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Published: April 2nd 2006
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our english class
team teaching english! hola everyone... we finally have forced ourselves to sit down (and after all the hiking we have done this week, believe me we deserve a day to sit on our ass!)... where s nfl foot ball when ya need it on a sunday afternoon!
wel its my job to write part I of this two part blog describing our last 2 weeks here in peru... when we last left you we were in huancayo, working at an english school, learnng spanish, helping out at an orphanage and immersing ourselves in the highland culture...
If its possible, we had an even better second week with the kids... amanda truly is so great with young children... she and I made sure that the kids in our english class learned all the essentials... the seasons, days of the week, colours and of course all about te greatest country in the world... swear to God I think i had them all ending each sentence with EH by the end of the week!
The orphanage proved to be just a wonderful experience... these kids had it so rough ...some of their stories were enuff to make you want to cry.. one girl is
The huancayo posse
friends we will never forget! Special place in heaven for you guys! only 14 and has 2 kids... one fathered by her dad and the other by her grandfather... yet every day they loved to sing, dance, play games... they made us feel so welcome... amanda did the dancing (thankfully)... i used my exteremely valuable talent of being able to make animal noises to my fullest advantage... old macdonald had a farm never sounded better!
We also met some great friends while in huancayo... the family we stayed with was amazing... we are truly grateful for all the support we received from the coordinator Tino, and his huge family... We also met some people we are not likely to ever forget... we picked up a new travelling buddy, ( indiana) joan from baaaw-ston... shes been great and we really enjoy having her with us... we met a great couple from chicago, terry and alison who are giving a year of their life to help the volunteer project in huancayo ... truly great and very funny people... and speaking of funny people, we met lauren and robyn..t wo mormon gals from utah... sweetest girls ever, and man did we have some fun trying to corrupt them! Word! Special place in heaven for
Tino and his family
The family we stayed with in huancayo... so giving... truly making a difference! ya gals!
sadly our time in huancayo came to an end... we headed back to lima via bus along with a group of volunteers from florida... here i have another wonderful story which falls under the seemingly neverending list i call JEFF MAKES AN ASS OF HIMSELF...
Now the bus ride itself is quite beautiful i must say...we wind rigt through the heart of the andes... however it can prove to be awfully tough on the stomach under the best of circumstances... let alone when you are receovering from a wonderful last night out with the crew ( at an 80 s bar belting out bon jovi tunes)... anywhoo, needless to say i was hurting for the first few hours... ups and downs not so good on jeffs tummy... finally i had enuff... i got up and went to the back of the bus to relieve the tension (call some dinosaurs) so to speak... unfortunately to my horror someone was in the bathroom... big trouble...
looking around i discovered a short list of alternatives... either i go all over the lunch food stacked at the back of the bus... on people stacked luggage or option #3... which
Ancient Incan fortress
This fortress is above cuzco and looks out into the "other" sacred valley turned out to be a wooden box divided into 4 small slots designed for carrying thermoses of coffee...three of the four slits were occupied... unfortunately soon enough so was slit #4! But the good new is I felt better after! Though i doubt the coffee was all that good..
we caught a flight the next day and arrived in cuzco... cuzco is much smaller than lima... only about 300,000 and is much more scenic and cultural... its set right down in a bowel surrounded by mountains and has maybe the prettiest plaza i have seen... we found a great hostel called Hostal amaru (thanks javier!) and have enjoyed ourselves actually watching tv for the first time on the trip!
cuzco is famous for its surrounding ruins and man they certainly didnt dissapoint... we stuck around the city a fair bit as the train workers were on strike... but it gave us the opportunity to spend a lil more time getting to know the city before heading into the sacred valley (the other sacred valley-we all know that the ottawa valley is the real sacred valley!)
We took a cab about 25 minutes north of the city and
looking down into cuzco
cuzco is literally built right into a bowl... they carved those words and shapes into the side of the mountain! proceeded to walk the 8 km back down into the city centre stopping to see a number of ancient relics along the way... we highly recommend this to any visitor of the city... we saw ancient incan baths, a huge fortress looking out into the sacred valley (amazing view) ... there is a huge white statue of Jesus overlooking the city..pretty impressive and intimidating... i always tried to behave with him there! These ruins were just a warm up for the main event which was the scared valley and macchu picchu, which amanda is gonna write about soon!
some pretty funny stuff too... see the accompanying pic of the chickens... felt like i was on candid camera or something when that happened... there are llamas everywhere here...
well thats it for that leg of the trip... amanda will fill you in on the best part of the area .. the sacred valley and machu picchu soon!
hope this finds everyone well and keep hitting us with the comments!
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janner
non-member comment
wow
the statue of jesus does look intimidating, youll throw up again if i tell ya TML is all but done here in Canada..Ottawa is now Canadas Team bro, anywayz, looks like an AWESOME trip, i definently want to do something like that in a few years.....but uhh, what is wrong with that lama? is that from this planet?