Happy be-lated Easter!

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We are leaving today! We have been in Lima, the capital of Peru, for the last couple of days. We are staying in a very wealthy area here and it feels as though we aren´t even in Peru! There are American stores everywhere, including Starbucks and Tony Romas, BMW cars, very few street vendors, and less amigos greeting us with a buenos dias. The city is incredibly divided between the extremely wealthy and poor, and it is a stark reminder of the reality here in South America.


Easter Sunday was spent waking up at 4:30 a.m. to watch the procession of the risen Christ. The procession began after 4 a.m. mass with over thirty men and women carrying an enormous shining white float covered in waxed choclo (Andean corn), waxed grapes, hundreds of candles, and a humble statue of the risen Christ. Half of the crowd had just woken up and the other half were finishing up their Holy Saturday partying. The locals believe that the moment when Christ dies on Good Friday, sin no longer exists and as a result they party hard from Friday night till Sunday morning. On Saturday morning and afternoon, the main sqaure was littered with red and flowing in beer as the annual Running of the Bulls took place. It was a great time but a sad sight for me, as I watched hundreds of drunk kids chasing a bull on a 20 feet leash whose eyes were filled with confusion and fear 😞

For the remainder of Easter Sunday, Becky and I went with a Peruvian friend we met to see the ruins of the Wari culture, the first empire in Peru from 500 to 1200. The ruins overlooked a grand valley with the Andes surrounding us, it was a great view indeed! And the sky was a perfect blue with hundreds of white clouds dancing around the mountains and across the sky 😊 I will miss the moutains here! At Wari, it was incredible to see how intact everything still is and how much there is still left to discover but because of the lack of funding, only a few ruins can be seen. While we were walking through the ruins, our friend picked up some broken pottery with ancient black and white paintings still covering them. And as we walked further, we were surprised to see small pieces scattered across the path. If I ever become an anthropologist, I´m most definitely coming back to do some excavations 😊

It has been an incredible ten weeks, full of so many incredible memories with my big sis 😊 Gratitude was the prayer I began with on this trip and gratitude is the prayer I offer today 😊 See you soon!

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