Peru Summer 2018

May 28 - June 1, 2018 I've been so busy these past two weeks that I haven't been able to post on here in a while. All of my days have started blurring together, so I've forgotten some of the details. During the week I have class from 11-1, then I taxi back to the house to eat lunch. After lunch, I return to USIL for class from 3-5. By the time class ends, it's already starting to get dark, so there's not too much I can do afterwards. In the morning, before class, I either stay at the house and do homework or I get up with the other girls (who have class at 7) and taxi to downtown and just walk around the city and then read Narnia (finally, after 10 years of trying to make time to read it) when I'm tired of walking. Here's some of the highlights of this week: On Monday, my roommates and I visited the Pachacuteq monument. Pachacuteq was the first Sapa Inca of the Incan Empire and is a really big deal around here. Everywhere you go, there's a ...

May 27, 2018 On Sunday, my roommates and I took a road trip to Moray, Maras, Urubamba, and Chinchero. We had planned on taking a taxi since these locations are about an hour outside of the city, but apparently not many taxis would offer such a long trip on a Sunday. Instead, Sandro, our host father, offered to drive us and thank goodness he did because I don't think I would have trusted any stranger on those roads. You know, those tiny roads on the edge of cliffs that they show in movies? Yeah we traveled on some of those today. It all turned out to be good fun since we survived. First, we went to Moray, which I had already visited briefly the day before with my class. After that, we hit up Maras, the salt mines. It was an incredible place to see. Like every other place ever, pictures can't do it justice. Maras The saltiest place on Earth. Probably.  From Maras we went to the coolest city ever, Urubamba, to eat lunch. This place rea...

Sittin' on Machu Colca May 26, 2018 Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go on a bigger trip outside of Cusco today because I had two field trips, one with each of my classes. That was fine with me though because the trips were to two incredible places that I wouldn’t have thought to have gone to on my own.   For the first trip, we visited some recently-discovered ruins called Machu Colca. Basically, it was a gigantic, ancient refrigerator. The view there was incredible. I was especially amazed because it was my first time seeing snow-capped mountains. It would seem the mountains aren’t going to be snow-capped much longer, though. Only 30 years ago, all of the mountains there were completely covered in snow, but now only a few are - and only at the very top. Machu Colca Wayyy up, above the clouds.  Nayyyyy (or whatever sound a donkey makes)  On the hill in the center of the pic, there are more ruins that just haven't been uncovered yet, similar to the...

May 21-25, 2018 I don't have very many photos from this week since all I did was go to class and visit museums for the most part. I'm taking two classes while I'm in Cusco: history of the Incas and contemporary society of Peru, both in Spanish. So far, so great. The museums are pretty cool here, but no photos are allowed at any of them. My favorite exhibit was of the mummified bodies of some Incans. Of course, I didn't get a picture of that, but I did manage to get one of some skulls, if you're into that stuff (I am). These skulls are elongated. The Incans would alter the skulls of people in the higher class. Also, you can see holes in the skulls from surgeries they performed back then. On Thursday, something pretty cool (but inconvenient for my roommates and I) happened. In Cusco, there was a transportation strike. This meant no taxis, no buses, no cars. Nothing. It was neat to witness. I've never seen a strike where almost the whole city particip...