First Glimpses

---

Well I´m here, alive and exaughsted. I´m glad I don´t have to make that treck very often. I ended up meeting a girl in the Atlanta airport during the layover who was going to work in the Lima Program with CCS so we went through customs and exchanging money together in Lima. I also met most of the other volunteers during our 5 hour stay in the lima airport before our 4am check in. We set up a nice little gringo camp in the cafeteria. So after 24 hours of no sleep we boarded a tiny little plane to fly to ayacucho. The flight was smooth and the hours of no sleep were made worthwhile as we flew over the andes at sunrise. I had no idea how enormous they are.

Ayacucho is beautiful in a forgien city, latin america way. There are moutains everywhere you look and the streets wind up and down in pure chaos. Everything is loud and dusty, things are somewhat dirty but every once in awhile you will come across a beautiful old spanish colonial building or cathedral that reminds you of how old the city it. What was most surprising to me was the number of people, there are people everywhere! People and moto taxis. I have pictures of everything but i´m too tired to figure out how to upload them today, maybe later in the week.

After our nap and lunch a large group of us went to watch a futbol game, always entertaining. We also walked around town, looked in on some markets and drank a pisco sour at a local restaurant. pisco sours are the national drink, not terrible. They are similar to margaritas only with more lime flavor, some sort of foam head and a lot stronger. I´m pretty sure there was also some cinnaman some where in there too. The food so far has been great, a lot of rice and a lot of fruit so I might just survive afterall. They have been pouring cocao tea down our throats ever since we landed. It really does help with the altitude. We also tried chewing on the leaves like the natives do but I prefer the tea. It works just like drinking 3 cups of coffee at once. Every one drinks it, even the children on the trip had some with breakfast.

Everything is very cheap. I´m sitting at an internet cafe/kareoke bar that is literally next door to my house and I have an hour on the computer for only 1 sole (1 dollar= 3.2 sole) So far everything has gone well. The people are all nice, very different and very unique but nice. More on them later though, as well as some pictures hopefully.

Tomorrow we tour the city and see our work sites. more details when I´m not so tired.

---