Arequipa

I have to apologize for not posting lately. I will give you a recap of the last two weeks.

Beth made it in safely. It was great to have her in South America. We spent a few days in Lima and then spent a few days in Cuzco/Aguas Caliente. Lima can be a pretty intimidating place when you first get off the plane. The airport isn't in a great area of town and so you have to be careful with the taxi you choose and you have to be careful of your possessions. I just didn't want her to be nervous of Lima when she got in. Once she got settled, we walked around town the first few days and found ourselves in a couple of casinos. We had a good time playing the slots... unfortunately it is addicting, but when you are playing with .01 soles, you aren't using too much money.

Next adventure was heading off to Cuzco. Once we got to the airport to make our way to Cuzco, we picked up the tickets and had a pretty nice surprise waiting for us. When I was booking our flight to Cuzco, for some reason I purchased first class seats. I could have sworn that they were the cheapest seats I found...I was decently embarrassed, but we had a good time sitting up there. When we got to Cuzco, I definitely was feeling the effects of the altitude. Beth was much more of a trooper when it came to that. Unfortunately, it affected us both pretty heavily during the evening. The next day we took the train to Aguas Calientes, which is a very touristy town rightbefore Machu Picchu. In Aguas Calientes, we decided to climb a mountain that has a great view of Machu Picchu...Mt. Putucusi. My hat goes off to BA- there was about 100-200 meters of ladders that you had to climb to get to the trail. Coming down off of the mountain is a pretty scary/intense experience, it doesn't matter who you are. The next day, we headed off to Machu Picchu, which was great. We had to get to the bus stop at a little past 5 to make sure that we got tickets to Waynapichu. It was well worth the lost sleep to make it up there. I will post pictures soon. Ceara...you are going to fall in love with Machu Picchu.

We then headed back to Lima and after spending two days there, we had to say goodbye to one another. I will admit, saying goodbye knowing that I wouldn't be able to talk to her as much once she was gone was a bit difficult. Going from getting to talk to her at any point of the day to talking to her maybe once a day or once every other day has its difficulty. Once I dropped her off at the airport (technically the taxi cab driver and I) I spent the night in Lima before heading off to Arequipa.

16 hr bus ride, and I made it into Arequipa. This has to be one of my favorite cities that I have visited in South America. It is a great place to just walk around and look at the architecture and landscape. There are three mountains off in the distance...one of which I am hoping to climb this weekend with some of the other volunteers... Thankfully, once I got to the hostel I met a few of the other volunteers that had been there for some time. They got me set up with the office and underway at the school. So I thought I was going to be at the orphanage, but you have to commit for at least a month...and so knowing that I couldn't do that, I went off to the school to teach English. I´ve also joined the construction team that is working on building up a bathroom and wall to give boundaries to the school. School is in the afternoon and construction is in the morning, so it works out perfectly.

The area that the school is in is outside of Arequipa, so you have to take a colectivo to get out there...which proves to be an experience every time I get on one. Imagine packing 15-25 people in this small van... and there you go. The area where the school reminds me a lot of the colonias in Nuevo Laredo. It might be just one step up. But, similar to the experiences of many, the people there are so inviting and willing to give you anything that they have.

One thing I wanted to work on while I am here was to introduce some kind of physician visit for the kids...or at the minimum a vitamin plan. Knowing that the diet of the kids can be extremely variable, I think that it would be amazing to be able to provide vitamins to the kids at least once or twice a week. But, I also am hoping to find a donor from a large pharmaceutical company to ensure that it is a sustainable program... We will see how it goes. I will write more soon.