yopenguin

Note I am posting for events back in Peace Corps. Got to get caught up after all.
So this past Sunday, close to Easter 2006, I went paragliding with some friends. This took place around an hour from Huaraz. The details are fuzzy, but basically we went up to a lodge in the mountains and decided one day to take advantage of the Sunday special. I believe the cost was around $60 rather than $80. We were already up there on Saturday for Susannah’s birthday so taking the time to do it the following day would be no problem at all.

There were a total of 5 of us. Our instructor, Alex, was the owner of the lodge (really nice Brit); a helper, can’t remember his name but also a Brit; Seth, my Peace Corps buddy from San Diego; Angela, Seth’s girlfriend; and myself. Angela had gone paragliding once before while both Seth and I were newbies.

To give a brief description of paragliding, for those who have no clue what it is, it is something I was pretty off on. Apparently you have a parachute laid out behind you. You then run down the mountain to get the wind to catch the parachute. When you get enough air and lift from the parachute you then jump to start paragliding. Now I assumed that I would be jumping off a cliff to start paragliding. This totally did not happen. What we had was a mountain slope about 10 to 15 degrees. We didn’t get off the ground more than 30 feet.

Anyways, the learning curb although quite low requires some practice. One, the resistance from the parachute is actually quite large. Yes you can say that I am quite weak when it comes to leg muscles, just look at my calves. Anyways, you take a quick lunge which lifts the parachute behind you to almost above your head. Two, you run down the mountain to gain momentum and lift with your parachute. When you feel the wind really holding the parachute you jump and sit into the harness that holds the parachute and then you are off paragliding. Seems simple right? Wrong, it takes some practice to run into the wind so that the parachute comes up perpendicular to you. It is imperative that you run directly into the wind and then under the parachute because if you don’t part of the parachute will turn and eventually collapse. Another problem is that you have to run at the right time against the wind. If you don’t have enough wind you won’t get the lift to glide. If you have too much turbulent wind you will fly very erratically if at all and can even get thrown into the ground.

The ground we were running on was a mountain. Therefore, there were bushes, rocks, and uneven ground. With obstacles on the ground and me looking in the air, needless to say, I bit it a couple times. The biggest one was when I was running, but not directly into the wind. My parachute was turning counterclockwise. Alex seeing that I was almost up in the air tried to help me by pushing me left. Maybe if I was strong enough I could have handled the push better. Instead, the push threw me into the ground. The wind picked up and I was dragged on the ground for a while. Bruises and blood to show for that successful run.

All in all, I had 2 great flights. If I had another day to practice, I probably could have gotten a couple more in. The first one I got up on, I flew for like 20 seconds. It was a great feeling. I cut it short by accident since I didn’t know how to control my flight. I braked too hard and I dropped like a rock. I was only like 5 feet from the ground so it wasn’t too bad. The second time I flew I was up for around 30 seconds. This time again I stopped prematurely. I was afraid I was going to run into a tree and ended up turning too hard. No surprise I crashed to the ground.

Truly a fun experience but I still think sky diving is more fun than paragliding, at least where I paraglided.

Peace Corps: The Hardest Job You’ll Ever Love

Hello Peru Peace Corps!

Let me just give a “short” description of why I chose to join Peace Corps and how I have chosen to live my experience.

So for two years prior to joining Peace Corps, I worked in a highly compensated, but equally stressful banking job. I was a workaholic and sacrificed living life to worship money. Ironically, I barely spent any of it. Hah! I am definitely neither your typical banker nor your PC volunteer that’s for sure. Rather than continue the rat race, I decided that I wanted a vacation. Now who would call Peace Corps a vacation? Not many, I bet. Whatever your reasons for joining, I wanted to travel to another country, live another lifestyle, and help people along the way. What was funny was that my coworkers from my previous job asked me why I didn’t take an extravagant vacation in style rather than live a life of poverty. I guess they just didn’t get it, maybe I didn’t either.

Anyways, I got placed in an awesome country where diversity in terrain, people, and customs abound. However my first and main problem was my language ability. I suck at languages and my Spanish was and is sorely lacking. Ah well, not a total barrier really. I could always nod my head, say si, act like a fool, and after I learned “atayau sike,” there really was no stopping me.

Language issues aside, I also had to know what I wished to accomplish in Peru. Hell I am on vacation! Thus, I consciously decided to relax and enjoy myself. Even if I didn’t accomplish anything in the “western” sense, I would still be completely happy with my experience. On the other hand, I get a lot of pleasure in helping others. Therefore, if people want to work and help themselves, I am their man and will give them my all. I am happy to say that this outlook has served me well throughout my service.

Along the way, I’ve learned quite a lot and had some rather interesting surprises while living in Peru. I was probably the first volunteer in my group to poop in his pants and admit it. While embarrassed at the first telling, I now proudly recount the story as if it were a badge of honor. I have since pooped uncontrollably many times, but I no longer throw away my underwear. Yes, I know it’s gross but geez, I wouldn’t have any left and buying underwear in Peru just wouldn’t do.

You know, when I am blatantly ripped off, am ignored by kids or adults who just want to play and talk rather than learn, or see deadbeat drunks in towns wasting their money rather than feeding their kids, they certainly break my heart and enrage my mind. Yet these experiences aren’t total negatives because one I have gained a better appreciation of how good the US really is and two how the “western” way is not necessarily the best way to live. I love efficiency and service with a smile. I love things that make sense. However, what makes sense to me doesn’t necessarily mean a universal sense. To me, if people are content with their life why should they change? I can show and describe a different type of life, but can I honestly say that constantly working hard to improve my lot in life is better than just working half assed, complaining about life, and chilling around town i.e. basically living life without, God forbid, “western” ambition? Why should I encourage them to follow my values or goals? Only if they want to change and are ready to change, is it possible to help them change. Bitterly waiting with exasperation only causes stomach pain, lack of sleep, and white hairs!

Now, I highly commend those who want to make a difference. I salute your cause. I even follow it to a certain extent. The sad thing is that far too often I see your frustrations and annoyances that come when people fail to meet your expectations. Rather than get pissed off, why not just laugh it off, live the moment, and maybe see from their eyes why they do what they do. All acts are beautiful in a way, although some are diamonds in the rough.

In conclusion, I started my service hearing that Peace Corps is the hardest job you’ll ever love. I end my service knowing that it certainly wasn’t close to being the hardest job for me, but it is one that I love. It remains to be seen if it is the hardest job I’ll ever love.

Peace Corps 4: Shupluy, Ancash
Sam Young

About time eh?
Okay okay. I know I have been delinquent and I feel very sorry about my behavior. In my defense, I have been traveling all around South America and have had little time to write. In addition, it costs money to be on the internet and boy did I not have that money to spend. As my good friend Lev said that is an explanation and not an excuse. Therefore, I can only say I will post at least once a week (most likely more in the near term) until school starts for me in May. I will get my photos posted as well as soon as I figure out how to do it since I have gigs worth of photos.

As an update, I am now back in Austin and have been slowly unpacking all my crap. Who would have thought that with only a backpack of stuff for the last 4.5 months of travels I would have so much to go through. Then I smack my head. I had already had my family take stuff home for me when they visited me in Peru (more on this for another post). My memory and brain function has been changed to mush. I blame too much sun and beach.

Just a quick story on how I made it back home. I bought my flight home from onetravel.com a great service and value booking agent online. My flight was scheduled for Bogota, Colombia to Fort Lauderdale, Florida at 7:00 am on the 21st of February. I then catch a connection from Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta after a 2 hour lay over. From Atlanta I continue onto Austin with a 1 hour lay over and arrive at 8:55 pm. Okay 14 hours of travel no problem! Believe me I have had much worse on worse seating conditions.

Anyways my Colombian flight to Florida was a paper ticket and the domestic flights were e tickets. Why the company didn’t give me an e ticket for the international flight I have no idea. I didn’t even find out that this was a possible option until much later (this would end up biting me in the ass later on). When I bought my ticket online, it said that e tickets would be issued if they were possible. I couldn’t even specify an address of where to send the paper ticket though. To prevent fraud, the company would only send my paper ticket to my credit card billing address. This did me no good since my billing address was in Texas and not Colombia. Highly frustrating but thank goodness I have a family I can rely on. My mom was able to get the ticket and then she passed it along to my sister before she went on her trip. My sister then sent the ticket to me through ups. Unfortunately the mail system lost my ticket.

So I go on this huge round about process to get a new ticket. First I need to get a copy of my ticket and receipt. Second I need to get a letter saying I lost my ticket (more on this later). Third I need a copy of my passport. Lastly, I need $60.00. I totally felt this was a scam to get more money. I mean if the airline company can see me in their system, shouldn’t I just need to demonstrate that I am that person and then get a ticket reissued to me for free if not the cost of just printing the damn ticket. This would be at most a couple dollars, not $60. Ridiculous.

I decided to tackle the first issue first. This required about a $5 call to my travel agency to get a fax of my ticket and receipt of purchase. International calls to the US are not cheap especially in Colombia. It certainly didn’t help that I had to wait a couple minutes while I was put on hold to talk to a representative. Anyone who knows me, knows that patience and tolerance of racking up needless expenses pisses me off like nothing else even if it is a minimal amount. THE PRINCIPLE DAMN IT! So I talk to the representative. She was very helpful and I have nothing but positive things about their company. Anyways, she says that she will fax the airline company a copy of the ticket and a receipt. All I had to do now was go to a regional office and complete the next 3 items. I say excellent and fully expect that the first issue to be resolved. I then go to a regional airline office again. They tell me they didn’t receive the fax. I said yes they did. I got confirmation from my travel agent. They said which fax number did it go to? Then I say to your airline company with the fax number that your company told my travel agent. They said they didn’t know what number my travel agent sent it to and we have no way of verifying this. Apparently, I should have written down the fax number down. What customer service. They however gave me their regional office fax number and said if they received it with that number they could reissue me another ticket.

After being thoroughly disgusted with this process and finding out that it is closing time I can’t settle this issue today. So when I get back from my camping trip 3 days later I go in search for another phone booth to try again. I go call my travel agent again and waste another couple dollars to find out the fax number. The fax number was thrown away since the fax went through properly. To find the number again would mean going through the automated system of the airline company and then talking to a random representative who would probably give a totally different number. I did find out who she talked with, wouldn’t you know it first name only, but at least she told me which city she worked in, Medellin. I tried getting the travel agency to fax it to the fax number I got from the airline regional office. To my dismay, the travel agency could not fax internationally. Can you see what is going to happen next?

I went to the regional office with the information I had and then was told politely that the information I had was worthless. There are many offices in Medellin and to call all of them to find that girl was impossible. I said can you not make the effort and make some calls. To my great surprise the airline’s response to customer service was no. She then gave the wonderful advice of getting the copy of my ticket and receipt myself rather than getting it faxed to the airline office. Wow they just make life easy for the customer don’t they. I at least figured I could try and tackle the second issue while I had to work through the first issue. So I asked how do I get this letter saying I lost this ticket. Can I write it right now and give it to you. She looked at me strangely and said no, you have to go to the police station and file a report that I lost the ticket. Why in the world would a person need to fill out a police report to get a new ticket. I swear they have all these loops just so that the person would give up and buy a completely new ticket. I was losing hope and decided to check online what a new ticket would cost to get to Ft. Lauderdale. At least I could catch my connecting flights to Austin right? Well I found that it would cost me about $350. ARGH! I almost considered buying it and saving me the hassle of more loop jumping. Then I said, well if I could save at least $250 it would be worth it. I mean I browse shopping aisles for at least a couple minutes to save a couple cents. Chin up!

To the police station, but where? You have to realize that I am traveling around the country, so I wasn’t in one area for a long period of time. I find a taxi and ask for the police station. Another $4 down the drain. What is funny is that I had a somewhat big bill (equivalent $10) and the taxi driver didn’t have change. So I got shafted about a couple cents. Ah well when it rains it pours. I go to the police officer and we fill out the appropriate forms. Upon completion, the police officer asks me for a tip for services rendered. I was like what? Police officers ask for tips to do their job. Hmm. Well at this point I felt that I probably should improve my karma, so I give him the remaining amount of money I have, 25 cents (except $4 worth to get back to my hostel). I catch a cab and now I am flat broke. Enough of this headache for today.

The next day I am in a completely new city again. This meant that I had to find a new office and phone. Off again in search of a freaking phone. I call Josie, my sister, this time because I need a fax number in the states and then she can scan the fax and email it to me. I can then print the stupid thing out and then bring it myself to the airline office. The adage “if you want something done, do it yourself” was proving to be all too true. After getting a hold of my sister and getting the fax number, I call up the travel agent. This time everything went without a problem, except the phone lady decides to over charge me basically 25 cents. If I made a big deal here I would have probably blown up at the poor girl who probably just added wrong. Better to walk away then get madder.

A new day and a new try at this problem. I go with the fax copy of my ticket and receipt, a copy of my passport, the police loss report, and a vague notion of how I am going to pay the $60 to another airline regional office. This time, success. Luckily Garett, my buddy, lent me $60 worth of pesos to pay the airline. Oh wait, just because they told me I only had to pay $60 doesn’t mean I actually pay $60. Nope I got to pay an additional 14% IVA tax. Wonderful.

All in all, I still ended up saving around $250. I didn’t have to pay for a new ticket, but boy did I have a huge hassle to get this ticket thing straightened out.

Now for the kicker. Fast forward to Feb 21. I go to the airport for my 8:55 am flight. I get there with 2 hours to spare. After waiting around 30 minutes I find to my great dismay that my flight was cancelled due to plane problems. I was to catch the 11:00 am flight. Well that means I miss my connection to Atlanta and Austin. This comes the day after the Jet Blue debacle. What do I get? They reschedule my flight to leave Ft. Lauderdale at 7:00 am to Atlanta and then Atlanta to Austin. Drum roll. Final time to home 12:00 pm! I get a free lunch, phone call at the airport in Bogota, and a free night stay at Ft. Lauderdale. The meal was alright so that was okay. I make my phone call and tell my mom to expect me the next day. So far so good right, laughingly no.

I get off in Ft. Lauderdale and I make my way through customs. I definitely appreciated the warm welcome home. I then proceed to the ticket office to pick up my hotel voucher. I also asked for a free dinner and breakfast. It was 5 pm now and I figured I get to my hotel and maybe go out and check out the city. Nope it takes the airline 1.5 hours to get me a hotel room. HOW IN THE WORLD DOES IT TAKE 1.5 HOURS TO GET A HOTEL RESERVATION? I finished my book at least. Humanitarianism in Crisis (good book but pretty depressing). I finally get my hotel room, free transportation to and from the hotel-airport and 2 meal vouchers worth $20 for dinner and $10 for breakfast. I check into the hotel around 8 pm. I ask the hotel for my wake up call at 4:15 am so I have plenty of time to catch my taxi at 5 am. I am exhausted and starving. Thank goodness for room service. So I got a voucher for breakfast right, unfortunately breakfast doesn’t start until 6 am. Taxi at 5 am to get to the airport, doh. Well with some deft negotiating, I get to combine my vouchers and I order a nice dinner. This will prove to be a mistake since I should have ordered something to save for breakfast the next day as well. Hindsight is so 20 20. Anyways I had a nice night. With expert travel experience now I did not depend on the hotel to give me my wake up call that I asked for. I set my own alarm clock. Surprise surprise. No wake up call except from my alarm clock. Taxi thank goodness was there on time.

Upon my arrival at the Delta terminal they tell me that my airline did not make my connection reservation. How fitting really. Delta however was helpful enough to get me another flight, too bad it was 2 hours from my supposed flight to Atlanta. Now if I knew this yesterday I could have ordered breakfast since I wouldn’t need to get my taxi until 7 am. This flight was also to Orlando so that meant no snacks or drink. Because I have become quite adept at fasting and starving, I figured I could make it. I guess I could have broken down and bought something with my credit card, but I felt that was so wrong since the airline should be taking care of all this. Unfortunately not. I now had to make another phone call to my mom to tell her that I was going to be another hour later. Delta did not have a phone available for me to call my mom and I didn’t want to call her that early since it was really like 5 am in Austin. Collect call then when I get into Orlando. Sigh.

Well I sit and watch espn sports center as I wait for my flight. I watched it run through at least 2 times before other stores start opening at the airport. The boredom was almost unbearable. Books or magazines are an absolute must when traveling. I thought the hotel would provide a free newspaper. Why would that be the case though really.

Who would have thought these problems would have occurred. I find soon after that when my friend Garett flew home (5 days later), he also missed a connection but his airline gave him a $500 flight voucher and found him another connection that still got home the same day albeit a couple hours later. Justice where!

Well I finally make it to Orlando and then to Austin without any more problems. I must say it was a long ordeal getting back home, but home sweet home it is.

This was an excellent trek that Ryan, Seth and I did in 3 days and 2 nights during Easter. We carried our own packs, so no donkeys or guides. It was a very beautiful trek and I must say the preparation that we did was amazing.

For food, Ryan and I decided to bring 50 pieces of bread, 4 kilos of peanuts, half a kilo of toasted corn, 2 kilos of mandarins, 2 kilos of apples, 6 pieces of chocolate, 2 bags of jelly, a jar full of olive oil (strange that Ryan would choose this of all things), some salt to mix with the olive oil, and a small tub of Gatorade mix. We had iodine tablets to purify water, so we did not have to carry that much water, just about 2 liters at a time. Okay, Ryan and I are pretty crazy. Yes, I think this is what it is. I am cheap. Ryan is lazy. Both of us feel that if we don’t care and we can survive, why bother really. We can eat well when we get back to civilization, which we did by the way. We all ate a quarter of a chicken, a pound of fries, and a plate of salad. So I lost a couple pounds when I got back. In fact as a running joke between a couple of the volunteers, we tested if we could enclose our thighs with our two hands. None of us could do it at the beginning of the hike and by the end, Seth and I could easily do it. Sadly Ryan just barely missed it. You have to realize though that he is 6’1” and weighs about 190 lbs. I on the other hand am 5’9” and weight around 140 lbs. Plus I’ve played a lot of piano so my hands are stretched out! Seth is 5’8” and about 135 lbs. Seth on the other hand had much better food. He had canned tuna, canned hot dogs, peanut butter, jelly, trail mix, and dried fruit.

Okay back to the trip. So we had a 2 person tent and we slept 3 guys. Seth even brought 2 dogs. Thank goodness the dogs carried their own food. However since it was so cold at night, the freaking dogs tried to cuddle up to the tent. I was having none of this. So when one of the dogs tried sleeping under my legs, I decided to push it away. It was a struggle all night long. I barely slept at all because it kept trying to snuggle. Argh! At least the other dog bothered the other group that so happened to be doing the same hike as us.

Where are my manners though, I keep jumping ahead. So from the beginning.

Ryan and Seth were going to leave Huaraz at around 5 am to get to Caraz by 7. I was going to leave my site at around 6:15 and get there at 7. What ended up happening was that Ryan overslept. Go figure. In fact Seth couldn’t find Ryan nor could he reach him on the phone since his phone was off. Genius!

Seth ended up leaving Huaraz around 6:30 and I met up with him in Caraz by 9. Luckily, Ryan woke up naturally by 8 and made it to Caraz by 10. Seth and I had a nice breakfast and waited for Ryan. I bought like 3 empanadas which are like pocket filled bread and meat for Ryan so we could get on our way. Good stuff.

We find a taxi to take us to the trail head, which is about 1.5 hours away and we are off at 11:30. Now camp site according to our handy little trekking book should only be around 6 hours away. Well we needed to book it so that we could hit our campsite before night fall.

Once we started, we noticed a recurring theme that would prove to be quite annoying for me. There was a lot of water in our trail. When we did this hike, we were at the tail end of rainy season so the trail was quite wet. Well if I had water proof boots this would not have posed a bad problem, however I only had low top trail running shoes. This forced me to hop, jump, and pray that I didn’t soak my shoes. Let me tell you, jumping and carefully stepping around with a heavy pack of around 50 pounds is not fun.

Well the first day was for the most part not that spectacular, but the last hour was pretty cool. We could finally see the valley and snow capped mountains peaking through the towering mountains in front of us. Combine this with swirls of clouds surrounding and enveloping the mountains, we had quite a trek ahead of us.

When we made camp it was around 4 pm. We made good time. It was also interesting to find out that a group from Peace Corps Peru 5 also was doing the Santa Cruz trek as well. Apparently they got rained out of their original trek, the Huaywash trek. There was so much rain that the town where the hike starts was completely flooded.

Well we ended up camping behind a huge rock to protect us from the wind. This proved to be a very smart choice by Ryan. Good thing both Seth and Ryan were both eagle scouts. I was in capable hands. The other group however was in a more open area so they froze in the night. Haha.

Anyways, the 3 of us were in a tiny 2.5 person tent. Let’s just say even though I was very tired, I still didn’t sleep very well. This is due to a number of things. I generally don’t sleep that well when I sleep next to someone. We were also at an altitude of 3600 meters so that was also another factor. The smallness of the tent also did not help. The stupid dogs kept on trying to sleep outside of the tent but under my feet to be warmer. Unfortunately, everytime the dogs cuddled and moved against me, I woke up. How frustrating.

Well in the morning we found that the cows or the donkeys tried to steal food from our camp site. Once again due to keen foresight by my camp mates we didn’t loose any food. The other group however lost a bag of bread and peanuts. Quite amusing really.

The second day was supposed to be a 5 hour hike in one of our guides, but a 7 hour hike in another. The guides were completely off and totally unreliable. We figured this out after the second day.

Another funny thing that we did was that we decided to start our hike like 30 minutes before the other group because they were like 6 girls and 1 guy. We felt that we could hike faster than them so we didn’t want to be held back. It was either that or start later than them so that we wouldn’t be embarrassed if they out hiked us.

So we left around 9 am. The 30 minutes was enough of a lead because we were able to make extra time to give us an even greater buffer when we had to jump over flooded trails. Since we could jump farther and not get too soaked with our shoes, we were able to add another 20 minutes on them. After hiking for about two hours, we noticed that we were pretty close to the second camp site. Ryan and I decided to then go on a side hike to get some better pictures of some really awesome mountains. Seth was pooped from carrying all his extra load (extra food adds a lot of weight, which we ended up helping offload into our stomachs!) from yesterday so he decided to take a break and wait for us. Ryan and I hiked probably another hour up a steep mountain to get to a ridge with an amazing view of mountains in front of us and behind us. Pretty awesome. When we came back down, we made our last ascent to the camp site in 2 hours. So instead of the times that the guide books said, we finished it in 4 hours with heavy packs on.

This camp site was really gorgeous. We were in an amphitheater of snow capped mountains. The sunset struck the mountains with colors of orange, red, yellow, and purple. Man it was beautiful. One of the more beautiful camp sites I have ever stayed at. So the other group once again stayed at the wrong place. It really does pay to have experienced campers making the decisions of where to camp. Once again, we had our tents protected from the cold wind at night, while the other group was exposed. Since we had lots of time we played cards, read, and chatted the afternoon away.

The night was uneventful and the dogs thank goodness did not cuddle against the tent. We tied them up, but they freed themselves. They ended up sleeping in between our backpacks and a rock wall.

The next day was the highest pass at 4500 meters. Since our campsite was so great we wanted to take pictures of the sunrise against the mountains. We were up around 5 ish. I couldn’t sleep anyways. Ryan and I kind of back tracked to get some great pictures. He went back to the ridge while I headed to the other side of the valley to get different angles. By the time we returned back to the camp site, the other group was almost ready to go. So to get to the pass the book said we needed 4 hours. To get the best views, we needed to hit the pass before 12 or else the clouds would start to cover the mountains. We ended up leaving around 9:30. By now we knew that the estimates were way off. The other group left us about 45 minutes earlier than us.

We were able to catch up to most of them. We took some short cuts across the field rather than walk on the trail. Honestly why should we wrap around a large field when you can cut across. I also prefer to hike up steeper paths rather than going through switch backs. I expend less energy. This however almost led me to fall down the mountain. I had a heavy pack on and I was scrambling up a 60 degree angle. I had to grab grass to steady myself. Looking back, I made a very stupid decision. I could have easily hurt myself, because it was too steep to go down. Up was the only option, or rolling down the mountain. Ryan and Seth were smarter to follow the switch backs. I finally hit the switch backs after climbing probably 60 dangerous meters. Anyways, because I was in such a precarious position, I had tons of adrenaline rushing through my body. With this overload of energy, I powered through 1.5 hours of switch backs that was still steep trekking. Only 1 girl, Susannah, was ahead of me. She totally kicked our butt. She was sitting at the highest rock at the pass waiting for us. She was not only at least 1.5 hours ahead of her group she was 30 minutes ahead of me and I was ahead of Ryan and Seth by 30 minutes. So anyways, we hit the pass in 3 hours and had some great photo opportunities. We ended up hanging out at the pass for close to an hour and a half. It was just so beautiful. Also when you reach the highest point in the hike, you just get such a great feeling of accomplishment. I will always love trekking and climbing even if the path is difficult. It makes the accomplishing of the goal that much more special.

We ended up descending before the other group. We wanted to see if we could hike out that day rather than spend another night. We had another 4 hours of light and felt that we could do it if we pushed it especially since the guide books said it would take 4 hours. The hike out was a lot longer than what we thought The guide books were off by at least an hour each day, so we figured we could do it in 3 hours. Little did we know that hiking down, the book was pretty accurate. I guess people are slower when climbing up and more similar when going down. We basically made it out in 3.5 hours. I must say though that the first 2 hours were either down or flat. The descent was hard on the knees, but the final 1.5 hours was brutal because it was about a 600 meter ascent. After an hour my legs were shaking when we were taking short breaks. I almost said enough especially after we kind of got lost and took a longer way. Stupid paths were not clearly marked. I powered through though since both Ryan and Seth weren’t about to give up. I guess when you are in a group you push yourself so that you aren’t a liability to the group even if you want to quit if you are alone. When we finished, we found out that there was no transportation out to Yungay. We needed to spend a night in a hostel and take an early morning combi ride. Argh. I must say that if I could do it over again, I would have spent another night at the third camp site rather than pushing so hard to finish in the 3rd day. We basically did a 4 day hike in 3 days. I can’t really complain though, since we would have run out of food on the 4th day.

We stayed in a hostel room with a single and a double bed. Ryan and Seth slept together and I got the single. They were nice enough to give me the single bed. They knew that I didn’t sleep well when lying next to someone.

We went to bed early like 7 since our room didn’t have electricity. We were so tired that we would have fallen asleep at 7 even if there was electricity.

The next day we caught a combi down, however the combi was completely packed. We rotated sitting on a sack of potatoes and contorting our bodies to fit between the other passengers, the money collector, and 2 dogs. It was hard enough getting this combi because the other two that came were packed as well and did not want to take dogs. I can’t really blame them because most Peruvians are afraid dogs will bite. Dogs here are used to protect houses from burglars and very often will attack strangers even in day light. So what did we do, Ryan and I hailed the combi down. Negotiated the price for 3 people and said our friend was inside the hostel still and would be right out if the combi would take us. Seth, however, was hiding in the hostel with the 2 dogs so the combi driver and collector wouldn’t see them until after they had agreed to taking us down to Yungay. Once you say okay, you can’t go back on your word. Strange how sometimes that works and other times it doesn’t.

So we get into the combi. After a couple minutes we notice that our body parts were falling asleep from lack of blood flow. We were all in such uncomfortable positions. I kept on massaging and shaking my legs even though my legs were already so tired from the previous day’s hike.

The ride down required us to cross a pass that is over 4200 meters high. Probably one of the highest drivable roads in the whole world. Definitely a nerve raking ride. There were times where I thought a part of the car was off the ledge. We had so many switchbacks to make it slowly down from the pass.

After riding the combi down for close to 2 hours, we reached the park entrance. Since we were in a national park, we had to pay an entrance fee. Well since we came from the back entrance we needed to pay going out. Personally, I think this makes absolutely no sense since they can’t really enforce this rule since we are leaving. Well the combi driver was willing to take a bribe to get us through without paying. So the camping fee is 65 soles per person. He was asking for a total of 50 soles for the three of us. It made sense, but we were Peace Corps volunteers so we should have been able to get into the park for free. We decline the bribe offer and go to the park office to explain that we didn’t need to pay. Unfortunately, I did not have my ID on me, Ryan had a photocopy, and only Seth had his. After much talking, Seth got to go without paying. Apparently a photocopy is not good enough either. We concluded with only having to pay for 1 pass between Ryan and myself. So frustrating. I didn’t have my ID, because I didn’t want to carry my wallet during the hike. That is like extra weight that I didn’t want to be weighed down! Freaking unbelievable. It wasn’t that much weight and now I had to pay 65 soles. Ah well, that is life I guess.

Well after that, we returned to Huaraz and recooperated for a day. It was awesome. We had great food, wonderful hot showers, and warm beds. All in all, a great hike.

This may seem like a strange blog, but I have been preoccupied that I will be a terrible father. I am no where near having a kid, heck I do not even have a girlfriend. So why am I focusing on such an event that seems so remote?

To be honest, I thought I would be a great dad. I mean I thought I was a good guy with good intentions. I would love my kids and teach them to be the best they could be. I wouldn’t force them to do things that they didn’t want to do and I would always support them no matter what. I no longer have stubborn views on what I think is morally right or wrong nor will I impress upon them my views on things. Well some would already judge me as being a poor father just by this short description of myself. Then again what do I care what other people think. I don’t. As long as my kids are happy and doing their best in whatever their doing, I will be happy.

Okay now fast forward through my PC service. I have learned and reflected that I am not patient and I demand perfection from myself and others, well I guess I always knew this about myself. If people fail to meet my expectations, woe is our fate together. My kids would not be exempt. Thank goodness I have low expectations for most people. Sad to say, but it is true. On the flip side, I have the greatest hope that people can be the best that they can be. Sounds like a contradiction, but in my world, my mind, it is perfectly possible. I want people to prove me wrong. This way if they don’t I won’t be devastated. If they do, they will have gained a friend that will drop everything to help them in their time of need. This is a double edged sword though, since if they then break my trust, my friendship with them will be forever lost. Another bad quality, I am not forgiving.

Now, let me explain a little more with practical examples why I am afraid I will be a bad father. I used to love teaching, to the point where I was considering to be a professor. I found out though that I hated research. I guess it runs in the family. Anyways, so I passed on being a professor. When I joined PC, I believed that I would enjoy teaching the kids at my site whatever it might be. I learned quite quickly that I would never be a teacher. I’ve always had a lot of respect for teachers, and I am truly amazed how they can handle it day in and day out, year after year, when students are so disrespectful and show such lack of interest in learning. All they want to do is play, know things immediately without working at it, think they know everything, and the list goes on. Obviously there are some good students and breakthroughs of aha!, but the moments are so far and beyond that I wonder how you guys do it. My hat’s off to you! If I can find a teacher who truly does have that patience, knowledge to bestow, and motivator to get the students to want to learn, I would happily pay that person lots of money. In my conceitedness, I thought I could be that teacher if not to students, at least to my own kids. How wrong I am! I no longer have that confidence that I can do so. Can I take the disrespect, the stubbornness, and idiocy that I know is inevitable? What makes me think that it won’t be so? I was that kid! So don’t tell me that it won’t be that bad. I wasn’t even that bad of a kid!

Okay next example. I’ve been trying to teach the cats at my house not to sleep on the wood stove. Obviously, the cats are cold at night and are just trying to warm themselves by the stove. Well the trade off is that they sleep in the ashes and get super dirty and breath in smokey ash. Not the safest of propositions. So everytime I see them laying by the stove, I try and wash the cats, ie give them a bath. The idea is to ingrain in the cats’ brain that laying by the stove equates to baths and everyone knows that cats hate baths. Well the baby kitten is easy prey for me. However, the 2 older cats are generally too fast for me to catch, but since they like being petted and scratched, they generally rub up against my leg when they feel like it and then I can catch them. I am one devious fool. Can you see where this is going? It becomes quite hilarious until you find out how crazy I am.

Okay, the lessons aren’t going well. The cats aren’t getting it and this is starting to frustrate me. So I have washed the poor kitten over 5 times now. This last time I caught the kitten after some strenuous exercise. It is growing you know! Since I was annoyed I decided to give the kitten a great bath. Some would call it animal torture. I am sure if someone held me under a hose and had water constantly splashed right in my face that it would not be fun or amusing. Since this itty bitty thing was small, it couldn’t get away, scratch me when I held all the legs by its “armpits” nor could it turn its head and bite me. Perfect hold really if I do say so myself. Okay after the bath, I decided to discipline the kitten a little bit more by slapping its head when I brought it close to the stove. Once again I was trying to ingrain the lesson in with punishments. I was told to train a dog to use the bathroom in a certain area, you need to rub the nose of the dog in the poo or pee it just did and then move the poo or the pee to where you want it to use the bathroom and rub the dog’s nose again in its poo or pee. Personally I think this is rather distasteful, but who am I to argue. I also have seen trainers smack the nose of the animal when it does something wrong. Here I am rationalizing my training program. So this last time, I smacked a little too hard. I felt bad and then I dropped the kitten. Usually it lands on its feet, this time it landed on its head. I was really worried that I might have hurt it badly. It was kind of limping, although that was kind of weird since it landed on its head. Maybe I held onto it too tightly when I was giving it a bath. Either way I felt bad and then watched it for a bit. It then started to shiver from the cold. The water is freezing cold. I don’t even take showers at my site if I can help it, at most 2x, my whole entire time here. Well I placed it in the hot sun to warm itself. I know after a bit it would be warm in no time. I watched some World Cup and checked back on the kitten during halftime. It was doing fine thank goodness.

After the World Cup game I see one of the older cats that is white, but since it sleeps in the oven so much it is grey. Talk about dirty. This one is an adult now and I haven’t washed it in over 4 months. Last time I did it, my host mom helped hold it. This time I was on my own. Well I pretend to scratch the cat, but instead catch it to wash it. I was too hasty and tipped my hand too early and couldn’t get a good grip, so it escaped. After trying for another 30 minutes or so, I was able to get a good hold. I used the same hold as I did with the kitten, which proved to be a grave mistake. While I am washing the cat, I try to get the whole body wet. I couldn’t really scrub because I was afraid that it would scratch me and run away. It was a lot stronger than I expected. So while I was washing its belly and neck, it finally had enough. With a solid 3 minutes of washing, it then proceeded to bite me on my right pinky! It sunk it’s teeth on my joint. Now this was a deep bite. I have to say it hit bone, if not, it would have taken a chunk of my skin off. After it sunk its teeth in me, I let go and then really smacked it hard as it was escaping. I was bleeding profusely. I know you pet lovers are now nodding your guys heads and thinking serves him right. Probably, but come on I was just trying to wash the cat and teaching it not to sleep in the oven!

I dosed my wound with rubbing alcohol and then pressed the 3 bite wounds with a cotton ball and held it above my heart for over 5 minutes. This stopped the bleeding on two of the bites, the teeth marks from the bottom two teeth. The top one from the long fang still did not stop. Holding it a little longer staunched the flow enough to use a band aid. Talk about awkward. The cotton part of the band aid could cover the deep wound but the sticky part of the band aid would cover the other bite wound. Ah well, what could you do. I used another band aid for the 3rd wound. Believe you me, I used a lot of Neosporin as well. Lucky for me I had a tetnus shot so I wasn’t too worried about any bad effects from the bites. I just had to make sure I cleaned the wounds thoroughly, and I definitely did that. Just to let you know, it has been another day since this happened and my pinky is still bleeding. If this continues, I will have to see a doctor.

Now every time I see that white cat I chase it out of the house, rather than what I really want to do, which is to throw it against the wall and bash its brain out (I will restrain that urge don’t worry, I am not a control freak for nothing). Sick I know, but I tell it how it is. Being a pet owner, is just not in my cards.

Okay so what does this say, I can’t even take care of a pet or want to for that matter. How can I begin to even take care of something much more complicated and life changing? Do I have the patience to deal with the insanity that is bound to come? Can I restrain my temper and not do irrevocable harm? These are questions that pass through my mind. It certainly doesn’t help that a couple of my friends and family are getting married and having kids. Although I am slowly growing out of thinking of myself as a kid, I feel like man time is flying and soon I may be facing this decision for real!

Let me just start off with this trip was awesome. I spent a ton of money, but it was well worth it. I went to Rio for Carnival, the biggest party in the world. Why did I take this trip in the middle of my service? I thought I was going to go to business school and would not have the time to do it and I would have regretted that decision. Little did I know, I changed my post PC plans. Rather than applying to Australia schools, I applied to American and British schools, which start in August so I had plenty of time to travel after my PC service. Unfortunately I had already bought my flight to Rio and tickets to the Sambodromo parade. Couldn’t back out now.

My travel buddies were Kat and Henry. Great travel partners by the way.

So the start of the trip was very exciting. We almost missed the flight to Brazil right off the bat. This is due to my tight timing. I always wait until the last moment to get to the airport, bus station, etc. I feel like why wait at the station when I can wait in the comfort of my home. I misjudged how far the airport was from the Fargo’s house. Kat and Henry were freaking out that we would miss the flight. This was an international flight so the recommended time to be at the airport before boarding is 2 hours. I’ve learned that you can easily make any flight 30 minutes before take off if you have no bags to check. I gave myself an additional 30 minutes so I was planning on getting to the airport 1 hour in advance. Too bad the taxi trip to the airport was about 30 minutes longer than I anticipated. I also forgot that Lima has a super long security check line. Who would have thought a midnight flight would have such long lines. So as the departure time was dropping into the teen minutes and we were still in the security check line, I could understand the heightened concern that Henry and Kat both shared. I told them to relax. No problem. If need be, we could cut in line for the security check. I see this happening all the time. In this instance though, the security guards kept on thinking that we had plenty of time, when in fact we did not and would not let us cut in line. Ah well. Once crossing the security line, we had like 7 minutes before departure and we hadn’t even gotten to the gate yet. Usually planes leave the gate at the departure time so we decided to just run for the gate. When we got there, we got on a bus to take us directly to the plane. On that bus there were 2 people. After us, there were 3 more people. This was a packed flight too. The 8 of us embarrassedly found our seats and the plane immediately took off after we sat down. I guess since we got on so late, we lost our reserved seats. At least we made it.

So the flight was to Santiago, Chile and then to Rio, Brazil. I must say the flight to Santiago was very comfortable and beautiful. We had views of the Andean mountains and we had our own movie monitor for each seat. By the time we reached Santiago it was morning and had a couple hours before our next leg to Rio. Although this flight was neither as pretty nor comfortable, we just had a monitor in the aisle rather than for each seat. Go figure.

Well when we arrived in Rio, we had a wonderful time getting ripped off taking a cab to Copacabana. Apparently there is a bus that can easily take you there for a much cheaper price. I want to say like $3 instead of the $20 that we each paid. It certainly would have helped if we took the time to learn some Portuguese. We thought and were told that if we spoke Spanish we could get around. Let me put that myth to rest. We could not really communicate at all. Not in English nor in Spanish. Sigh. This would cause much amusement for us throughout the trip.

Once we got to our hostel, they didn’t have Kat’s reservation. Why was I not surprised. They overbooked and then tried to shaft us. I was having none of this. I basically said it was their fault and that they would need to fix it. Although we ended not getting the room we paid for, we at least had beds to sleep on. The other guy that we basically took the bed from ended up sleeping on a couch for a day. Poor guy. Stupid hostel. Never staying there again.

Well after situating ourselves we decided to get some food. Lucky for us we were right in the middle of Copacabana and within 3 blocks from the beach. Just to let you know, I would rather stay at Ipanema than Copacabana. It’s all about the atmosphere. I can’t really say Copacabana was bad, it was just that Ipanema was just better. Anyways, we were in a good area. Lots of juice shops and nice restaurants.

Brazil is known for its meat, but what I found more interesting was that everyone ate while standing up at sandwich restaurants. You get a nice sandwich that is much better than Quiznos but you pay more for less ie no chips or drink. For that you pay extra, but rather than chips you get fries. We ended up buying a sandwich and some fruit juice. Now this is what I love, fresh juice. Brazil is a tropical country so we had plenty of tropical fruits to choose from. I tried every single fruit that I could find. This means I drank more than 20 different fruits on this trip and could not be happier.

Okay lunch down, off to the beach! So what is Rio known for? Beautiful women. Yes I am that shallow. Did I see this? Yes and no. Sure there were some truly gorgeous women in skimpy bikinis. But what was most refreshing was that everyone wore skimpy clothes whether they were attractive or not. I mean you had obese people wearing thongs. You had lumpy old men wearing speedos and showing their package. Obviously you had your boy toys and beach bunnies, but to see how comfortable everyone was with their body was truly amazing. Why can’t the rest of the world be more like that? I don’t care if you are ugly or pretty. If you walk around comfortably in your own skin, that is the epitome of being beautiful and healthy.

After walking down the beach and up the street it was getting late. We decided to try out another restaurant and some more ethnic dishes. Unfortunately we did not know even how to ask for a restaurant let alone directions. Quite comical really. We ended up eating at a place that looked like a fast food. To be honest, I was disappointed. I wanted traditional food from a good restaurant. But to travel well in a group, one must compromise and I did. The food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great and I vowed to eat at better places even if that meant eating alone. Lucky for me, Henry was in agreement and so was Kat to a certain extent except she didn’t really eat beef. Brazil, where there is tons of beef, is what I am talking about! Well we decided to walk around, but since we knew that the nights would start to get more crazy starting the next night, we didn’t stay out that late.

What I noticed was that Brazil, although hot and humid, wasn’t as bad as Singapore or Taiwan. Maybe it was the beach breeze or something, but it was rather comfortable especially at night.

Okay the next day, we all woke up at different times and kind of split off and explored on our own. We then met up before lunch and shared another nice sandwich and another juice. I can’t say enough about the great drinks I had there.

We went to the beach again, some took naps, others went into the beach. It was just great relaxing. I loved the beach. The water was warm, not hot or cold. It was clean. There were tons of people laying out. The beach was super long and tall buildings were in back of us. At both ends we could see tall rock formations at least 50 stories tall. Gosh it was nice. I would have taken more pictures, but I was paranoid about losing my camera. All I heard before going to Rio was that there were thieves everywhere and that even a watch you are wearing could be stolen without you knowing.

Anyways after lounging around we decided to eat at a restaurant and boy was the food good, although I was already starting realize that Brazilian food would not be my favorite meal over and over again. It is just so heavy with grease and fat. Meat, meat, meat, don’t they eat any vegetables here? Henry and I basically ate at a meat buffet. The waiters walked around carrying slabs of meat. You kept signaling to them if you want them to cut slices of meat for you. Little did we know drinks are not cheap nor do they give free refills. Talk about being thirsty! That is where they stick you the drinks! I think I tried almost every part of a cow! Haha, but at the same time gross.

Okay so tonight was the first night before Carnival was to start. We end up going to Lapha, basically a street filled with pubs and discotechs. It was a complete mess! The roads were packed with people. There were people dressed in all sorts of costumes, but the most common was probably shirtless for guys and skimpy tops for girls. There were bands playing drums at various corners and side streets. People were just having a blast. You could feel the energy. The best part of the night at least for me was going into a side garage area where there was a live samba band going full out. Everyone was dancing to the music. Now samba is very difficult. Why? The steps are super intricate and fast. I could not figure it out, but it was sure fun to watch and dance anyways. I can see why Brazilians can be so thin even though they eat so much meat. Their dancing would burn off any meal no problem. Well as I said, I had a great time, however Henry got his wallet pick pocketed. As an aside, Kat and I were lucky enough that we didn’t lose anything during the whole trip. Although I must have looked rather weird always having my hands in my pockets regardless if I was walking or standing.

Well we finished the night off and made it back by 3 ish. Not too bad. The next day we did our own thing again and then met up in the afternoon. We found another restaurant and tried some more juices. Fabulous. We rested up for tonight was the Sambodramo, the Carnival parade. This was the highlight of the trip. It starts at 8 at night and goes all the way until morning. Each Samba school has a huge parade along the same long strip of a straight runway street and is judged for its performance and costume. After 3 straight nights, the Samba schools rankings for the year are pronounced. The top 6 schools then parade again that next Saturday. We went the first night of the judging, but rather than getting there at 8 we got there around 11. We were told that it was better to go latter so that we could make it through the night. Mistake! Don’t make that mistake. I think it would have been cool to see the opening ceremonies. Oh well, next time. Also do not buy tickets in advance. Buy from a scalper. You will pay through the nose if you buy online in advance. You will also have no problem getting tickets from scalpers.

Anyways when we got there, it started to pour down on us. Can you believe it, it was raining buckets on us. We were completely soaked through. I guess if you spin it, you can say at least the night was a lot cooler. I won’t do that. It was terrible for 5 hours. Rained probably for 3 hours. We were then cold for 2 hours until we dried off. After 4 we felt good.

First off, the costumes were gorgeous. The intricate samba dancing was beautiful. The people were rowdy and totally into it. Everytime the schools passed by we would be standing and singing. Each school would take 45 minutes and then there would be a 15 minute break to clean up the graffiti on the street. Did you know you could dance in the parade. You have to pay like $300 for a costume that you can keep and you parade with the samba schools. Pretty neat. Henry is thinking about doing it next time. I think I will buy different tickets so I will be closer to the street instead. Either way we had a blast. I never lost my energy. Kat and Henry however kind of went downhill at around 7 in the morning. Can’t really blame them we stayed up the whole night and survived a torrential downpour. Fantastic! Totally worth it.

Well we thought the thing was ending so we ended up leaving early to beat the crowd. Little did we know there was another school after we left. Doh! Ah well. We saw 8 schools and one of them was the eventual winner. Yah!

By the time we got back to our hostel it was close to 9. We crashed until the afternoon again and then went out to the beach again to relax. What a life! Saw a great parade, probably none better in the world, and then relax on a beautiful beach to recover. Awesome. We have another wonderful meal and this time proceed to enjoy some of the street parades around Copacabana. Basically you walk, dance, jump down the street while this huge bus blares out music. Sort of fun, but probably more fun if you are roaring drunk, at least that is how it seemed. I guess it is kind of fun to be swept within a huge crowd and feel the energy of the masses. You have to be in the mood more than anything.

We get back at around 2 and call it a night. Why? Well because the next couple of days we were going to try and do some sight seeing. Did this happen? Not really. We ended up splitting up and doing our own thing. I guess hanging out together so much can be kind of stressful, so we took a break from each other and did our own thing again and met back together at night, ie Kat went off and Henry and I stayed together. Friends before hmmm. Honestly though, I was okay hanging out together. There were some underlying tension between Henry and Kat though, which I later understood. They were in the in between stage between going out and just being friends. Thank goodness at the end of the trip they had their nice talk and worked things out. But I am jumping ahead. Henry and I ended up going downtown and walked around for over 6 hours. We walked around the business district. We passed the harbor where cruise ships drop and pick up people. We even walked through and around the Falabella, the slum areas. Talk about getting lost and not knowing where to go. We ended up close to where the Sambodramo was ie 40 minute subway distance from where we were staying. Geez, lucky we found a landmark to get our bearings.

While we were at the hostel we met some cool roommates. One was an Argentine, another Irish, and the last one was German. Talk about neat. Different people from different countries coming together for Carnival. This is certainly a plus with staying in a hostel. You get to meet fellow travelers. Anyways the Argentine ended up hanging out with us a bunch. This proved to be very fortunate, since he spoke Portuguese as well English and Spanish. Our language barrier was now finally solved. We all ate together at this nice Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner. We hung out until 2 and then called it a night again.

The next day Henry and I went to the beach during the day and then Cristo Blanco when we thought we were going to Sugarloaf during the afternoon. Stupid hostel guy gave us the wrong directions. So pissed at that guy. Argh. Rather than seeing the sunset like I planned we saw absolutely nothing but clouds at Cristo Blanco. It is always clouded up in the afternoon so it only makes sense to see it during the morning. Ah well. Next time.

Later that night we went out again. It first started with a soccer game between the best team in the Brazilian league and some hated rivalvery. Sad to say, it waws not a roudy game at all. I was super disappointed. I thought there would be fires, fights, people throwing bags filled with water or other stuff. There were huge flags of the teams and they were waving them around, but man it was not packed at all and quite calm. Argh.

After the game, the Argentine, the German, and the 3 of us went to Lapha again. We ended up watching a live concert. They were alright. I definitely had high expectations sigh. Afterwards, we walked around again but Henry and Kat called it a night after making up around 2am. The German also said his goodbyes, leaving only the Argentine and myself. We decided to crash a discotech. I was disappointed. Nobody was inside really and we even paid a cover. Argh. We then walked around a side street and my friend caught a girl that met his fancy. Well I was no help since I couldn’t speak Portuguese and they couldn’t speak English or Spanish. I was a poor wing man that is for sure. I felt bad. It was so sad because she and her friends thought that my friend was lying to her when he told her that I didn’t know Portuguese since he could speak it like a native. Honestly though, why could that not make sense? Well when he got jilted, we decided to go into a pub to play pool. The freaking sticks didn’t even have tips, but at least the pockets were regular sized unlike the pockets in Peru. We played 3 games and tried our luck again at the discotech and found nothing worth staying for. By this time it was around 4am and I decided to call it a night. Probably the biggest waste of time out of my whole trip and reminded me of my New Years at Arequipa. I wanted to see something crazy and thought that the last night of Carnival week had to be balls out nuts. Boy was I disappointed. Why? oh Why?

The next day Henry and I went biking in the morning. We biked from Copacabana, to Ipanema, then around a huge lake, and then back. It was a nice relaxing bike ride but once again the language problem struck its ugly head. We didn’t know where we were going and had a hard time asking for directions. Luckily we met some people along the way that could speak Spanish. We finished the ride off with a nice lunch that was overpriced in Ipanema. I personally believe that the best food comes from hole in the wall restaurants rather than touristy restaurants. This has proved to be the case over and over. Do I ever learn?

When we got back to Copacabana we decided to give Sugarloaf another try. This time I asked the hostel guy again. He gave me the same info as yesterday. I then had to correct him and say no that would take us to Cristo Blanco. He didn’t even apologize, he just said oh right, it is this way. That freaking bastard. I wanted to punch his face. He almost single handedly made me dislike my time in Rio. Thank goodness there were plenty of nice people there that did not make me leave with a bad after taste in my mouth. Well we made it to Sugarloaf this time without problems and we got there before sunset so it was perfect. Gorgeous lookout point from the 50 story rock structure that we could see from the beaches. You had to take 2 ski lift thingies to get there. Not only did we get great views of downtown Rio, the beaches, and the ocean, we also had the added benefit to see the city during the amazing sunset. Even Cristo Blanco popped out of the cloud cover for a couple minutes. I have some fantastic pictures that could make it in a national magazine because I was lucky enough to have caught it at the right moment. It truly looked like it was floating in the midst of clouds. Breathtaking really. Luck more than anything else. What a great last day.

The next day we began our trip back to Peru. But before we left for our afternoon flight, Kat and I ended up going the HStern jewelry store and took their tour. It was pretty neat. I wanted to see the wedding rings because Josie, my sister, just recently got married and got a nice ring. I wanted to see what rings like hers would look like. Those stuck up bastards didn’t even let me see any. Can’t really blame them since I wasn’t going to buy anything. Still it is all about future sales though. It was a pretty sweet store though and watching how the make their jewelry was pretty cool. We even got free ice cream at the end and drinks at the beginning. They certainly know how to take care of their high clientele.

Well after that, it became quite uneventful really other than flirting with a cute Indian girl from London who was backpacking through South America on the bus ride to the airport. She ended up missing her flight. What was she thinking trying to get to the airport within an hour before her flight was to take off when the airport was at least 45 minutes away. Obviously not that experienced in traveling abroad. However during our chat, she mentioned that she was going to go through Peru a couple months later. I should have gotten her email address. I am such a pansy.

Overall the trip was totally worth it. So I spent over a thousand bucks, but I had a blast. Although I can’t overcome who I am and do something really crazy, I had a lot of fun and plan on doing it again some time in the future. There really is so much to see in this world.

1st story:
Today was my first day seeing a pig get castrated, first animal for that matter! The pig is already pretty good sized. I think it has to be about 2.5 feet tall and four feet long. It probably weighs close to 150 pounds. So both my host brothers tackled the poor pig and tied up its legs. Laying on its side and both brothers holding down the pig, one of the aunts took a razor and basically sliced his testicles area with a swiping motion. Note she was not sawing the thing, but swiping at it. I think she swiped like 5 times before it was cut open enough. She then proceeded to squeeze the balls out of the cut. To be honest it looked like it was only one big ball, but I couldn’t really tell. Maybe it was two but the sack was huge so it was hard to see. Anyways, she swipes the razor again until the sack is cut out. She then uses a piece of regular string to tie up the sack that she cut off. We then joke about feeding the sack of testicles to our dog. It will make the dog manlier since he is still a pup. I am still cringing here. She then uses the soap that I and the rest of the family uses to wash our hands to wipe down the pig’s ball less area. Yes, needless to say I did not use that soap for at least 1 whole day. Yes I still use the soap, but after a day the whole outer area that touched the pig has been washed away. At least that is how I see it. After washing it with soap, she douses the area with alcohol and this special medicine I guess that is suppose to keep the wound germ free. So even though she cut off its testicles, she did not sew it up. It will heal naturally I guess.

Some interesting tidbits: Here is the reasoning behind unmaning the pig. Without testicles, pigs grow faster! I don’t know about this theory, but I will definitely search it up. (The next free weekend I found this http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/T0690E/t0690e06.htm see Unit 33: castrating piglets.) During this operation, the pig made more squeals while it was being tied up than when its testicles were being swiped off with a razor. This is a testament of the pig’s submitting to its fate. Now, I wonder if I have pheromone that the pig gave off when its testicles were removed. You know when bees sting someone, they give off a pheromone on the person before it dies to warn other bees that this person is dangerous. This now attracts other bees to sting the person until it is no longer a threat to the hive. Well does this mean now, that I have the pheromone that pigs beware, I was in the vicinity of where a pig’s testicles were removed?

2nd story:
On one fine day when I was returning back to my site from Huaraz on a combi, a van that Peruvians use as a sort of bus service, the wheel fell off. Let me give you some back ground first. It takes about an hour to get from Huaraz to where I get off, Cruscatac. In each combi, there is a driver and a cobrador, fare collector by the sliding door, who collects money and opens and closes the door for the passengers. I was actually playing the cobrador on this trip because the combi didn’t have one for some odd reason. Well let me clarify, I played the opening and closing of the door role rather than fulfilling both roles. The driver was collecting money while driving. Not the safest thing to do either as he was driving through the winding roads in the Andes mountains. This is a rare occurrence by the way. Why else do you think there is 2 working in a combi. Now imagine a van that normally would fill at most 10 people fills usually 20 people. After 20 minutes or so from Huaraz, we hit a town called Marcara, a nice little town if I do say so myself. Right when we were about to continue our trip, the back wheel on the passenger side pops off and rolls ahead of the combi.

I see the wheel rolling past me, and I just blankly stare at it. I just sit there staring at it and say to myself, the wheel just popped off the car! How does that make any sense? Then I start laughing to myself. Why am I not surprised? After say 10 seconds, the driver gets out to check out what happened. I could have told him. The tire fell off the car and now the car can’t move. Another 10 seconds pass, the passengers realize that there will be no easy fix and I open the door to let all of us out.

The driver then had the nerve to ask for fares up to this point. Here he is driving a bad car and now wants money. Well you can’t really blame the guy. The fare from Huaraz to Marcara is S/ 1.50. Everyone pays some amount. I end up paying S/ 1.00. For some odd reason I thought it was S/ 1.00 because I thought it was going to cost me S/ 2.00 to get from Marcara to Cruscatac. I was wrong. So I ended up short changing him 50 centimos. My bad. I didn’t feel too bad though. He was driving a potential death combi and I was playing cobrador.

While I was on the next combi to get back to my site, I was thinking, Holy cow! The wheel could have fallen off while we were on a bend and I could have flown off the mountain side and died! Talk about being lucky. The wheel popped off as we were taking off so we had no real speed. Unbelievable. People die all the time in transit here in Peru. Certainly not the safest place to travel.

3rd story:
Have you ever eaten beets before? Really eaten beets? Well I have a little bit in the states but not to the extent where you get to notice some very interesting things. Beets stain things red. No problem. The first time I ate a lot of beets was here in Peru. Now all of you know that I have had numerous stomach issues here in Peru. I even had hemorrhoids with a little bit of bleeding bowels and everything. So when I found out after using the bathroom, in my daily morning routine I found the whole toilet was red. I was like what the hell! I’ve bleed before and was always on the look out for new bleeding but this was ridiculous. I was pretty worried that my hemorrhoids came back and it burst. Talk about being jolted awake. Well I decided not to panic, because as I wiped a couple of times, the redness started to disappear. Now if there was an open wound it would keep bleeding for a while. Wiping a couple times would not stop the bleeding that quickly. Don’t quote me hear. Doctors, feel free to comment here if I am wrong. So I decided not to call the doctor unless I noticed more bleeding. Lucky for me, there was no more bleeding. After talking with some of my friends and recounting what happened and what I ate for dinner the previous night, I realized the culprit was beets. Whew what a relief.

Now skip forward another 6 months till two days ago, I am no longer worried about my stools the day after I eat beets. However, the strangest occurrence was that I had pee the color of KoolAid. No joke. My pee was red. What the hell. Who would have thought, eating beets could change the color of urine! I’ve heard of urine smelling terrible after eating asparagus (I’ve witnessed this personally with my own, so I speak from experience!), but this is ridiculous. Ah well, the experiences you gain from being a peace corps volunteer is unparalleled.

What an exciting trip this was. This was basically a group birthday and get out of rainy season trip. In February, we had the following birthdays: Drew, Marta, Garrett, and mine. We decided to celebrate at a beach house close to the border of Ecuador. So about 14 of us rented out a beautiful house for a week. The water was warm since we were so far north. Apparently this is the perfect place to learn how to surf as well.

We left on Friday night to go to Trujillo. We get there about 6 in the morning and then take another 4 hour bus to Chiclayo. We take a short lunch rest and walk around a newly constructed mall for about 3 hours. The highlight there was that there was air conditioning in the stores. Chiclayo is a desert beach, so it was hot. We then take another 3 hour bus to Piura. Now I heard that Piura was unbearably hot. In actuality, it was quite nice. It was hot but at night there was a cool breeze. I cannot believe the exaggerations of my fellow volunteers. To give them credit though, it was not the hot season yet and I had not experienced the midday heat. We had a good time walking around the city at night and shopping for the beach house. We were going to cook most of our meals. Now this was amusing. Some of us were going to eat really cheap, ie Ryan and myself. Others were going all out like Drew and Marta. Here is what I ended up buying: 10 pieces of bread, a small jar of jelly, 2 cans of tuna, 6 bags of instant noodles, spaghetti noodles, a bag of chips, a litter of juice, a kilo tomatoes, a kilo of celery, a kilo of onions, a litter of milk, 2 boxes of cereal, a quarter of litter of vegetable oil, and 10 eggs of which only 4 made it because Ryan dropped and broke the rest of them. This was supposed to last me 6 days. Jumping a little ahead, I only went out to eat 2 meals my whole entire time there. Not bad eh!

The next morning, we headed out to Los Organos, another 4 hour trip. From there we took a mototaxi to Vichayito about a 30 minute ride. In total we traveled for about 21.5 hours to get to this beach house. Traveling isn’t so bad when you travel with friends and take breaks in between, but I can honestly say I was happy to have finally arrived.

After unpacking and preparing lunch (instant noodles, egg, and vegetables), we went out to Mancara to stock some supplies. Some of my food purchases were made here. We decided to walk there. It is about a 9 km walk. We walked along the beach and saw some amazing houses, although our beach house was still probably one of the best of all the houses I saw there. The power of group collection can’t be beat.

By the time we were done with shopping it was late and we needed to use a mototaxi to get back. Too bad while we were there it sort of rained so the mototaxis actually couldn’t make it to our beach house. We ended up walking probably a kilometer with groceries. Not too bad, but after the long walk to the town we were already kind of tired. Well when we got to the house we were pooped, but there was no sleep in store for me. I was going to share a king size bed with Ryan and Henry. Since I am touch phobia, I couldn’t sleep with them. I was too concerned that I might toss and turn and accidentally hit them or they might hit me. So what did I do? I went down stairs and slept on the couch. It was great. I had the whole long couch to myself and I had no worries. The trade off, people who stayed up late hung out near me, and when people woke up early they would wake me. I didn’t mind too much though since I am a pretty early riser anyways ie 7 ish. Hey that is pretty early during vacations at a beach house if I say so. I like hanging out with my buddies at night to chat or play games. I also figured if I ever wanted to take a nap I could (never panned out that way even when I was tired!). The average amount of hours that I slept during my vacation was probably 5 and half hours. Not too much really. At my site I average close to 9 and half to 10 hours. As you can see, I burned out all my stored sleep on my vacation! I needed to go back to my site to recuperate. I always find that hilarious. Rather than rejuvenate me, vacations drain me. Hey I had fun though.

Well let me continue with my trip. The next day early in the morning (8 ish) Ryan, Henry, and I went to Mancara to rent surf boards. We got 2 boards and they came out to be about $25 for 3 days per board. By the time we got back to the beach house, it was around noon and we cooked a group meal (Ryan, Henry, Kat and myself). I put my good Asian side to use. We made a fantastic ramen dish. We threw in eggs, and various vegetables. After the delicious meal, we rested for a little bit and then decided to tackle the waves. Let me describe the waves a little bit first. We had 5 to 10 feet waves throughout the day. They crashed 90 degrees to the beach and they crashed immediately down. The wave also crashed basically 10 feet from the shore line so it was not deep enough to surf. There was no angle of crashing. There was also no way to ride the waves since they crashed so quickly. Now let me educate you on our skills of surfing. Nothing! Not our best decision to try and learn here. Heck even without the boards the waves would throw us into the ground. The waves came so often that after we got thrown around as though we were in a washing machine, the next wave would sometimes catch us before we were ready to take another one. What am I saying though, I am getting ahead of myself. So for about 3 hours we tried to get up on the board. I was sharing with Henry and Ryan had his own board for the most part. Even though I tried half as long as Ryan, I was intimidated by the pounding I got every time I tried just body surfing. When I did try, I rarely could catch the wave and if I did, the wave would throw me like a rag doll. Sometimes it was so bad that before I could get even one foot up, the wave would crash on me and then throw me into the sand. Not only was I worried about the surf board bonking me on the head or cutting me with the fins (I was cut on the right side on the first day and was bleeding slightly for awhile), I found out really quickly that being thrown into the sand was probably my biggest threat. On the second day, I was able to ride a wave for 1 second, then I lost my balance and fell off the board. This was also the day where I caught a big wave close to 9 feet. My board was going 90 degrees to the wave. It crashed immediately. I wasn’t even ready for this. I was on my stomach. My board went down quickly. My body was floating above the board. Now imagine what happens when the board hits the flat part of the ocean. My body becomes bent. My legs were dangling in a banana figure. My back was curved the wrong way. My front part of the body hits the front of the board hard. Not good. Then the wave crashes on me and pushes me even harder into the board. I bent my back really bad. By the time I got out of the water, I was scared that I might have really injured myself. Thank goodness that was not the case. To this day, 3 months later, my back still hurts. Not as bad as before but I can still feel it. At one point, every time I took a jolting step, pain would shoot down my back. Needless to say, I stopped surfing. Later that day, Drew tried his luck at surfing. He had some prior experience, I say prior but it was normal surfing conditions for like 2 days or so. He ended up breaking the board in half. Basically the wave crashed on him and broke the board. On with the casualties. Henry was nearly cut by the fins on the first day right by his neck. Ryan had a couple scraps from being dragged along the bottom of the beach. Tzyy was slammed into the board and had a couple teeth knocked loose. He ended up having to wear a special brace for over a month. On to the victories. Ryan was able to ride one wave successfully. Seth, who had the most experience of us all (from San Diego) and surfed a bunch before, was able to ride 3 waves. Henry got up once but couldn’t ride the wave and fell off immediately. I lasted one second as well.

I must say the waves were victorious. When we went back to return out boards and figure out what we would have to pay for breaking one of them, we found out that we were not supposed to have surfed by our place. It was dangerous and the waves break the boards. Now why the hell didn’t someone tell us this in the first place! The establishment was nice enough not to have charged us for breaking the board. In the end we didn’t feel so bad. It was worth the effort and what an experience.

Okay back to the 3rd day. After trying surfing for the first day, I needed to go back to Los Organos because I needed to email some stuff to schools that I was applying to. Finishing up with my errands, I decided to visit one of my friends, Sheri, who was stationed at Los Organos. I visited her family and her house. The family was super nice and the place was very comfortable.

The next day I got up early and decided to run along the beach. I decided running to Los Organos was the best option, since I walked to Mancara the other day. The run was super peaceful. However little did I know, running without shoes on the beach for long distances can prove disastrous. I got massive blisters on my toes by the time I reached Los Organos and I still needed to get back to the house. The distance was 9 km one way. I ended up walking gingerly back through the waves. I could have swam, but really now that would not have worked either. It was against the current and like I said the waves were brutal.

An interesting side note was that we were accosted by a mob of nats. It was kind of rainy when we were there. Very unusual for this area. I guess after the first rain in a long time a bunch of nats laid eggs or something. The next 2 days the nat population exploded. It was so bad that the walls were covered (I say 75%) with nats. It was super gross. We basically ran in and out of the house on the second day. I had to cover my face and my whole body with a blanket when I slept lest they crawl all over me. Eck! You know how I hate bugs. Thank goodness on the third day we got the caretakers of the house to fumigate the house. After that things were good again!

One of the best meals that I had during that trip was making fajitas. Delicious. We had chicken, beef, and some great salsa that we made from fresh vegetables. I am a true believer of group cooking as well. Some of my best cooking comes from cooking with friends and family and this trip was no exception. I cooked and ate with various friends during the trip and it was just a great time. I will truly regret leaving Peace Corps and not seeing some of these friends for long periods of time. Then again, that is life. So might as well enjoy the moment, eh?

On the fourth day, we played a hybrid game of basketball and water polo in the pool. I came up with the game. Basically we had a raft and a ball. We had 3 on 3. The object of the game was to shoot the ball into the raft and have it stay in. You could only pass the ball to each other and it could not touch the water. Switch positions after every score or if the water touches water. The tall people had a definite advantage. But we had a lot of fun nevertheless.

On the second to last night, we had a camp fire. It was a beautiful night and by 11:00 the electricity would naturally turn off. Therefore we had a clear starry night shining on the pacific ocean. With a blazing firing and smores, we talked late into the night. Ryan wanted to go skinny dipping and was finally able to convince Merideth to jump into the ocean with him. Against the light of the moon and the darkness of the night and their ass white skin, they could not be missed. They then made it to the pool, where they were joined by Henry, Kat, Pilar, Kristen, and Carlos. Personally I don’t understand the fascination with skinny dipping. It is more like a dare than anything else. Do you feel better after skinny dipping, or is it just bragging rights that said that you did it. I can understand skinny dipping with people you are attracted to, but other than that not really. Maybe it is a bonding experience. Sharing one’s nakedness brings you closer? Hmm. Well I did not partake even though I was almost going to do it just to show people that it did not matter to me one iota. I was getting sick though and did not want to be sick when I went to Brazil. My friends kept on egging me on saying that I am the most conservative and wouldn’t do it. How far from the truth. It is true that I am conservative when it comes to physical closeness or openness, however that is because I only want to do that with someone I love and not just with anyone. I am not opposed to it, but I am shy. Hehe. I can however overcome almost any barrier because like I said, I am indifferent to most things and don’t see why anything should stop me from doing anything.

On the last night, we all went to Mancara to eat a good meal and go out at night. The ice cream brownie sundae was probably the best thing I ate there. The meal was alright, but I was really looking forward to good seafood. We were at a beach town. I was disappointed. The night scene was alright as well. No one was dancing and it was a Friday night. What the heck. People were out and about, but people just ended up drinking and chatting. The only people I saw dancing were my friends. They would occasionally get up and dance if a song they liked was playing. I also saw some Peruvians dancing with swinging fires. That was pretty neat, however I don’t think they were as good as the natives say in Hawaii.

Overall, I must say the time I spent there was wonderful. Sharing moments with friends are never a dull moment for me.

When we all departed on our separate ways, I left with Kurtis, my fellow class mate during training. It took about 5 hours to get from the beach house to his place, Vichayito. Once again it was amazing to see his town and family. Everyone knew him and treated him well. His house and room was distinct and hospitable. I always enjoying visiting people’s site and room. Everyone has such a different setup. What was really neat about his place was that his town employed windmills to bring up water from the river to irrigate the farms in his area.

After sending the night at Kurt’s place, I left early in the morning to get to Tom’s site, a town called La Encatada (the Enchanted). It took about another 6 hours to get there. I had to take a taxi to a town for an hour. Then I took a bus to Piura for 3.5 hours and then I had to take another bus for an hour to Churucanas and then a 30 minute mototaxi ride to La Encatada. In Piura at 2:00, I was able to buy my bus ticket back to Lima for 6:30 at night. None of the reputable bus companies had seats available. So I was forced to buy from a cheap bus company, 45 soles rather than 80 to 120 soles. I figured if I gave myself like an hour to visit Tom and an extra hour for transportation delays I could make it back in time for my bus trip back to Lima. Now, Tom is another close volunteer friend of mine. His place is super hot and a dust bowl. The sun just bakes everything below it. After walking around his town and chatting with Tom for about an hour, I basically had to leave to catch my bus back down to Lima. Once again I had a wonderful time visiting a volunteer’s site. However the trip back was far from expected.

I got a mototaxi st 4:30. Before leaving town we had to wait for another passenger. How long did I end up waiting? I think almost 20 minutes. The extra 1 hour allotment was still sufficient. I get to Churucanas and go to buy my ticket to go back to Piura. Apparently I just missed the bus back and will now have to wait 30 to 40 minutes. So I was cutting the time very closely. I could have gotten a taxi but that would have costed me 30 soles while the bus costed me 8 soles. Let me remind you that the bus from Piura to Lima was 45 soles. So I decided to test my luck. I was assured that I could make it back in time to catch my bus by the bus ticket seller. What happened? The bus came late. After waiting 50 minutes, I was off towards Piura. Could the bus make it back in time for me to catch the bus to Lima? Well as I rolled in, I just missed the bus. I was then yelled at by the bus company of why I was late? What could I say? The transportation system is not reliable even though I gave myself more than an hour extra to get back. With my frustrated state, my lack of Spanish skills, and the crowded and noisy state at the bus terminal, I could not vent my frustration properly. The bus company then convinced me to go to another terminal 15 minutes away to try and catch the bus. Since I was taking a cheap bus, they take periodic bus stops to pick up more people to fill the bus. Well I make it to the side stop, and lo and behold, the bus had just left. Why am I not surprised. I just lost 45 soles. Now I am regretting not shelling out the money to take the taxi and taking the bus to Piura. Luckily enough if you can say that, I there are other cheap bus companies that had service to Lima. Why did I need to get back to Lima? I had business school interviews there that I could not miss. Also do I really want to spend another night in Piura and get to Lima a day later? It takes 14 hours to get from Piura to Lima. I decided to go that night. This time I spend 35 soles. Still cheaper than a normal bus company, however the seats were less than to be desired. The chairs to really go down and the space is a lot smaller, plus no tv with a great movie. So the bus left at 9:30 pm. Basically I sat on the bus for an extra 3 hours before we could take off. Okay we leave right, after 2 hours, the bus breaks down. What happened? The engine broke down and we ended up waiting on the side of the road for about 2 hours. What do we do? We get on another bus company’s bus that is passing by. Why do we do this when the bus is ¾ full and our bus was completely full? Because no other bus, from our bus company could pick us up. We move our stuff to the other bus and proceed to file into the bus. Obviously Peruvians are used to this because couple’s quickly split up. Women and children run to the next bus to grab a seat. The men that have a counterpart make sure their luggage is transferred properly. The guys that don’t have a counterpart also run to the next bus to grab a seat. I see all this happening before me. I basically grab my bag and move it to the next bus and watch the circus unfold around me. The bus was also stopped in the middle of a desert with a sharp fall off by the side of the road. So I see people stumbling in the sand in the middle of the night. Gosh this was hilarious. When I get into the next bus, I finally understand why people were rushing so much. I had no where to sit. People were sitting in the aisles, the bathroom, the stairs. It was ridiculous. Talk about violating the number people in a vehicle code, if there is such a thing in Peru. Where did I sit? I sat on the banister. Let’s also think about this. This is a 14 hour ride. We have made good time with 2 hours. The change and getting everyone situated took about a half hour. With 12 hours more to go, my seat on the banister for 12 hours to go didn’t look to promising. As I have always said, things are strange in Peru. By the banister there was a small platform where normal buses would have a water cooler. However, rather than having a water cooler there, it is completely empty. I now had a decent flat space to sit on. It was probably no more than 6 inches wide and 1.5 feet long. Better than leaning on a pole, but by no meals comfortable when people were around me on the aisles. No back rest that is for sure. After 4 hours, some people got off the bus and I was finally able to get a chair. Within 30 minutes I fell asleep. However rather than waking up in Lima, like I would have liked, I noticed the bus had stopped again right before sunrise, around 5ish. No what happened?

Apparently this bus also broke down. The transmission belt snapped in half. Wonderful. Now what are they going to do? Does this mean we are going to hitch another ride with another bus company? No such luck. No bus would pick us up. We had to wait for the bus company to buy a new band. Unbelievable. How was this going to happen when we are stuck in the middle of nowhere, not to mention no store would be open until 9:00. This was a nightmare. There was no way I could get into Lima in time for my interview. I could not believe this. Thank goodness, I had a book to keep me occupied. I nodded off here and there and read a bunch. After around 10:00 we were on our way again. I ended up sleeping for a couple more hours and when I woke up apparently the bus stopped for lunch. Who knew that this would happen. So should I leave the bus and get some lunch or what? I decide to just sit in the bus. I didn’t know how long they had already stopped for. I guess I could have asked, but I was way too out of it to care. In the end, I read some more and slept some more and before I knew it we were in Lima. Granted there was another 4 hours between then and Lima. About 45 minutes from the bus station, another amazing thing happened. The bus broke again. Apparently this time, the engine over heated. I just can’t believe my luck for this trip. Everyone had to get off the bus and find their own way. The bus was going no further. After grabbing my bag, I quickly negotiate a 3 way taxi fare. Pretty impressive considering how dazed I was. The whole experience was so strange. I finally arrived at the wonderful Fargo house at 6:00. I was on transit for over 24 hours. Amazing. I can’t ever recall anything like this.

My trip was finally over. Thank God. Times like these convince me that traveling is not what people make it out to be. It is exhausting. I need to go back to my site to recooperate from my vacation. How hilarious.

Let just say this trip was very educational. For those of you who know me, I am quite the planner and one of my mottos is always be prepared. Now I have also been called a living contradiction. This is another instance where I demonstrate this characteristic. I did not plan at all for this trip. I figured I would just go there and figure out things to do as I went along. I was traveling with my friend Jota, who seemed like a person who knew what he wanted to do. I depended on him and what to do really. I was just lazy. I had a good excuse, I was preparing all my applications for business school. I will get to that in a moment.

So the trip started off like this, I left my site on the 22nd of December. I was to travel at on the 23rd to get to Lima. I arrived without a problem and I spent a lovely Christmas eve with my Buenas Aires family of training. We had the traditional duck dinner at midnight. I was even able to help my host family with some of their Christmas gifts. My sister just got a new stereo system and I helped set it up. I was also able to readjust the bicycle seat for my host nephew. I must say I felt like the man that day!

On Christmas day I met up with Jota and we took a bus down to Arequipa. It was a 16 hour bus ride. Not too bad when you take the over nighter. When we arrived, the hostel that we had reserved did not exist! Jota found this place online and the pricing was just too good to be true. Luckily we had a tour guide book (Footprint) and we looked up new accommodations. No problems. We got situated and washed up. Afterwards we went exploring. I must say walking around a new city is great especially when the city is set up with tourists in mind.

During the 50’s there was a huge earthquake that pretty much destroyed the city. It was rebuilt and the building structures were modeled after classical European buildings. They were quite beautiful. We had gorgeous churches, monasteries, and plazas. We spent the whole afternoon just walking around and visiting one museum. The museum was of the Juanita Mummy. Apparently the Inca’s made human sacrifices to the Gods. Sorry the Inca’s hiked from a far maybe Cuzco to Arequipa. On bus this would take close to another 14 hours. The travel is not easy. You have to climb over mountains and hack through jungle. Talk about a long and arduous journey. Upon getting to Arequipa they hiked up an active volcano in the middle of winter. She ends up kneeling at the peak and she is struck on the back of her head with a ceremonial club/pick. The blow to the head kills her and she is buried. Little while later the volcano blows and her body is covered with ash and petrified due to the snow and cold. Now flash forward a couple hundred of years and another volcano/earthquake eruption causes and avalanche of the glacier at the top of the mountain. Her body becomes exposed to the open air. It just so happened that a couple of hikers were summitting that mountain and happen to come across our Juanita not more than a week of her being exposed. She was recovered and scientists have been studying her ever since (about 20 years). Pretty amazing really. Talk about all the fortunate things happenings in the right order. Well to be honest even though the story was interesting, the museum is not that impressive. I have not found a single museum in Peru that I would recommend anyone going to.

So continuing with my trip. We finished off the day with a nice dinner. The next day we explore some more of the city. I go into a couple of the churches. Truly beautiful. The paintings and organs, the pulpits, etc. were all so intricately made. If the catholics did anything right in South America, they made works of art that truly are amazing and lasting.

Later that day, I was able to contact some of our language teachers during training who are from Arequipa. We ate dinner together and they took us around. Funny enough, we had already walked all over the center of the city so we already saw everything they showed us. I decided to call it a night but Jota went out checked out the bar scene. He was impressed and had a good time. The next day we checked out some of the artisan markets and more churches. I had to finish an application and try and settle some final tax issues before year end. Too bad I waited until the last moment and was not able to finalize what I wanted to do! Ended up costing me a couple grand of tax savings. Argh. Stupid me. Anyways I finished my application on time so that was good. That night we ended up meeting up with one of the Professors again and he took us into the country side to eat some tradiational Arequipan food. It was delicious. Afterwards we hiked around the country side and we were able to take some good pictures.

That night we were to take a bus at 2:00 am to the Canyon de Colca and the look out point for condors. The Canyon is the 2nd deepest canyon in the world. The deepest is also in Arequipa but it is a lot more difficult to get to so we didn’t go there. We were going to take a 3 day hike to go down and then back up the canyon. We had a tent and everything. We made the bus and the trip was fine, however when we got to the look out it was totally cloudy. It was 7:30 am. We could not see more than 20 yards in front of us. What a terrible way to start the trip. We waited about 2 hours to try and see if the clouds would clear up. Not only did we not see any condors we couldn’t see the view of the canyon. We sucked it up and decided to start our hike. It was 9:00 am, Did we know where the trail head started? Vaguely! So we were suppose to hike along the road for about 3 km before we were to hit the trail head. We get to the view point that said we had walked 3 km. What did we see? Nothing but thick clouds in front of our hands. We couldn’t even find each other let alone the trail. We decided to sit and eat a little breakfast and hope the clouds would clear up. False hope and one that would stay with us for a while. Lucky enough a Peruvian on a horse was walking his sheep along the road. We asked him where the trail head was and he just pointed in a direction that seemed to have a ton of trail heads from hit. Well we decided to follow the direction he was pointing at and started heading down. Let me remind you again there was so much fog we literally could not see more than 10 yards in front of us. We were blindly following one of the random tracks that was leading us down. After 30 minutes the track disappears. We were slipping on mud and walking down a steep decent. Not the smartest of ideas but what else were we suppose to do. We back track a little bit. Follow another trail, but this time it leads us to someone’s farm. Hear we were lost in a dense fog in a private farm. We joked about stories of foreigners getting shot for trespassing. Sadly they are true stories. We back track again and decide to head the other direction of where the Peruvian pointed. We found another trail and decided to follow it. Seemed like it was better trail so we kept up with it. It was now about 11:00 am. We wasted about 2 hours trying to find the right trail head and we haven’t even really started making headway on going down the canyon. Note to self. Trails in Peru are not clearly marked. The fog was still thick and we were still guessing where to go. We decided to call a lunch break around 1:00. By this time the sun was burning off the fog a little. Still couldn’t see more than like 50 yards but at least we could see farther. It appeared we were heading in the right direction. At least we were going down. Still kind of sucked because we couldn’t see the canyon at all. By 2:00 we could make faint outlines of the canyon. This could be due to dropping in altitude and the sun burning the fog off. Remember we started the canyon at the top which was about 3500 meters high. We had to make close to 2000 plus meters of descent that day. By this time we knew we were going in the right direction and praying that we were on the right trail. If not we would have to pitch our tent and hope for the best the next day.

We were going down as quick as we could because we were hiking in rainy season so we didn’t want to be caught in the rain. We were able to see a town at the bottom and across the river. By 3:30 we were at the bottom and about to cross the river. From our guide book we read about a recommended place to stay for the night. It was apparently really close to the bridge. We also started to feel some rain drops. There was a kid waiting for us at the bridge and asked if he could help direct us to anywhere in particular. We were pretty surprised by this since he wasn’t pressing us with anything. He just wanted to help show us to wherever we wanted to go. We told him we were looking for this hostel and lo and behold he was from that hostel. He was the son of the owner. He lead us to the place and we collapsed at the camp site at 4:00. What should of taken us 4 hours to descend took us close to 7. We got lost for a while at the top but by the time we got to camp the fog was gone and we had a great view of the canyon. Totally worth it, eventhough we were thoroughly exhausted. We set up camp and we bought a supper from the family. The food was delicious. Anything would have been the best meal at that point of time. The family was super nice, the site was super clean, and the pricing was super reasonable. I was thoroughly happy with my stay there. One of the few places where I had absolutely no complaints and only high praises for the whole experience. That night we planned what we wanted to do. We figured we could either take it slow and do the hike in 3 days or speed through in a 2 day hike and finish the 3rd day at a hot spring. I strongly pushed for the hot spring. How good would my body feel after a long and hard hike with a wonderful soak at the hot spring. Jota reluctantly agreed but said if our bodies can do it he would be up for it. He was carrying the tent and a whole lot more water than I was. I don’t really drink a lot of water so thankfully my pack was not as heavy as his. To be fair though, the tent was not that heavy. Couldn’t be more than 5 lbs.

The next day we packed up and started early. When I say early I mean 9:00. We wanted to wake up naturally rather than be hurried. This day was much better. It was totally clear the whole day and we saw a couple condors. The canyon was gorgeous. What we didn’t see yesterday we saw today. The canyon was deep and the colors varied as you went up the canyon. The thing was that today we were basically walking flat for the whole morning rather than looking for some sort of a path down the canyon. So we had a wonderful time walking in the morning.

Again though, the path forked and we had no idea which we to go. My friend took one path and I took another for about 5 minutes to check which path seemed like the right path. It ended up that my friend was right and I had to hike all the way back and start on his path. By the time I caught up to him, it was around 11:30 pm so we took a break to have lunch. Nothing really special. Bread, oranges, and water. We ate on a ledge looking down the canyon. Saw condors flying over our head. Totally a great lunch site. After lunch we started up our hike again and immediately we started to hike up. This kind of sucked because we hadn’t crossed the river and hiked up the side of the canyon. I saw we had a steady incline of around 20 degrees for an hour. Probably climbed close to 500 meters. Once we got to a top of a plateau we started heading back down again and this time it was very steep, like what we had to do yesterday. We dropped close to 700 meters within 45 minutes. Once we crossed the river, we were basically at the camp site for the second night if we were to do the 3 day hike. However rather than stop and camp, I convinced Jota to hike out that day, meaning we would have to hike up close to 2500 meters. By this time it was around 2:00. The hike up the canyon was not easy by any means. It was a steep climb. We had already hiked 7 hours yesterday, so our bodies were already pretty beat. This day would prove to be a lot longer.

So we take off and end up trudging along. By the time we got to the top it took us another 5 hours. I could barely walk. Remember we had heavy packs on and we had hiked down a steep canyon, up the canyon, down the canyon, and then all the way up the canyon again. Personally I think going up hill is easier than downhill. Sure it might take a little longer to travel the same distance, but going downhill hurts the knees. Brutal with an extra 40 to 50 pound packs on you. Anyways we made it and found a hostel to stay in. Jota regretted not camping down the canyon because he was totally exhausted as well.

After like a 2 hour nap, we went to get dinner at 9:00. Although walking was painful, the food was very welcomed. However, after getting back to the hostel my body shut down. My stomach was starting to feel really bad, ie had diarrhea problems. My body was physically shaking. I had aches, sweets, and chills. Although thoroughly exhausted, I had a miserable time sleeping. By the time the morning rolled around, I could barely walk and I needed to use the bathroom. I ended up using the bathroom 3 times within 45 minutes. I decided to not eat at all for that day. But because of my stomach problems, we ended up missing the first bus out. Therefore we took the next bus an hour later. The landlady was certainly not helpful and was not sympathetic to my pain. Jota although super tired, was not having the problems I was having.

Luckily I no longer had anything in my system so we were able to take the bus to the town which had the hot spring. It was about a 5 hour trip. Halfway through, we stopped at the condor view point, where we got off 2 days ago. This time it was clear, however there was still no condors to see. At least we got some great views of the canyon. Strange how fast time flies yet seemed so long ago. We had climbed down and up the canyon that is the second deepest in the world. Obviously we didn’t hike at the point where it was the second deepest in the world, but it was quite a hike.

So we rolled into the town and we finally were able to make our way to the hot spring in a moto taxi after bargaining with a couple drivers. Always got to bargain. Eventhough I was definitely sick with a bacteria or virus, I decided to go to the hot spring. I hadn’t drank anything because I was afraid to poop again. So maybe going to the hot spring wasn’t the brightest of ideas. But damn it, I hiked a 3 day hike in 2 days so I could enjoy the hot spring. After getting in though I felt great. It was such a great feeling to soak in a natural hot spring. I just sat in there for like 3 hours. We switched between outside hot spring to the sauna to the indoor hot spring and then to the out door hot spring. Since we were basically at 3000 meters the sun was really strong. Jota got sunburned just by soaking at the hot spring. With my asian skin, this luckily did not happen to me.

Well after leaving the hot spring we hurried back to the bus station to catch a bus to Arequipa. Upon getting to the station, we found that there were all the buses were sold out. There were 4 bus companies and they were all sold out. I was pissed. I felt like crap and didn’t want to spend a night in a crappy hostel. I wanted to be somewhere where I could just relax and recooperate. Being exhausted and sick is not a good combination. I was even willing to bribe the company to get a seat. They told me they would do what they could. Luckily 2 people just cancelled, so we were able to get those seats for the regular price. Thank goodness.

The bus we ended up taking was an overnighter and made it back, eventhough we almost got into a major accident. Even the Peruvians were freaked out. They were yelling at the driver even. We made it to Arequipa, checked into the hostel, and then proceeded to sleep. Oh it was great. I watched a lot of tv and slept a lot. The next day I was like a whole another person. I could walk, although very stiffly and with groans coming out of my mouth with every step. As the time pasted though, the legs started to get their second wind. I visited some more churches and took a bunch of pictures. Later that night Jota and I had a great dinner. I believe I ate alpacha and some sort of bird meat that I think is related to a pelican. I called it a night rather early and had another great night to recooperate. The next day I saw the famous monastery and decided to explore more of the city. It is really beautiful. Almost like a European town in the middle of Peru. Well that is not totally true. I should say maybe a 6 block radius from the center of the town is like that. The rest is more like the rest of Peru.

It was New Year’s Eve so I bought some grapes and Jota and I kind of had a relaxing afternoon. We ate at the falafel place again. Probably the best restaurant I have eaten at in Peru. It is cheap, 5 soles for a perfect size sandwich. I ended up eating there at least 3 times before my trip was done. By 10:30 pm. Jota and I decided to check out the disco club strip. We figured it must be crazy this night. Well there was a lot of people, but it wasn’t as crazy as I thought it was going to be. No surprise there. Everytime I think crazy, it never meets my expectations. I don’t know what I expect, but reality never reaches imagination. We went into a disco club and walked around. It was packed. When midnight struck there was a live band playing and I forgot to eat my twelve grapes for the first 12 seconds of the year. It was a tradition my brother started back in the day and I had not missed it for I don’t know how long. I felt kind of weird not following tradition, so I proceeded to eat grapes throughout the rest of the night. It just wasn’t the same though. At around 2:00 Jota and I decided to go back to the street party in the center of Arequipa. Once again there were a ton of people and a lot of drunk people. We walked around and then decided to check out one of the clubs. Pretty boring again. I don’t know why I continue to try going to clubs. I usually find them boring and I keep hoping to enjoy myself at one of them. I enjoy hanging out with friends and just chilling. I get so much more enjoyment from playing a game like scrabble or trivial pursuit at 1:00 am than going to a disco club. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy dancing and when I am tired enough I actually act like I am drunk. If you catch me at the right time, I can even dance pretty well! Sound familiar? Drunken talk or in my case lack of sleep talk!

So I didn’t really dance with anyone that night. Kind of bummed about it really. What we found was that pretty much everyone was paired up or already in a group of friends. Urgh. Well can’t say the night was a bust. It was an experience that has reinforced the idea that I never want to spend New Year’s Eve without close friends or family ever again.

The following day we slept in and kind of chilled because we then took the night bus back to Lima. All in all, the entire trip was a lot of fun. I truly enjoyed myself.

So my endings suck. I know. It always seem like a downer to end trips. For me though, I am always glad to be back home. Traveling poops me out. I need to go back to my site to recharge my batteries. I never thought it would be like that, but it has proven true every single time.

Until next time.

Well it has been a while and I must apologize for the tardiness. I have been busy applying to business schools. Thankfully this posting has relevance to my application process.

There was an international business school fair in Lima back in November. Therefore, I let Peace Corps know that I would be coming down to Lima to attend. Volunteers usually get to stay with embassy families when they come down to Lima. I usually stay with the Fargos, a truly wonderful family, however this time they were away on a trip Therefore, Peace Corps set me up with another family, the Ambassador’s family!

Well I can honestly say that I was very honored that I could stay at their house and get to meet the US Ambassador to Peru personally. I can’t claim that I was the only volunteer to receive this unexpected bonus though. I can say that it was quite an experience though.

First let me describe their house. Talk about living in a mansion. The house was humungous. The building and grounds was a block by itself! The building was completely surrounded by a 20 foot wall. There were security guards on all four corners. The road entering the house was completely blocked off. Security guards stopped and checked my id before opening the gate. My first view of the house was quite impressive. There was a huge lawn and driveway that leads to the front door. I must say though to make it more impressive the gate should open up so get a frontal view of the house. Instead you can only see the house diagonally. The lawn was manicured beautifully. There was an exceptionally green lawn with few if any weeds. There was bushes and trees all over but placed in an orderly manner. Flowers were blooming everywhere. In the driveway, there were a couple huge SUV’s. To the left of the house there was a clay court tennis court with a little club house and a 3 level sitting stand, which I will talk about a little later. Behind the tennis court, there was a little work out area. Around the back there was a six door garage. Lo and behold there were a couple more SUV’s. Since there was a nice space in front of the garage there was also a basketball hoop. Near the garages were the servant’s quarters. I think there were like 6 rooms, and these rooms weren’t small. As we continue to walk around the house, we find a huge backyard. On one side that was like the porch of the house was a large pool. Next to the pool was a jacuzzi. Next to the pool porch is another deck for sitting. As you walk further you see a large garden and grass area where you can hold afternoon parties. Continueing to the next side of the house you have another huge porch and grass area to hold receptions. I mean this place was huge. I do not do it justice by describing it.

Okay so let’s go inside the house. By stepping through the front door you are faced with a large foyer area. Right there you encounter large flags of the US and Peru. To the left is the office of the assistant to the Ambassader’s house. Can you believe, this place has an office for the assistant of the house. She is a delightful and nice lady that was quite helpful in showing me into my room. We shall keep to the first floor for now though. To the left of the foyer is the guest bathrooms with female and male signs. Passing through the foyer you come across a massive room that is probably 40 yards by 20 yards. This is the general sitting room. You have huge paintings lining the walls. You have different styles of couches, chairs, tables, in one part of the room and the other half of the room. Let’s say we go right. We go to the library room. What we have is walls upon walls of formal books. The ceiling is probably 20 feet high. We have excellent furniture here as well and it is completely different from that other room. That is also a general theme of the whole house. Every room has different furniture and wall paper. Next to the library you have the piano and music room. This room is also monstrous. You have a probably 35 by 20 yard floor plan here as well. What I love about the place is that they have huge rugs that are super thick and comfortable. I used to be a carpet man, but after seeing how beautiful hard wood floors with excellent rugs through out the room, it is quite neat. I must say keeping everything clean would be a huge pain though. So back to the piano room. Here we have a baby grand. I believe it was a Steinway and Sons but I can’t remember, it was like 3 months ago. I do remember it was not that tuned though. No one in the Ambassador’s family plays. In the room was also a harp, but it was across the room. The room had windows that lined the walls. Talk about getting sunlight. What a wonderful room to play the piano or any instrument for that matter. Attached to the music room is the leather and cigar room. This is the room where more intimate conversations take place between the Ambassador and officials. There is even a globe in the room. The leather couches and chairs however make the room. Okay back to the main sitting room. Rather than taking a right, you take a left. You have the main dining room. This room sits enough for at least 50 people easy. The huge table is long wise and is made from excellent oak wood. If you take the door on the left at the end of the room you have a direct hallway to the main kitchen. If you take the door on the right you get into the family dining room where the family eats when no officials are visiting. Don’t let the description fool you into thinking this isn’t a big room. It is quite large and could easily fit 100 people standing. The table however sits 10. There is another door in this room that connects directly to the kitchen as well. So this kitchen is humungous. There is no other word to describe it. Just the kitchen is larger than most middle class houses in the US. I guess when you have to entertain the elite of Peru and have guests that can easily exceed 200 people, you need a large kitchen that is well stocked. There is a main kitchen and two smaller kitchens to support the main kitchen. I think there were around 8 large refrigerators that restaurants use. There was a freezer room as well as a dry foods room. Okay so just to be clear I think there were at least 4 bathrooms downstairs. Didn’t check in every room. There was a servants stairwell to the second floor. Okay say we take the main stairwell though up to the second level. We come to 3 doors. The one on the left is what normal people would call the family room. This is where the Ambassador’s family hangs out like watch tv, surf the web, read, play games that type of thing. The floor directly in front leads