Trip to Chile and Peru; going home soooon

Okay, this is from a post I wrote really long time ago and never finished, so I will put it up and then continue a new one...

This first pic is of me, Annia, Lauren, and Johanna in our lovely Peru hats

The second is from the ridiculous hike we did

I have a bunch up on my Myspace, but I need to put them on my Flickr, huh.... Okayyyy, I'll do that after lunch...

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olááá





I get to leave school early everyday this week because my host brothers have tests, so I'm taking some time out to write in here.



Last Thursday I got back from an incredible trip to Chile and Peru, which was definitely the best one yet!!!! Machu Picchu and the entire surrounding area is absolutely stunning; definitely worth seeing. I realize that there are a lot of places that are worth seeing, but I mean this is really WORTH seeing. It is one of the 7 Wonders of the World, afterall (so is the Christ in Rio, though, and I wouldn't go out of my way for that one...). You are constantly surrounded by this spectacular view, and there are so many things to see in the area you could spend a good 2 or 3 weeks just in the region around Machu Picchu. There is a walk you can do called the Inca Trail, which starts out in some other city, and then you walk for 4 days and arrive at the site early in the morning. I would love to do that here one of these years. I need to shape up a little better, though, first.



This trip was a little more expensive, so there were only 8 exchange students who went (including me and 3 of my best friends, Lauren, Johanna, and Annia, which was great), plus a german girl who is living with the Rotary guy who takes us doing a professional type exchange at his agency, Johanna's twin sister who is doing exchange in Ecuador, annnnd MY MOM AND HYLAND! They came as a suprise for me, and it was, unsuprisingly, one of the most suprising suprises in the long history of the suprise, haha. It was obviously really great to see them, although it was sort of a pity they didn't get to come to Brazil so they could meet my family, etc, but that's ok. My mom is about to have a baby (April 25th) too, haha, but she still managed to do the majority of the stuff with us. We did some pretty intensive hiking at some points that she skipped out on, but other than that it was fine.



The trip itself was comprised of 2 days in Santiago, Chile, where we just sort of walked around/took the metro and saw stuff. There's honestly not that much to see there, so it was enough time. We did go to a very nice winery called Concha y Toro, which was thouroughly enjoyable, and also a really neat cemetary. Those were my favorite things. I really could have spent half the day just in the cemetary, but I have a thing for visiting cemetaries anyway; I really like their vibe for some reason, and this was an extra cool one.



Then we went to Lima overnight just to rest, and then in us to Nasca, which is where they have the famous lines and pictures drawn in the sand. It was really cool, but only once, haha - the plane ride over the lines left everyone right on the verge of getting reacquianted with their breakfast. The history behind the lines is pretty fascinating, really. They are these huge animal pictures (the hummingbird, for instance, is 300meters from beak to tail) that were made by taking rocks out of the sand, so they are sort of like shallow ditches that are about a foot wide. It's a mystery how they were made because they are so well calculated, étc. You should look them up on Wikipedia if you haven't heard of them.

After that we went to 3 other cities to go around to various ruin sites, museums, cathedrals, and touristy places to see. A good number of the days we drove around in a van to different places, and that was honestly one of my favorite parts - it's really relaxing to just sit, listen to music, and look out the window because the view is always spectacular. The main city we stayed in was Cuzco, which is about 5 hrs from the Machu Picchu site by bus, and it is the main city in the area. When you take a trip to the region you basically stay in Cuzco for the majority of the time, and make day trips around the region. There is a ton of stuff to see, and the city itself is very cool. It is probably one of the favorite places I have been to. It was an interesting mixture of neat architecture, poverty, Incan remnants, and European influence.

To go to the Macchu Picchu site itself we went by train to a small city called Aguas Calientes(because it has natural hot springs that I was too ired/lazy to go visit, haha). We spent a few days there - the first included going on the most intensive hike I have ever done, on this mountains called Putukisi (spelling???). It was a challenge, but definitely one that paid off. There were parts where you had to climb up these vertical wooden ladders that had been sort of built into the mountain, which was rather disconcerting. It had been raining so they were all slippery, and a good number of the ppl (myself included) have sort of a problem with ladders in general. We made it, though, and at the top it was this really cool view of the Machu Picchu site on one of the neighboring mountains.

Machu Picchu itself was, as you can imagine, fascinating. We spent a few hours there with a tour guide, then climbed the mountiain behind it, Wina Picchu, and then Hyland and I walked back together while everyone else did another hike that I thought looking kind of boring, haha.

That's a general outline of the trip. There are obviously about 10,000 details I could add in. Here are just a few snippets: there are lots of llamas and al pacas, the people actually do wear the clothes you see on the post cards, we went to a food market with brains and various other animal parts just laying all over the tables, we went out two nights to a club full of gringos where they taught salsa lessons for free and then had dance music (my salsa-ing is still pretty aweful, though), we went back to Lima before leaving, where we had a really great b-day party on the roof of the hostel for Johanna and Theresa, the German twins and went shopping instead of to more ruins (we were ruinsed-out), when you have a brazilian tour guide terraces=ter-asses, lost of long bus rides (one ws 22hrs), everyone spent a considerable amount of time in the bathroom bc of the food/water, and 3 of us ended up puking, I fought with the hotel lady in Cuzco about stealing towels because I had put my vomit-soaked towels in the basket outside the room so the maids wouldn't have to get them, so that meant I actually stole them, we could understand the Spanish almost perfectly, but barely speak it, they sell guinea pig on the street, but i didn't get it for fear of getting more sick, and there is cool/cheap stuff to buy on eeeeevery corner, at eeeeevery site, in eeeeevery musem, etc.

So, that was the trip.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ok, now we're back to modern time ~~~~

Oh, and for those of you that don't know, my mom had a healthy, happy baby on April 29th, and he is, as far as I know, named Gabriel.

School this year is slightly better. I am in the last year of high school, yet again, as the college thing didn't work out. Johanna is in my class, though, which is very cool, and a lot more people talk to us than they did last year. It's still sort of just a big waste of time, but better than sleeping all morning, I suppose. Actually, today I skipped because I had Lauren dye my hair, and it turned out looking wretched (not her fault - I dunno what happened), so we are going to the salon tomorrow and I'm getting it professionally done. My host mom, thus, took pity on my poor soul and let me stay home. That's why I'm writing in this actually... as if I don't have time to do so regardless of whether I go to school or not. :-P

I have been to a few good shows, and a few good parties. We went to see Ivete Sangalo Friday night, who is sort of like the Madonna of Brazil. It was a good time. I'm not a big fan of her music, but we enjoyed ourselves none the less. It's the sort of thing that's fun to go see/bouce around to, but not good enough to actually listen to. Oh, we did go see this other band a long tie ago called O Teatro Mágico, and THAT was awesome. They are one of the best bands in Brazil, I think, and it was one of the best shows I have ever been to.

I'm still doing Capoeira regularly, although I'm still not very good at it, haha. My host family is still great. I will miss them a lot when I come home, but I am fairly confident we'll see eachother again. My friends are stil incredible, and I don't even want to think about living without them at this point. I know I will see them again, though. Max actually got sent home for taking an un-authornized trip to Argentina. He is flying out today. It's too bad, but he would have been leaving in two weeks anyway, and he said it was definitely worth it. I've lost some of the weight I gained, yay, but I still have a ways to go until I'm totally happy with it. Hmm, what else. This is just a random updates paragraph, if you couldn't tell... My Portuguese is pretty good. I have taken some classes, mainly for the writing aspect of it, which has helped, and talking is no longer a stress; it's just a normal thing. They can definitely still tell I'm foreign, but I get by just fine. I will need to meet some brazilians to practice with when I get back, or I will probably forget.

Next week I am taking a trip with my host mom and sister to the city their family is from, which is in the same state, and another state where the family has a big estate thing (with horses, a house, a lake, etc... yea, they're pretty rich). That should be a nice trip, although I have to miss a few things to go. I met the majority of the family when we went there briefly ths other weekend, but this should be a better visit, and their estate looks incredible. If nothing else I get to ride horses, which is exciting.

Other that that I have been trying to stay sane as the return date starts becoming a thing that is less and less easy to ignore... As was painfully predictable, time flew, and, despite my ever-fluctuating feelings on being here, I do not feel ready to come home. There are definitely things to be excited about - mainly just seeing everyone again, meeting the baby, etc, but I think that after about 2 weeks I'll be ready to leave the country again. It's not so much that I don't feel ready to leave Brazil itself and get back to living a normal life of productivity and stress, it's more like the idea of a normal life back in good old Morgantown, WV just doesn't cut it... We'll see how it goes, though. There's no need to worry about it too much yet.

My friends and I are planning a big going away party for June 7th, which is before the majority of the people leave, and that should be a lot of fun. Plus the Rotary conference is coming up this weekend, which is exciting. It'll definitely be bittersweet to see everyone again, but to know that it's probably the last time for most. There will be plenty of crying and very little sleeping going on, I'm sure.

I come home July 1st, so I'll see you all then. I may write before then, and I may not. It's hard to tell. Right now I am honestly trying to ignore going home as much as possible (which isn't much, haha), and just enjoy the remaining time with the people here.

I hope everyone is great, and Happy Mother's Day (a day late) to all the mommies.

Muito Amor
Alanna