Arequipa!

Arequipa!!!

Horseback riding!!!

Enjoying our little nap!

This past Friday a group of UNK students and myself boarded our 5:30 A.M. flight to Arequipa. We landed in Arequipa around 7:00 A.M. and then loaded up in taxis in order to find our way to the hostel so we could get some much needed shut eye. We got to the hostel and encountered obstacle number one of the trip: we had six beds for 9 people. We were all exhausted and all we wanted to do was take a little snooze so Laura, Nicki, and I decided to share a bed. We woke up about 2 hours later and decided it was time to do some exploring. We naturally went to the Plaza de Armas where we were bombarded with people trying to get us to go on their tours. We ran into this man who offered us a four hour bus ride of the entire town for only 15 soles per person (about 6 American dollars). This was definitely an AWESOME decision. We rode in a double deck bus and stopped at 10 different places throughout the city. The tour started off with a ranch full of llamas and alpacas. From there we hit up various famous sites such as “La Iglesia San Miguel Arcángel,” “Palacio de Goyenecha,” “Mirador y Plaza de Yanahuara,” etc. Our last stop was “Molinos Coloniales.” This place offered lots of fun activities and we decided to try out luck with horseback riding. I had actually been to a friend’s house horseback riding fairly recently and I was somewhat confident in my abilities. Everything was going smoothly and I kept telling my horse “You are really pretty,” and “Good job, you are doing great.” (In Spanish of course!) Then, all of a sudden my horse decided it was a little hungry and wanted a little grub from the trees. As my horse went along eating, it was dragging my leg against a stone wall. I kept telling it “a la izquierda por favor” (to the left please) but it wouldn’t listen. Needless to say, I now have a nice little scab on my leg. After that little incident I refused to compliment my horse the rest of the ride.

           

The highlight of the day on Saturday was this awesome four-hour White River Rafting excursion we went on. We met up at this tourist company in the Plaza de Armas and they took us to a rafting company’s place where we changed into our wet suits. Man, those things are hard to get on! After we were all dressed and ready to go, we headed up to the river. We divided up into groups and my group had 5 people in the raft. Our instructor decided it would be best if we practiced a little before entering into the water considering some of us had never gone rafting before. The first instruction he gave us was “right back, left forward.” All five of us kind of just looked at each other like “what the heck does that mean?!?!” and then we burst out laughing. After about 5 minutes or so of instruction, we headed out to the river even though our instructor thought we could have definitely used a lot more practice. It took about 2 hours for us to completely the journey. It was soooooo much fun. At one point, Emily and Derek feel out of the boat. The instructor pulled Emily back in the raft right away but I could see Derek slipping away. Then all of a sudden, he had this awesome jump off of a rock and was able to grab onto the side of the raft! Laura and I then pulled him in. Shortly after this experience we were all paddling down the river happy as can be when all of a sudden I saw a rock coming directly at my face!!! All I heard was the instructor yell at Nicki and I to get inside raft. At one point we were also warned that there would be some trees coming up in which all of us would need to lay inside the boat in order to avoid being wacked by the branches. I could literally feel and hear the branches as they swiped over my head!!! We finally made it to the end and then were left with the hefty task of taking off our wet suits (we thought they were hard enough getting on but taking them off when they were wet was a whole different task in and of itself!) When we got back from rafting, Laura and I hit up church and then decided it was shower and bed time. Unfortunately, I was the 13^th person (out of 13) from the UNK group to shower and the water literally felt like ice hitting my body. When I came back in the room Emily sat up and bed and asked if I was alright because I was still shivering!!!

Sunday we woke up bright and early to get ready for the bus that was coming to pick us up at 2:30 A.M. We all loaded up in the bus for our four-hour ride to Colca Canyon. I have never been in a more uncomfortable bus in my life. It just felt like you were sleeping on metal. So…we decided to make squirrel families!!! (Look at the pictures!) Once we finally got to Colca Canyon it was pretty sweet. Colca is three times the size of the Grand Cayon. We hiked a little and then went and soaked up some rays in the Hot springs!!! We got back to our hostel around 5:30 P.M., showered, ate dinner, and did a little shopping around Arequipa. That night we hit the hay early since we had a 7:30 A.M. flight the next morning!

Colca Cayon

We finally arrived back to our houses in Lima around 11 A.M. Then, it was time to hit the books for our Indigenous Culture quiz. This week we started the unit on Peru. I, of course, find it very interesting. I thought I might share a couple facts about Peru with you so you can get to know it a little better:

 Peru has three distinct regions: the selva, the coast, and the sierra (similar to mountains.) Each of these regions are very distinct in their dress, music, and food. Peru’s poverty level is a whopping 53%. Yikes!!! The richest 10% of Peruvians hold 35% of the spending capacity. Before I came to Peru and read these articles, when I thought of Peru I automatically thought of the Inca. However, there were actually a lot of different groups that came before the Inca, such as the Huari, Chavin, Nazca etc. In fact, the Inca Empire actually embodied many key aspects of other cultures.

In class yesterday we talked a lot about Peru in general and how we have been able to experience some of the things we read about! I am hoping that through my blog all of you have been able to learn at least a little bit more about the wonderful country I currently live in!

Well, it’s time to get going on the homework! This week has already filled up with tests, school visits, and other obligations! Hope you all are having a great week!

Mary