Peru Trip! (Casa del Aguila Orphanage)

DAYS 7-9 CASA DEL AGUILA

We spent several days visiting an orphanage (one of the ones my colleague's nonprofit helps kids aging out of) outside Limatambo, which is very far flung off the beaten path. Maybe more accessible than Machu Picchu, because you could just go there by... driving on a road. But certainly more in the middle of nowhere.

The orphanage has a handful of houses where kids are grouped by age and gender, and live with a house parent. They go to school next door at an adjacent private school, where they have free tuition but kids from neighboring villages can pay to attend. Some of them walk literal hours each way to get there. (See again: far-flung.)

(Where else but Peru can you see palm trees and snow-capped mountains in the same vista?)

Wait, wait. Are you wondering if there were alpacas wandering through the orphanage? Are you??

Yes, there were alpacas wandering through the orphanage. Of course there were alpacas. There are always alpacas.

The orphanage was an excellent host, we got to stay in a little house-like dorm with bunk beds and a cozy cabin feel. It felt like family camp!

All the housing buildings look almost the same and it's hard to tell in the dark which one is which, so you have to remember by the scripture over the door, which made me smile.

Also the best showers of our whole trip were here! In the land of no water heaters! They have a wood stove out behind the house and one of our hosts would come and light the fire to heat the water at whatever time we told him we might want showers. It worked beautifully and they were so kind and helpful to do that for us! Excellent service, when service isn't even their job, they're just living their normal orphanage work life. That's some amazing hospitality right there.

We had our breakfasts and dinners prepared by a woman who specially does just that for visitors (so that everything can be washed in filtered water, etc, since our non-local stomachs couldn't do much fresh produce otherwise). Her cooking was delicious and she was warm and kind and truly made us feel like honored guests.

We had the opportunity to eat with the children in their cafeteria for lunches, so I got to do that once, and during the other lunch I was manning the work phones back in our dorm house, where there was wifi. (Our whole company was in Peru! It was a lot to keep on top of our jobs and also be so far away and so busy and so non-connected by cell and data signals.)

The orphanage has a small farm where they get milk for the kids and eventually raise meat too. It's mostly sheep and goats, and the kids learn to take care of them as part of their chores.

When we were there, there was a baby lamb who had just been born the night before! Super cool.

They also have a working farm with lucumas and avocados and all manner of fruit, which they use for food and also to sell. And bees! They keep bees!

One night when we were there, we got to go to worship with them, which was lovely. Going to church in new places is always so cool to me, to see how acts of worship and those type of practices manifest differently in different contexts. We sang a lot of songs, clapped some crazy fun patterns, and our boss preached ("preached") with our local colleague translating.

At one point we went to go play with the kids and they showed us how to make kites out of garbage bags. Which sounds... I don't know, sad? But it isn't, I mean it didn't feel sad. It felt cool and creative and industrious. I love it when little kids can teach me something I would never think of, being a boring old grownup!

I spent one afternoon walking through the school with my coworker, meeting all of his contacts there, and talking to the director and the computer lab teacher. We had a fun conversation about duolingo, which they're using for lots of English practice. I also got to spend some time in an English workshop with a lovely teenager and practice with her. Meeting people and making conversation is such a great way to learn, and I'm so glad I got to do that for a bit.

I also spent part of one afternoon doing some craft things with a few younger kids around their group houses. I wasn't sure what I would be able to do that wouldn't need a translator (the only other English speaker with me was my boss's four-year-old daughter, and she was no help) so I had brought washi tape and cardstock and we made bookmarks.

Basically if you open up a lunch box full of pretty tape, girls FLOCK to it. It transcends culture.

It was really fun to make them with them, and try to chat and learn a few spanish words. It's amazing how much you can communicate even with very little language in common.

One of my favorite creatures at the orphanage was this little dog, who apparently loves any visitors who come through. He's not really a pet and not really a stray (the "stray" dogs all over Peru looked very well loved and cared for). He stuck to my side for basically the whole time we were there. On the last night he even pushed through the screen door into our house/cabin, and climbed on my bed and took a nap while we were in our debriefing and affirmations meeting.

A few people were horrified but I did not hate it one bit.

And that's the story of how I cried some Bowden tears, all the way down in South America.

DAYS 9-10 THE LONG JOURNEY HOME

Sadly, about half our group woke up very sick on the last morning in Peru. I think something happened with the lunch the day before (when I was doing a work shift, so I missed it) (grateful in hindsight). It was a long and awkward drive back over the mountains and we had to stop several times for fresh air for our sickies.

When people had perked up, we bought a giant loaf of bread from someone on a street corner (add that to the list of things America should embrace too - I think there's a market for street corner snack sellers here, directly into car windows!) and shared it amongst ourselves. Lots of breaking bread together jokes, etc etc.

It took hours of bus riding, hours of airport waiting, many rounds of good-byes as people peeled off for their own departures home, and then three planes (including one long red-eye) - but we made it back. I made my two people on the same flight out of Lima (my favorite coworkers) (shhh don't tell the others) change into PJs to fly home, and we took one last selfie at the airport.

Bye Peru. You are beautiful. And you have excellent cocktails.

Peru Trip! (Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu) (!!!!)

We made it to Machu Picchu! It was completely amazing. I had no concept of the scope of it from pictures (a whole city! on a mountain!) so seeing it in person was really just awe-inducing.

Okay so that was Day 6. First, to get there, we took a crazy scenic trip by road and rail through all the most beautiful parts of beautiful Peru. I mean every place was more gorgeous than the last. Seriously, Peru, with the scenery. Seriously.

DAY 5: SACRED VALLEY OF THE INCAS

Outside of Cusco, we stopped to see several different Incan ruin sites. One of them was called Sacsayhuamán which totally sounds like "sexy woman" (just trust me, it does) (and if you don't find that funny, then you're exactly like my coworkers and nothing like me) and there were tons of steep steps, but from the top the view of Cusco was breathtaking.

Y'all. The climbing. At 11,000+ feet elevation. With a still-recovering foot. It was haaaaard. Like harder than I want to admit.

We also climbed around in some caves and learned about Incan tradition (we know surprisingly little, which is intriguing to me).

Also there were more alpacas. You could guess that, right?

We saw several ruins sites, road tripping over and through the Andes, and then we stopped for lunch in a little mountain town that's basically totally sustained by its silver mine. I bought a mother earth necklace. Yes I haggled. Yes I love it.

At one point we stopped to walk around and see the scenery of the Sacred Valley, and oh man we could barely breathe deep enough just for normal walking. I think our driver said we were like 12,500 feet or so. It's funny how we were all mostly fine in Cusco at 11k, but that extra 1500 feet did us in. Like dizzy and headachy just for those moments up high, until we came back over the other side of the mountain.

It sure was gorgeous though.

We made it to a darling town called Ollantaytambo (so pleasing to say out loud! do it. yes you. do it!) and caught the train to the village below Machu Picchu.

Let me tell y'all, catching a train in Peru is not the same thing as catching a train in, say, Germany. Or even catching Amtrak here in the states. The boarding cars and lining up process are quite a Thing. Like a big ol' mess that somehow works anyway. I was both horrified and impressed.

The train ride was (you guessed it) SUPER SCENIC. They played pan flute music the whole time, and served juice cocktails (fresh juice with milk in it is a very big thing in Peru) and snacks and it was all very charming.

NIGHT 5: AGUAS CALIENTES

The town at the base of Machu Picchu is called Aguas Calientes, and I have... never seen a town quite like it. It's small, it only exists becuase of Machu Picchu (which was only discovered a hundred-ish years ago), and it is basically just a crop of shopping stalls and guest houses and restaurants and chapels. There are no real roads, and no vehicle traffic, except the buses that take people up the mountain. It felt more like a base camp than a town. It was crawling with backpackers and tourists and people excited to go hike the ruins. There's an air of fun and anticipation, and packed bars and pubs.

dinner on a rooftop terrace! 

Other people in our group were wearying of lack of hot showers (our hotel in Cusco was only intermittently warm, so people had been banking on great showers in Aguas Calientes, but it turns out not only was there no hot water but no water at all, because of some kind of main break? or something? people were still hosing off the sidewalks outside so I don't believe one word of whatever explanation was handed out, ha) but while they were craving hot water, I was craving quiet. It was maybe about Night 5 that the noise of South America started to exhaust me. This is a culture of people who enjoy background noise, and loud music, and blaring tv's that no one is watching. People embrace it as the feeling of living happening, and while I get that, it's also exhausting for me. I'm not an "unneccessary noise" kind of gal, and it can shoot my nerves real quick. The town was fun but even louder than Cusco, which was even louder than Lima, so by bedtime in Aguas Calientes I just wanted all the nightclub thumping to be... less. Or none. I had earplugs, but no earplugs are truly good enough for Peru. Trust.

DAY 6: MACHU PICCHU

We woke up super early (super! early!) (like, every hotel started breakfast at 5am. What? Why? Why do people love Machu Picchu so early in the day? What, it's not going to still be there at noon? I'm sure there's a reason this is a trend but I never did suss it out) and caught a bus up the mountain to Machu Picchu. Let me tell you, that drive was terrifying. I would not have taken my Honda Accord around those curves that fast, and they did it while passing other buses. People kept looking out the bus windows and pointing out all the memorials on the side of the mountain and I was like Y'ALL. CAN YOU NOT.

But we made it to the top, and oh man. So stunning.

Just... all the exclamation points.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had never fully grasped how big it is until I saw it in real life. I mean you can't tell scale in pictures.but each of those little squares is a non-small building, like an entire house or temple or whatever. This was a whole thriving city. People were born and died here and probably never had any reason to leave the mountain. It's huge.

Look at those tiny people and stairs, for scale. 

We spent half a day hiking and climbing around, and we only saw part of it. It would take multiple days to actually see every section, maybe more.

It kept striking me just how far-flung it was. This whole city, up on a mountain. A mountain that's pretttty inaccessible even for modern-day tourists. I mean we took a flight from an international gateway to the closest airport, then a long bus ride over mountains just to catch a train, which is basically the only way into the base camp town, and then a scary ride for miles up the mountain itself, before we even had a glimpse of it. HOW DID THEY EVEN FIND IT?? It was only discovered a hundred years ago, and I can see why! And why/how would they have built a city up on such a high mountain anyway? For safety? Defense? Amazing scenery? It's totally fascinating to me.

Before we hiked down, there were (of course!) (obviously!) more alpacas. Everyone, behold: the most Peru thing that has ever Peru'd:

After a long hard hike (my foot was angry at me but it was so so worth it) we had lunch in town before catching the train out. Look at this delightful lunch view!

We were ravenous, and Peru just kept consistently handing us amazing avocados. Every single one we had (and there were many) were perfectly ripe. I am not even a particularly avocado-y person, but daaaaaang these were incredible.

Also they have giant corn. Look at those huge kernels! They toast them and serve them like pretzels. Fun!

Also this was on the menu at lunch, so I will leave you with this final Machu Picchu thought: trout to the male thing. That is all.

Trout to the male thing. TROUT. TO. THE. MALE. THING.

Peru Trip! (Cusco)

DAY 3: TO CUSCO

We flew from Lima (sea level) south into the Andes to Cusco (11k feet or something bananas), and it was a really stunning flight.

I can see why doing this journey by bus would take 24 hours, even though it was such a short flight. There are so. many. mountains. And not that many roads, and definitely not great roads. It was beautiful to see though.

When we landed there was a bowl of coca leaves (not coco, not cocoa -- but coca: a whole 'nother thing) which we were welcome to chew on to help with elevation sickness? Apparently? I don't know it looks pretty legit to me?

ONLY THREE FREE THOUGH, DO NOT GO CRAZY NOW.

I mean, if you're not getting off the plane in a new place and putting random plants in your mouth immediately, then why even travel, right? (They were not tasty. But, yknow, when in Rome or whatever.)

Basically when we landed it was suddenly winter (because, it was winter) (and in the mountains) but we got checked into our hotel/ guesthouse and I climbed to the roof to look at the hillside. The building is an inteesting mix of indoor/outdoor space (chilly!) but it makes for fun exploring.

We all went out for a great dinner together. Steaks (more alpaca!) came on sizzling hot rocks and finished cooking right at the table. This is also a trend America should embrace, soon and very soon.

It was cold at night. Like, cold! No heater! Winter! Mountains! But they had these giant wool blankets (heavy rugs, basically) and oh man can I say again how amazing alpaca wool is? That stuff is no joke.

Unrelated, I met a baby goat. So there's that.

DAY 4: CUSCO

We started our day with Peruvian Starbucks (judge away, it delighted me and I'm  not sorry) and we used a room there to drink our coffee and have some team meetings, which, well. {Insert unbloggagble frustrations here, and feel free to ask me any time about the intersection of faith and workplace, when you're not in a specific faith-related call. It gets... complicated.}

But the historical city square is just gorgeous.

I really liked this door. It was my favorite door I saw in Peru. I called it early, on day 3.

Also, there's a random courtyard with random alpacas. I don't know why. I wasn't with any spanish speakers at the time so I couldn't ask. I just waved.

Always with the alpacas.

We adventured on a city bus (they don't look official, BUT THEY ARE) to the home of one of my colleagues who lives there. He is heading up a nonprofit with some local teachers, to aid and support kids who are aging out of orphanages and group homes. Foster care isn't really a Thing in Peru, so for most of these kids they don't have much of an idea about what living alone or cooking or getting around a city even looks like. I mean it would be a lot for any 18-year-old, but particularly when you've never even seen the life you're trying to live. It's very cool work they are doing, and it was fun to meet his friends and other people involved in his organization, and some of the kids he is working with.

Also the view from his house is not shabby.

We had Pervuian pizza for dinner. Peruvian pizza is a lot like American pizza except you have to walk to the carry-out place to order it, and then it takes several hours (!) because Peru.

While we waited, we went to a Peruvian grocery store, because grocery shopping in new places is one of my MOST FAVORITE THINGS to do when traveling in a new place. I bought all manner of fun snacks and treats to bring home.

Why are these juice boxes this shape, besides simply to delight me?

purple maize!

it's super dry and cold. my lips needed help. this seems legit yes?

Also, we had Inca Kola! I don't know why this delights me so much, it's basically just a super sweet tropical Sun Drop, and yet. Delightful.

I bought Mark an Inca Kola shirt to bring home. Oh yes I did. WHAT. HE LIKES SHIRTS.

I actually did some other fun shopping and wandering in our downtime in Cusco, with one of my colleagues who is also prone to such things. Places stay open late, and shopping in the dark in crowds of people was totally fun! (I'm not being sarcastic in the least.)

There were some really nice stores with beautiful clothes and hats, and I splurged on some amazing alpaca-cashmere scarves in bright colors that I could not walk away from, and a tunic sweater for Charlotte.

I also got to haggle in some little stalls for cute kitch, like coin purses and alpaca ornaments and these tiny Peruvian style hats that I cannot wait for my children to adorn their winter coats with. They're so charming. I'm charmed! SO CHARMED.

Less charming: since most bathrooms don't provide toilet paper, there is TP for sale everywhere, by the roll. Everyone just keeps a roll in their purse. It both makes all the sense in the world and yet none at all. By the end of the trip it made me smile to see it everywhere on every street corner and even roadside farm stands. Ha.

And thus ends this post, with toilet paper.