Home is when I'm with you

Sorry for the delay, I’ve been really busy which is great because I am counting down the days until I come home to visit and it makes time go by faster!

My very dear friend Honor came to visit me in October. It was very heartwarming to see a familiar face from home. By now, all my friends and family here in Peru are familiar faces but there was something special about seeing someone from my pre-Peace Corps life.  I took a day bus down to Lima, (not as bad as I thought it would be I was able to sleep most of the trip) and waited for Honor’s flight to get in later in the night. When I saw her walk through the gate from customs I literally ran towards her and I’m sure if she hadn’t been weighed down by luggage I could have easily toppled her over. Tears of joy, laughter, and smiles were definitely present, it was a great moment.

We slept (or tried to sleep) in the airport until early early in the morning when we flew into Cusco. One word on our arrival: Brrrrrr. We had a rest day to get acclimated to the altitude before our hiking trip. Cusco is incredibly beautiful; the mixture of Spanish and Incan architecture is so breathtaking.

Honor was the responsible one to wake up early in the morning and forced me out of bed when I just wanted to hit snooze on the first day of our hike. We embarked on the “Inca Jungle Trek” through Lorenzo Expeditions with three days of biking/hiking and the last day spent on Machu Picchu. 

The first day was all biking so unfortunately I was unable to participate because (shame face) I still do not know how to properly ride a bike, I’ve gotten the point of being able to pedal but my steering abilities are awful, I need to practice. In the evening we went river rafting which was very fun. It was only for about an hour and half but our guides were really fun so it was enjoyable experience….I brought a waterproof disposable camera with me that I stuffed into my life jacket thinking it was snug enough but I realized about halfway downstream that it was missing, another reason why I wish I had cleavage. The second day was a loooooong day of hiking. There were a few times I was literally terrified of falling off the side of the mountain; the path was narrow and in case you didn’t know, I am very clumsy. 

Some parts were very steep, luckily we had a guide who scheduled many breaks for us, which was definitely needed, I was gasping for air, I kept blaming the altitude but we weren’t really that high up, I’m just a wimp. In the afternoon we relaxed in some hot springs for a couple hours. In the morning on the third day we went zip-lining which I highly recommend. We went through 4 zip lines and one was about a mile long and several hundred meters up. On the last zip line I went “super woman” where I was attached to the guide and was lying horizontal, stomach down and flew down the line with my arms spread out, it literally felt like flying. 

The only thing I didn’t like was that I felt like I was choking on the wind but still, you should do it. Thankfully the last day of hiking was mostly flat and we arrived in Aguas Calientes early in the afternoon.

Aguas Calientes

 We climbed into bed very early in order to wake up at 4 am to walk down to the bridge to begin the 1,800 step climb up to the front gate of Machu Picchu.

This is what 4:30 am looks like in case anyone was wondering

steps up to MP

 It was sprinkling in the morning and was mostly dry-ish on our climb up and continued to sprinkle when we got in line around 6am. By the time we entered Machu Picchu it was full on raining. 

This put a damper on our moods but we continued to stay optimistic, hoping the rain would stop around 9am (via what our guide said about rain in the morning)…it didn’t. Poor Honor was really upset, she had traveled thousands of miles and had been really looking forward to it and couldn’t even take out her super nice camera (photography is one of her passions). It rained until about 12:30 which was pretty unfortunate because we had to leave around 2 to make our train back to Cusco but it was still an amazing sight.

 I felt so lucky to see a wonder of the world in person. Please go see Machu Picchu, and if not Machu Picchu, pick a wonder to go see and go see it. Don’t wait around thinking, I’ll go someday. Go now. Most of you are young professionals and don’t have kids yet; traveling is the best thing you can do for your soul. Go see something beautiful, stop worrying about all the money you’re trying to save, you can always save more money but you won’t always be this young and free of anchors keeping you home.  OK I’m off my soapbox…sometimes I feel like I need to get on once in a while.

After some brief sightseeing around Cusco and one day in Lima we headed to Pimentel, my host community. In retrospect, planning a big event (vocational fair-see next blog post) the same time my friend was visiting was an awful idea. I was on the phone, running around when I would have much rather been enjoying time with Honor, bless her, she was a good sport about it all. After spending a couple days in Pimentel and some sightseeing in Lambayeque we headed to Mancora (beach party town) for some relaxing time before her return to the states.

Tumbes Reales Museum in Lambayeque

Pyramids of Tucume

Pyramids of Tucume

Loki blood bombs during bar bingo....fun game but dangerous

body painting

Foxy men we hung out with on our Mancora trip, actually really good guys

Honor and my host mama

 I did not want to leave Mancora…the morning of the day we left, I called my Peace Corps Volunteer Leader, bless him, bawling my eyes out and convinced my fair was going to be a failure and Honor was unhappy with the trip, that I was a terrible volunteer and I should just call it quits. Así es Peace Corps, sometimes we have irrational breakdowns, my fair turned out fine and Honor had (overall) a great experience and I’m sticking around til the end folks. Love you all. Iowans: I can’t wait to see your faces in 23 days (or 27 days if you are in CF)