Urabamba & Lares

This week has been interesting. We've had the week off in terms of work because of Holy Week. On Monday, I went to Hearts Cafe (where I currently am) and returned to my house to find that I locked the key to my room IN my room. I never lock the door or carry the key so I must have hit the lock when I walked out. Oops. Jesus, Janet & I tried to pick at the lock for awhile and failed. I ran around town to try and find one of the guy volunteers to pick the lock. I found Frederick, he tried and also failed. Damn Peruvian locks. So there are three panes of glass between my room and the next room. I left for Spanish class and apparently Jesus knocked out one of the panes & got in. They cleaned up the glass and all that before I got home but that just lead to another stupid adventure.

In order to get the glass replaced we had to go to the next town over, Urabamba, which is a half hour ride away. We got a collectivo taxi to Urabamba which is 1 sol but they pack it with like 15-20 people which makes for a crappy ride. We got to Urabamba around 8 am and went to the market which is much bigger than Ollanto's market. At one point, I questioned AGAIN why I eat meat. The meat section was gross- meat hanging everywhere with saws & pigs heads displayed like a prize on the table. So we got a bunch of stuff....some for Suzanne's shop & her sister's shop. We probably had like 50 eggs, a sack of flour & a bunch of other stuff including a chicken with the legs and head, yuck. Then we went to get the glass. We got the piece cut, walked back with it to get another taxi back to Ollanto and....ccccrrrrackkkk. It broke once we were settled in the cab. I had to squeeze back out, walk back up to the store with Janet, get a new piece cut and grab another taxi back home. What a pain. Needless to say, I found the key in a pair of pants and it is in the door now & will stay there for the duration of my stay.

On Thursday morning, 14 people from the Awamaki crew decided to hike to Lares where there are some hot springs. It's an all day hike, so we grabbed a collectivo at 7:00 am for a one hour ride to the starting point in Patacancha. The first three hours were up-hill but great & beautiful & a little chilly at higher altitudes. Right before we hit the peak of the climb it began raining. And it had rained a bit this past week so the down hill portion was really muddy, wet & really cold. Needless to say, it was miserable. Everyone was so cold that our hands weren't functioning and at one point I was thinking - where the hell is a car to pick me up and take me to these hot springs immediately? But there was literally nothing but llamas, alpaca & mountains in the distance. I had also fallen in mud at the beginning so I was covered in mud. We didn't even really stop for lunch because we were so cold we all just wanted to get there as fast as possible. The last hour was a little more bare able and we finally arrived at the hot springs....which were closed.

Kidding, they weren't closed. They were spectacular and did an excellent job of returning my body to a normal temperature. However, everyone's backpacks had gotten wet and so did a lot of the stuff in them - including the dry pair of clothes were were all looking forward to wearing. So we were all cold again and some people didn't bring an additional pair of shoes so they had to put on their wet and muddy shoes from the hike. We grabbed dinner- which was the same as what I eat at home....rice, potatoes, meat. And everyone just wanted to crawl in bed to warm up & go to bed. I think we were all sleeping by 9 pm....the earliest I've gone to bed here. I slept in my jeans & coat and thankfully there were 4 heavy blankets on the beds to keep us warm.

Of course, when we arose yesterday morning it was a beautiful day. A great day for a hike. Funny how life works. The ride back took 3 hours and was beautiful. I got a few pictures but I don't think they do justice to the views here. It is quite spectacular.

When I arrived yesterday, I went over to Suzanne's for Jesus' birthday (my house brother-ish, not Jesus Chris :P ) We had ceviche and Pisco Sours for lunch and then drank ALL afternoon til about 11 pm. Zack, another volunteer who eats with my family, & I were pretty drunk. Jesus had to have been drunk too. That's the most drunk I've been here and going to bed is pretty fuzzy. The result - I've got the shakes today.

Tonight, there is another pizza party for the new volunteer who arrived yesterday. I look forward to pizza and not more rice, potatoes and meat. I'll post more pictures soon.

Caio for now.