 orphanages, living with a host family, and taking Spanish classes (Sarah has been and Jeremy will start next week).

Some of the highlights of our week besides volunteering have been having the chance to watch the Super Bowl at our host family´s house, visiting the Sunday market, and eating with our host family for lunch almost every day. We also had a volunteer-made dinner of chicken fajitas. It feels really good to be in one place, building relationships again!

Inabif

Every morning, we walk over to Inabif, an all-boys orphanage to volunteer with the 7 guys with special needs there (Abel, Abran, Gabriel, Marco Antonio, Pepe, Sergio, and Victor). We spend our time helping them with greetings, early writing skills, hygiene education, and sportsmanship skills. In the following pictures, you´ll see many more boys than just the guys we work with. On these particular days, they were super excited to have their photos taken. One thing I noticed with a few of them is that, unlike in the States, they would STOP smiling as soon as the photo was taken (especially Abel). I think this is because in pictures here, it´s not as common to smile. All the guys are very sweet!


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Francisca Mayer

In the afternoons, we catch a combi (small bus) and walk a bit to Francisca Mayer, an all-girls orphanage. There, we teach reading comprension skills and a bit of direct instruction in reading with one girl who hasn´t yet learned to read. Everyday, we also spend some quality time with the girls, usually playing volleyball or soccer. Just like the guys, these girls were absolutely thrilled to have their pictures taken.

On Monday, we're going to have a bit of a Carnaval celebration with the girls. We've been told to bring an extra set of clothes because between the water balloons, buckets of water, and water guns that will be used, we are going to get soaked! Jeremy will be hit especially hard because the tradition is for girls to get the guys and guys to get the girls. Unfortunately for Jeremy, he´s the only guy and there are a whole lot of girls!


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This weekend we´re headed for Huancavelica, a remote town about 6 hours away by train, also in the highlands. And then on Monday, we begin another week volunteering at these orphanages!