Wednesday, December 28, 2011

November

November was a month full of loose ends. Some are tied up in a pretty bow, and others are still flapping in the wind, starting to Frey.
I'm trying to feel better after our trip to Huamachcuo
We've been working on getting furniture and any other home goods still not aquired. Most furniture here is made to order, so we took in pictures of what we wanted , gave them measurements, picked out fabric, and now we're just waiting. So far one couch has arrived.( Whitney from the future says that our living room furniture will not arrive until December 20th, 2 months after ordering it, and three months of living with out it!)
I'm still working on spanish(when i feel well enough). James has been working with salt lake a lot for the temple Project, still not much movement on land. He organized 2 site clean up projects with the institute program in the area.
We're gearing up for the holiday season- I'm currently trying to figure out how to make a moist turkey. I'm  on a mission. We'll see how it goes!
We're planning our first trip to Macchu Picchu.
 It's been a crazy month!  We're excited to feel more settled in  once our house is put together.  Sigh, that will be so nice!

Halloween!

There is no Halloween in Peru. BUT they know that he Americans living here will give you candy if you dress up and go door to door. Well, some of them didn't dress up, but we told them to scram! So, about 4 o'clock we had hoards of the CUTEST little kids at our door every few minutes. They don't say "trick or treat", they simply announced "HALLOWEEN!!!" James tried to teach them, but they didn't quite understand. A few sketchy punks showed up and lipped off to James, but other than that people were pleasant and the little kids were having fun! Sierra Talbot and her friend Abby asked me to "dress like a hippy" with them for the party. I was glad they asked me to do that instead of-"dress like an athlete" or something else I could never pull off. I, of course, am up to my neck in "hippy cloths" so I not only dressed myself for the Party- but I dressed both of them too! James dressed as a soccer player with the boys! ( Yeah, you read correctly, James dressed up for a costume party!) We had a good blend of Americans and Peruvians- lots of cakes, candy, dancing and decor. It was good fun!
We carved pumpkins with them a few days before-and by we, I mean, Kathy and I cleaned them out and carved them-The kids thought it was too gross!











Getting to Huamachuco

We traveled roughly 120 miles to a beautiful town on a mountain top. It sounds idyllic, right? Had we flown it would have been! 120 miles is no big deal, right? I mean, that's like driving from Bigfork, to Missoula. It normally only takes about 90 minutes for me to drive that! But that's on nice, paved, barely hilly roads in the U.S.. Our 120 mile trip was first of all- a 13000 foot elevation climb(sounds cool right? AND yes, we did take our altitude sickness pills). It also was on a road that EVEN in Montana would have been qualified as a forest service road. It was ROUGH to say the least! It ended up being an over 5 hour drive each way… we also had to stop 3 times for our car sick friend to, well, be sick. The only tiny silver lining on the drive was the pavement we hit about 45 minutes before town.
Now, don't let that be a big downer on the highlights of the trip. Granted, it was a tough go, and we probably won't be heading back up for a very long time, but we ended up seeing some amazing things!
Once the mountains turned green, we saw herds of alpaca and lots of sheep. Terraced farms and people dressed in traditional attire. The 1st impression of the town was that it almost looked like pictures of Italy- steep cobblestone streets and tiled roofs-but the bright rainbow colors of the different houses were a dead give away that we were in  south America.
We drove straight through  town and headed up to the top of another mountain, to the Marcahuamachuco, ancient ruins.  Because it is such rough traveling to get here, this town rarely sees tourists, and Marcahuamachuco is barely on the radar. ( More about it here- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcahuamachuco )
We were excited to get up there and start hiking around. Alas, the altitude was too much for us. Only part way through we had to head back. we were both panting for air, and I was seeing dark spots and thought I was going to throw up! It was so sad! We kept trying to truck on, but I really didn't want to be sick on some sacred ground. It was a bummer.  The security guards whom live up there even said that the thin air effects them! So we headed back into town and checked into our Hostel/hotel, and went to eat at the only open restaurant in the town.
The next morning we headed to the Central Mercado to check out the local "scene".  We FINALLY saw live Guinea pigs being sold as food. She even had 3 different sacks-Small, Medium and large. A little kid walked up to me with hand out, and in perfect English said-"Give me money".  We finally found white wheat! It was hard to find any here in Trujillo, so we were excited. Now I can get my Ezekiel  bread on! The Market was neat-they also sold the traditional cloths-which you mostly only notice the woman wearing- Layers and layers of skirts, a bright colored cardigan and a wide brimmed hat. I wanted one of the sweaters so bad, but because I am about a foot taller than any woman there, they would have hit me at my rib cage. I loved looking at all of them though!
We had a rough ride home, being stopped at 2 different construction sites for about an hour each. People here know an opportunity when they see one, so plenty of snack vendors were walking up and down the stops with all sorts of  treats. We bought a little bag of popcorn, and it was DELISH!

By the time we were home, we both had major whiplash, and I had some kind of food poisoning/bacteria thing from the food. I was down and out for about 2 weeks.
Huamachuco was awesome. It was a rough path to get up there but it was well worth it to see it all once. I'm sure we will go back again to see Marcahuamachuco, but not anytime soon. If anyone ever asked us, we would tell them to get there buns up there and see it. It really is beautiful. Now that we are prepared for the trip, the next time will be much better. (like, I will pack a cooler of food from home because I don't want to risk being that sick again!)  Work smarter, not harder, you know?
We loved seeing the Mountains for the first time, and getting another look at Peru. We look forward to traveling  a lot more rough roads to see more amazing things.

Marcahuamachuco











Huamachuco town plaza





The Famous bell tower



Our "Hotel"

Sunday, December 18, 2011

I know… I know…

Sorry for the LOOOONG lag in posts. We apparently forgot about the adjustment period our bodies would need for all of the different "stuff" floating around down here. Almost everything has been on hold for me over the last 6 weeks. Even Spanish class has been hit and miss. The couch has seen a LOT of me though, so it's happy. I had a two week long bout of something that I originally thought might be food poisoning… and a week later knew that it was something more. Just when I started feeling normal after that we both caught a ROUGH cold that even had James down for a week. Then on the tail end of that cold, we caught another. ( with some kind of lower stomach bacteria thing mixed in for 3 weeks)I swear I am so good at washing my hands constantly and keep a bottle of germ-x in the car for the times when a sink isn't available. I don't think that will do it though- because in this culture you hug and kiss on the cheek everyone you see. So we are just loading up on all of the vitamins and minerals to try and brace ourselves for the next set of who knows what. I guess we should have known this would happen! BUT! I am catching up on the posts over the next few days, because we have some exciting adventures coming up!!! Stay tuuunnneeeddd!