Day 3 and 4: Matucana

It is beautiful there!

Wow! What a crazy couple of days! We returned to Lima yesterday, but we just didn’t get around to writing up a blog, but here we go! This afternoon, thanks the persistence of Megan, Annie, and her brother (who is also named ‘Tim’, doh, identity crisis!) we are boarding a bus to Cusco, and then travelling for 20+ hours. We were supposed to get a bus last night, but apparently Holy Saturday is the busiest day of the year to travel in Peru! Who knew? Anywho, adelante!

These last few days have been long, rewarding and magical. We went to Matucana on Friday to visit a friend of ours, Laura, who was a Response Volunteer in Guyana a few months back. She is doing a next stint here in Peru and we really wanted to see her.  To get to her site was a little rough. Very Peace Corps: we didn’t really know where we were going and had to take public trans-p, 4 buses total and at one point we were 2 of 50 people on a bus meant for 20. Moreover, the town itself is about 3 hours outside Lima, but when we went on Friday it took us 6 hours to get there (PC fuh life!). It was a little confusing, but being Returned PCVs for all of two days at this point, we rocked it! The largest problem was landslide in the town of Chosica on the way that put traffic almost at a standstill which made the trip longer. 

Tienda in the Village

As we approached the town we had no idea where we were. It seemed like we went from desert to highlands in a matter of minutes. Laura met us at the entrance to her site, and then we went to have a gaff and some food. As darkness was about to set in, we took an hour long hike up to a waterfall behind her house and couldn’t stop smiling; it was amazing.  It was the end of the rainy season at her site so the mornings are really beautiful, but come the afternoon the clouds gently drop, and brush the top of the peaks. It is both very haunting, but also moving at the same time. We returned in full night, but it was completely worth it. The pictures speak for themselves! 

Beginning of first hike

Laura!

The clouds on the peaks were amazing

End of the first hike

The First Waterfall

Got a little captain in ya?

That night, we met another RPCV who was at the site, Brad, and began swapping “Peace Corps Stories” which are like “war stories” but deal with cultural sensitivity, history, and projects we completed. It was great to speak to another PCV who recently finished his service (2010) and knew what we were going through. We learned so much about each other’s sites and had a great time drinking and dancing at a little watering hole and eating delicioso street food (anticucho: cow heart kabobs and choclo con queso: corn with cheese). It was a wonderful, wonderful night.

Day 4:

Day 4: Morning

The next morning we needed to get back Lima before too late in the afternoon, but we had time for another quick hike to some Pre-Incan ruins and a waterfall at a village a little ways down the road called Surco. Brad and Laura came with us and we taught them a new game called “Click it and Stick it”.

This game was taught to us by Annie when we lived in Linden, and it was her brother who invented it. We want it to take the world by storm! Here is the object of the game: The person who wants to “click” finds an object that they can push off of on the trail (like a rock or something) they gather a little speed then use the object as a jumping point. When they are airborne they need to “Click” their heels together then “Stick” the landing. If it is a successful ‘click’ and ‘stick’, then the persons who are playing must ‘click’ off the same object. But here’s the thing, the people following can one-up their “click” by throwing in 180s, 360s, double clicks, etc. If you don’t stick the landing, that’s cool, try again. There really are no winners or losers, but it sure is a lot of fun! Here is photo of Chelsea “clicking” off a dam at the waterfall.  It’s a great game as long as we’re not clicking near the precarious cliffs in the Andes! 

The 'Click'

We grabbed a bus back to Chosica, and then proceeded to Lima without any difficulty this time since we kinda knew the route. It only took us 3 hours! When we returned to the Hostel, Euro Backpackers (great place by the way! Thanks Vanessa for being so amazing!! ) the girls and Tim Mills were out front playing dominoes and waiting for our bus tickets to get delivered (how cool is that? Delivery of tickets!)  We wanted to leave Lima with a bang, so we went for a nice meal and some cocktails at this restaurant near some ancient Incan ruins, then went out to the discos in a neighborhood called Barranco. It was a great night.

 

Cusco is next! Until then!!! 

Good Friday Procession

The Second waterfall

 Pre-Incan Ruins

Cocktails and Ruins!

Day 2: Miraflores and Lima

Some fried donuts...really good street food.

When we began this journey we thought we’d be off the grid for a while. However, with our highly globalized and connected world, it seems like there isn’t an “off the grid” anymore. Everyone has wireless internet, I mean even right here at this hostel we’re staying at! Tomorrow will be a different story since we’ll be making our way to visit another Returned Volunteer in a village about 3 hours away from Lima. I am not sure how their internet stands, but if it is possible we will write; if not, we probably will wait until we’re at Cusco in a few days.  But the update:

Lima. Peru. Wow, we’re really here. We woke up after a much needed rest, made a breakfast of bread, eggs, and oranges, and then began our day! We walked around Miraflores for an hour, taking in this quiet barrio of Lima. It’s a mix of nice, rich apartments, fancy restaurants and casinos, but also a center of culture, coffee and beaches! There was a stunning view overlooking the Pacific Ocean built atop a mall with a TGI Fridays, Tony Romas, and Starbucks all built into it!. Of course, we ignored them and took in the sites. :) 

The view overlooking the beach at Miraflores

 

 After we made it back, we grabbed the girls then journeyed to Lima’s Centro (Downtown/City Center/Old Town). As we stepped off the bus we saw so many people flooding the streets, carrying intricately woven palm fronds, lining up to enter churches, and doing what they needed to do during this week of “Semana Santa” or Holy Week before Easter. It was overwhelming, but at the same time all of us couldn’t help but smile and rejoice in our good fortune.  

Pilgrims making and selling elaborate Palm Fronds...wish we had a better photo

 

We ate some amazing street foods ranging from some kind of taco-type meat, we don't remember the  name of the dish, but it was "carne de res” (which we know is beef but think, on this occasion, cow head), to other grilled meats, to tangy ceviche and custard filled churros.  We ate a lot and we don’t regret a minute of it.

Making el carne de res

Tons of fresh juice

It wasn't all eating, we also did some stuff too. I will let the pictures speak for themselves, but there were tons of colonial churches and buildings. All of them were stunning. We even took a tour of the catacombs underneath the church of San Francisco and saw lots and lots of remains (primarily femurs, it seemed) and some baroque art that lined the walls of the connected monastery.    

Chels in the Plaza Mayor in front of the Presidential Palace which used to be Pizzaro's house

Another Church Thronged with Pilgrims

All in all, it was a day of wanderings, but really good times (besides getting lost on the way back to our hostel…but hey, we’re RPCV’s we can do this!).  

For now, though, we’re going to wrap this wonder-filled day up with a glimpse of Lima nightlife. Should be fun.

Monkey love

All are involved in the festivities

Front of San Francisco Catedral/Monestary

Some Pisco Sours to wrap up our day. Bomb!!!!

About to head back to the hostel to prep for tonight. 

South American Adventure, Day 1:

Tim waves goodbye to Guyana at the Cheddi Jagan airport

Maracas Beach for a few hours during our layover. Best layover ever!

It’s been a whirl-wind day. We left our friend’s G/T house at 4am and arrived at the Cheddi Jagan airport with plenty of time for our 6:20 departure with no real drama. We met the other Peace Corps girls there who we are traveling with at first and said some good-bye’s for now to other volunteers who were flying directly home to the U.S. today. To make matters even more perfect, the plane was already being boarded as we walked through security, so we walked straight on to the flight and into the air.

We flew to Trinidad and, since we had an 8 hour lay-over, were blessed with the opportunity to “take a walk” around the island. We decided that instead of waiting in the boring airport, we should explore Trinidad so we hired a car to give us a tour. We went through Port of Spain, and got out of the taxi to walk around the capital city. We saw some old colonial churches and neat architecture and ate some really good local street food called “doubles”. A double is similar to fried roti, but this isn’t your auntie’s plain old roti! We watched the vendors lather on pepper sauce and two other sauces that looked a lot like salsa, but tasted like cilantro and chutney and the final touch is a heap of boiled chickpeas (anyone who reads our food blog knows how much Tim loves chickpeas!). We were stoked to try this tasty local treat. Then our driver took us to the best beach in Trinidad, according to him, called Maracas. It was a truly beautiful beach, tucked deep into a cove, surrounded by lush, jungle covered mountains. The water was chilly but the air was warm and we enjoyed a few luxurious moments drinking in the last of the Caribbean heat and a final Stag beer on the beach.

The flight to Panama passed in fits of wakefulness, but we didn’t have much time to dwell on our own exhaustion because we boarded to Peru within thirty minutes of touching down. The flight to Lima was good, there was tons of space to spread out so Chels and I decided to claim a row for ourselves and catch a bit of shuteye. We found our hostel and had the whole dorm to ourselves too so we didn’t have to worry about waking anyone when we came in. The beds are clean and warm and the room is mosquito and mosquito net free. We are happy RPCVs! And now its sleep time.

T & C (0230 local time)

p.s. I am posting this on Thursday morning, since we were too tired to finish the blog last night. Happy Thursday! We are off to explore Lima!

View from a vista point in Trinidad. I'm pretty sure we saw a pirate ship here.

Eating doubles on the streets in Port of Spain. Best fifty cents spent on lunch ever!

Found a labyrinth in Trinidad at a cool old church.

The sock monkeys had a blast on the layover too!

Rememberables.....

I am writing this the night before we depart Guyana for good (for now at least). By the time this posts we’ll be away from GT and in Trinidad. But I wanted a smooth transition from it being a Peace Corps Blog to something else. But worry not we will keep writing. We find it highly therapeutic and simply put: pretty awesome. But before we move from this chapter of our lives, I think it prudent to reflect back upon some of the more rememberable (yeah I think I just made that word up) moments and life lessons we’ve picked up in our PC lives.  

• The 15 hour bus ride to Lethem. And after the agony of the unpaved road, I was blown away as the savannah unrolled before us. My fellow trainees and I just stared at the spectacle with our jaws dropped.  It was such an amazing experience.
• Another HVV memory: Horseback riding from the plains to the mountains and hills until we approached Skull Mountain, an ancient Amerindian burial site. Bleached bones stared at us from old, cracked clay jars.
• Mobilizing my office to clean out two classrooms full of books. And then ship off those books to schools that desperately need them, especially in the interior.
• Facilitating a workshop with 100+ secondary students about to take their Caribbean exams. This proved how capable I was, and how much I enjoy teaching. 
• Practicing what I preach. I wrote a manuscript after scrupulously studying education texts, and then attempted to lead my own sessions by example. It was a good feeling modeling what I expected from my participants. 
•  We will remember so many morning exercises, breakfasts, cups of coffee and gaffs with my loving wife. We really took time for ourselves when we needed to and grew closer to one another.
•   We will remember so many nights cooking fresh food, with fresh ingredients. We felt healthier than we have in many years. We knew where I food came from and loved it!
• Self-confidence. I’ve learned not to doubt myself. And I should just embrace that I am an expert in my chosen field.
• You reap what you sow. The amount of effort you choose to input into a project will directly affect the outcome.
• Being able to give ourselves freedom when we need it. Know when we need a break and then take one. We can be our own boss, we can be self-disciplined or not, it’s really up to us.

There are so many more memories I want to talk about: scaling the aluminum factory, the author’s fairs, traveling to Shell Beach, Linden Town Week. The different people who have affected our lives, who we’ve met and they’ve made such lasting impressions on us.   It was a good two years. I am excited to see what the next chapter reads.

Off the Grid

Today we are wrapping up our Peace Corps paperwork, spending time Skyping with friends and gaffin’ with fellow PCVs in the Peace Corps Office. Tomorrow we will no longer be PCVs! We will officially be RPCVs (Return Peace Corps Volunteers)! It is crazy!

Tomorrow morning, early, we are flying out of Guyana, through Trinidad and Panama to Peru! We have so many exciting adventures planned and we will be essentially off the grid until May 20^th. We are backpacking through Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina so I have no idea how often will have access to the internet. We have promised our families that we will be in touch at least once a week and if we can, we will try to blog a bit about what we are up to. We will do our best to keep in touch but don’t be concerned if we aren’t the most consistent bloggers for a while. I promise updates when we are settled back in America.

Until then, we hope you all stay well. We will continue to ride the wave of emotional turmoil that is the adjustment cycle of a Peace Corps Volunteer and process our adventures, both during and after our service, as we travel. We will be watching each other’s backs and taking good care of ourselves and employing all the best practices that we know to use when traveling abroad. Sending you lots of love and hugs from Guyana, one last time!

-Tim and Chelsea