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market in arequipa, Peru ladies and gentleman..
my trip is now coming to an end. Somewhat in denial about it but I have never been more ready to be with my family and friends. I´m tired of partying with strangers.. i miss being in a room filled with my favorites drinking a few beers and listening to music. i cant wait!!!
After Iquique, Chile I headed north to Peru! I ended up meeting 3 folks from Washington whom traveled with me all the way to Cusco. One was a married couple.. the husband was a well-known photographer and the wife builds ships. Before Cusco, we stopped in Arequipa, Peru- 2nd largest city in peru (800,000 people!!) The city was mostly made of cobblestone.. very colonial. It reminded me of Salem a bit. I really had no idea what Arequipa was going to be like.. Its funny when I'm traveling.. I never really know where I'm going. I love not having any set plans about where to be.. I love even more when I do absolutly NO research on where I'm going because when you get there everything is a total surprise! Anyways, I was shocked as to how BIG this city was.. The
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riding horses outside of cusco, peru city is situated among the mountains.. and gets LOTS of earthquakes.. They recently had one in 2001. When I was there, I visited two tourist sites. I went to the Santa Catalina monastery which was literally outside my hostel. Its basically a small city within this great large city that has big great walls seperating itself from the rest of the world. Lots of creepy paintings of Jesus... i mean.. LOTS of creepy paintings of jesus, nuns, preists, etc.
One of the most mild-boggling museam I ever visited was the Museum of the Universidad Católica de Santa María. There was a perserved inca mummy named Juanita who was about 12 to 14 years old and from the 1440's. The reason why this mummy is so important is because her entire flesh & organs were frozen on top of a mountain. She weighs about 80 pounds and is over 500 years old!! They keep her in this glass refredgerated box.. it was quite eerie.. i didnt want to leave. I just wanted to keep looking at this corpse. am i sicko or what?? The thoughts of what this young girl was like, the grief her family went through, the thoughts
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my apartment and some of my roommies in cusco, peru of her tribe leaders before they killed her, etc. In 1995, these men were hiking in the mountains and randomly found the mummy wrapped up in a blanket with gifts. She was a human sacrifice for the God and the small gifts were for the inca mountain god This young girl spent her entire life preparing for being sacrificed. She was typically beautiful & had something special about her because it was for their god. She had to walk up a mountain which was about 20,000 feet high so would have been absolutly freezing and she would have been experiencing altitude sickness. The way they killed her was with a big blow to the head with a rock. The thing is.. she wasn't the only child sacrifice. There were hundreds! Can you imagine believing in something so much to sacrifice a innocent child? They truly believed that if they gave a child to the god then the god would treat everyone good.
After Arequipa, I headed to Chile with the washington crew. The greatest part about heading to cusco was that I had my own apartment there. Since I was supposed to be living in Sucre, Bolivia for 6
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protest in cusco peru months .. my money on that apartment transferred to an apartment in cusco!! I was living with 2 girls from England and 1 girl from California! I cannot even describe HOW GREAT IT WAS to have my OWN BEDROOM!!! I didn't even have to share the room with ANYONE. (im used to sharing my room with like 10-12 other people!!) We had a tv.. our own kitchen.. a cute neighborhood.. the internet across the street.. and couches! haha The BATHROOM was so clean i probably would have licked the floor if someone was willing to give me a few bucks. =P For the week.. I pretty much just chilleddddd to the maxxxxxxxx.
After my one week of chillness in Cusco, my best friend Chelsea came to visit!!!! for those who don't know Chelsea, well she is my travel buddy! We have been EVERY WHERE together... we backpacked Europe for 4 months together when we were 19, took our first trip to Paris at 18, traveled to New Orleans, Mexico City, New York City, England, and now peru!!! I cant even begin to describe how PUMPED & RELIEVED i was to see her!!! awwwww. :D We had a blast. She
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monestary in arequipa, peru came for 1 week and we did so much during that little time. we went horse back riding to
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