Huaraz Video!! So amazingly gorgeous.

More scenery shots

These are the Wilcahuain ruins from where I ate the Guinea Pig.

From there, we hiked back into the mountains and came across this cabin along the path (While there still was an obvious path)

Farther along the mountain, before we really started descending to the village in the valley, I took this shot

The next day we went deep into the mountains to see one of the many lagoons back there. Here's a part of the road. It's hard to tell it from the sky, but at the end of the road in between the 2 mountains, you can see the snow covered mountains that we're heading for.

And here's the lagoon, way back in the mountains, very high up, and very blue.

Huaraz, Ruins, and the Glacier Lake!

Ah, the glacier lake was so gorgeous. We actually went on a tour to go to this lake since it was out of town, and so we felt rushed at the lake. We were those annoying people that everyone else had to wait for because we went hiking around to see stuff on the other side of the lake. I was embarrassed, but also glad I got to spend more time at the lake.

The second picture is from a town called Yungay that used to be. Unfortunately in 1970 a serious chunk of a mountain fell down due to an strong earthquake and covered the town. It's currently buried 25 feet under the new ground. What you see in the picture is a chunk of the cathedral, must have been tall enough to stick out.

The rest of the pictures are from the Wilcahuain Ruins (Circa 600 AD) and the hike we went on afterwards to find the hot springs. We did find them! And they were awesome and extra rewarding after a 7 Km hike through the mountains. We actually enjoyed that hike more than our long guided tour to the glacier lake.

We have a video too - I will try to post it or maybe not.

Panoramic Shots

Here are a couple of panoramic shots I've taken. One of a soccer game in Trujillo and another of Huaraz from el Mirador.

More school time!!!

We remembered to bring a camera again and get some pictures during actually class time. You'll notice in my picture I am listening so I look like a pretty lazy teacher, but really I had a lot of fun teaching.

The photos of Brian are of him playing memory with English words and pictures. Those kids learned a lot in the little time we were there. And his kids in computer classes learned a lot too!

So happy to have some photos of the kiddies - it would have been sad to forget what they looked like.

Futbol Game

The game wasn't as crazy as I expected. I was hoping to see some serious fans going ballistic and yelling at each other. There was one team that was just clearly better than the other and it seemed like 90% plus of the fans were rooting for the better team. So everyone was just happy the whole time and not a lot of suspense.

A few things of note though: People just sit in the aisles and totally fill them up so you can't really get out until half time when they all move. At half time, they brought out a banner that said, "In case of an earthquake, remember to stay calm." I just thought it was funny that they have so many earthquakes that this is necessary. And that the reason people probably panic is because they can't get out because the aisles are full. In the second picture, you'll notice we totally got photobombed. And lastly, I think the San Martin team's mascot is a tooth...you can see it a bit in picture number three.

Orchesta Concert and School Time

After a long time of not being able to get to my blog, I can get to it again for some reason.

Anyway, the first picture is from the Orchestra Concert. We really had a lot of fun at it, the music was so nice. A good change, since really only one type of music is played here.

The last few pictures are from Brian and I working at the school. They're kind of crappy pictures, but probably the only ones we'll remember to take. These were taken in the last hour of the day and we're always so exhausted at the end of the day. I am sure you can see it in our eyes. All the kids love getting their pictures taken. Too bad we won't get pictures of us teaching...we're just in the library in these.

Chan Chan Ruins

A few days ago we went to the Chan Chan Ruins near Trujillo. The ruins are massive, 20 square kilometers. It's the largest Pre-Columbian South American city, built over a 1000 years ago. Also, it appears they had lots of cubby holes for their shoes and toys.

They had a lake on the inside of the city walls, which I thought was pretty rad, but I guess it's got to be common to have a water source in any fortrified city. Doesn't Brian look enormous in the second picture? Either he's always that enormous and I am just used to it, or he looks taller now that he's dropped an estimated 20 lbs.

The last picture is just so people can see how disgusting my feet look down here. It's impossible to keep them clean. All that is just from 2 or 3 hours to visit Chan Chan.

Our Gecko, Pterodactyls, and a Vulture

The gecko has been living in our apartment for a week or two now. We see him every once in a while and he eats bugs. The pterodactyls are always flying close to the ocean. They have finger wings. And the vultures can be seen often as well, this one was at the Chan Chan Ruins.

Otuzco Ruins

Day 3 in Cajamarca. We visited the Otuzco Ruins. It's pretty much a graveyard that is super old. We took a tour with a guide, so we finally have a couple photos of us together. The 2nd picture is of the ruins. The 3rd picture is a river we went to on the way to the ruins. Everybody is washing their clothes, their cars, whatever in the river. The 4th picture is us in Cajamarca at the Seat of the Inca. We didn't think it was that impressive, but we used the building to get a picture of us together with the city in the background. It is really difficult to hike at 9000 ft elevation. On our tour, we were also taken to a garden where we got to see Guava, Papayas, Tucuma, all sorts of fruits growing. They showed us a brick fabrication plant and a dairy farm. Dairy farming is huge up there. Definitely tried some fresh from the cow milk up there.

Baños del Inca and Carnaval Night Life

Day 2 in Cajamarca. I thought the Banos del Inca would be like any other hot springs place I had been before - kind of like a huge hot tub and you just walk up and get in and soak until you're done. However, at the Inca Bathes, there are private rooms for each group. There's a big pipe that runs into the private room from the hot springs and it's mixed with as much cold water as you decide. We made ours super hot. We ended up realizing that since tons of people don't have hot water up here, it's where they come when they want a bath, which is why they're private. The water in the non-swimming pools was about 170 degrees. Somehow some things still manage to grow in there.

Carnaval Night Life - Interested in mostly making a bunch of sound, every little group had their own drum and just kept banging on it the whole night. Little mountain ladies walked around and sold homemade yellowish liquor in reused soda bottles. In one picture you can see this troll doll that had some weird stuff on it. It sort of looked like they were playing "operation." The morning we arrived in Cajamarca, there were still people out in the plaza drumming away. It was 6ish in the morning. It was pretty cool to see the fire/juggling act. Sad to say we didn't catch any picture of floats. The floats were really elaborate, creative and colorful sometimes stuffed in the back of a pickup truck.

Llacanora - waterfalls etc

It's going to be difficult to pick which pictures to use from our whole trip to Cajamarca. For some reason we just took way more pictures than we normally would, so I am definitely separating the days in the Cajamarca region. Day 1 - Llacanora, the waterfalls, the hike surrounding the waterfalls, enormo plants, and goat-cow-pig. Brian and I both really liked this small little town. There were farms that went up the mountainsides and lots of greenery. Of course, with lots of greenery comes mosquitos, so I got bit a lot and am glad to say I don't currently have yellow fever. The backdrops in the mountain pictures and the plants speak for themselves. It was so cool. Brian and I both had our own names for goat-cow-pig. He thinks it should be man-bear-pig, but I don't see it. I think it is so clearly part pig, part cow, part goat. We got to a set of waterfalls first that were already gorgeous and it said there were more waterfalls ahead, so we trekked forward to some even cooler waterfalls, which is what I have posted.

Trujillo

Last week after a solid 10 days of mostly laying around in the apartment being sick, we went to Trujillo. It had been a while since we'd been in the city and we were not too fond of the taxis, the combi ride and all the craziness, but the Plaza de Armas was beautiful. I'd say that I'd never ride in a Combi again, except I already have. But when I rode in one that night, I felt like I was going to die. We ate at a restaurant with a great bathroom (a hard to find luxury item around here) and called it our Valentine's Day dinner. I really liked some of the architecture, so a lot of these pictures are for my mom for her to see too. My favorite is the open sky building with the walking terrace on top and the courtyard. All in all, Trujillo is worth a visit, but not two.