Good times....

Danielito has become quite the little troublemaker, but i still absolutely love playing with him! I love when i can hear him talking about how he's going to play with me as he comes down the stairs with his mom...then i hear him walk to my door and knock/push it open! "Quieres jugar???" Who in their right mind could say no to anything so adorable?

We took pics of the whole family on Father's Day, but i haven't had time to update the blog lately. I had my 20 minute presentation this morning in my History of America class, So so so glad that is over! Now it's just reading books and writing papers. (granted that reading accumulates to about 600 pages not including research for the papers i have to write)... but only one more week of school! Yay!

After the semester plans are still in the making, but i'm getting more and more excited about the possibilities. I'll update you all when I know more about what's going on.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, honestly, unless you're interested in hearing about what i have read about the Mayan civilization, there isn't much to tell. (i went to a museum on Friday which was pretty awesome, but that's more or less then only thing i've done all week) School will consume my time for the next week as well. unfortunately.

p.s. countdown to Guate is at 22 days! I can't wait to see my kids!

Just one of those days...

So, i have a million pages to read (1. a book in it's entirety for my final exam on Thursday, and 2. 10-12 sources for my 10-15 page research paper due next Monday), a thousand reasons not to do it, and absolutely no motivation. I'm thinking today isn't going to go so well.

On a happier note, i have pretzels and nutella waiting to be eaten AND number 1 reason, it's Father's Day!! So, Happy Father's Day Daddy! (and all you other wonderful fathers out there...) Miss and love you! Que la pasen chevere! :)

Luciana

Basically the most adorable "niece" ever. I've been nothing but smiles with a baby around. :)

Haircut. :)

So, I decided to go with a friend to cut my hair... I told the lady three fingers thinking that if she did a bad job, it would still be long enough to go somewhere else to get it fixed. Well, 1. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a good job and a bad job and 2. luckily i have curly hair so that you can't tell anyway because instead of three fingers, i think she took six or so. It's definitely alot shorter than i expected! Then she blow-dried it after cutting it.... i had straight hair for a day. Everyone told me they liked it, but I refuse to spend 20 minutes fixing my hair after washing it, so this might just be the only time i ever have straight hair.

Huaytapallana

So, Friday morning, we wake up early... as in 6:30. We went to do a little bit of shopping for food and stuff to take along with us to Huaytapallana. We met with the guide at 8:30 and by 9 we were in the van driving the two hours to Huaytapallana. Ok, so Huaytapallana is a glacier in the Andes mountains. The highest peak is at 5,5?? meters. I can't remember exactly, and we weren't able to climb to the peak anyway. Before starting to climb, we gave an "offering" to the mountain. lol. Not that i believe in this stuff, but apparently some of the natives do. So, before starting this four hour climb, we smoked a cigarette, chewed on coca leaves and drank pure alcohol. jaja...Destroying your lung capacity just seems like such a wonderful way to start an intense workout... especially when the intense workout is in high altitudes.

Seriously, the view got better around every turn in the path...

there are a total of five lagoons near Huaytapallana, this one was def my favorite, the color is beautiful.

So, to climb onto the glacier, we did have to use ropes although with good shoes, it would have been pretty easy without a rope. Either way, it was a safety issue although again, i was amazed at the lack of safety precautions. At parts in the trail, you're looking at a 100 ft drop or more. Not like a cliff drop, but if you fall, you're not going to be stopping until the bottom. And the so called 'trail' was less than a foot wide and covered in rocks, boulders... you name it. Can't lie, half the time i was trying to jump from rock to rock (especially on the way back down... i had more energy).

there were a total of six people in the group, plus the tour guide (Juanito). Boy was he adorable! But that's not really important. Anyway, we're like walking around on this glacier and Juanito asks if we want to go higher. lol. Need he ask? Apparently, yes, cause 4 of the 6 stayed below. Daniel adn i were the only ones to take him up on his offer. So, after some more climbing, and the zoom on my camera, here is the rest of the group. :)

We did sort of have to watch where we walked... Juanito's foot went through the ice once. Bad time, his shoe was waterlogged in freezing weather. :(

Sorry for the abundance of pictures, i just like them all! Again, this place was simply breathtaking. totally worth missing two classes for the adventure. We didn't arrive back to Huancayo until sometime between six and seven. We bought return tickets for tonight at 11 (yay for another night on a bus). Then we roamed a little bit, always watching for TVs covering la copa mundial! Woo hoo, futbol! We had some dinner, ate the ice cream that we didn't eat last night, and chilled in the central park for a while. Arrived back in Lima at 6:30 am on Saturday. Plenty of time to get back to my house for a little breakfast, then Daniel had an exam at 8 and i unpacked and showered before my make-up class at 10.

So, on Tuesday I received an email from Daniel asking me what i thought of traveling this week. Eh... no se. But seriously, I have so much work to do that anything sounded better than schoolwork. Besides, I really wanted to be spontaneous for once in my life and just , well, leave. So, Wednesday night, Daniel and i hopped on a bus for Huancayo. If you think the name sounds familiar, I think you're awesome; cause that means you've been reading. :) I have been to Huancayo before with ISA. This time, however, was sooooo much better! Ok... starting at the beginning.

Daniel and i had absolutely no idea where we were going until about 4:30 PM on Wednesday. (keep in mind we're leaving Wednesday night and planning on an overnight bus trip). We bought tickets to Huancayo around 7 with the bus leaving at 10:30. Not bad at all... we got to the bus station early and just chilled, waiting for departure. I think i lasted about a half hour on the bus before i was sleeping. Can't say that i slept well, but i slept.

We arrived in Huancayo at 5:45 am. Wandering around the city in the freezing cold when nothing is open yet isn't exactly what i was expecting, but it was pretty sweet! We stopped in at some hostels, trying to find a cheap place to stay for the one night that we will be here. At one hostel, we asked for information on some tours. We/I really wanted to go to Huaytapallana. Well, basically, Daniel got sick. combination of the altitude and the fact that he was in the hospital not long ago, so we ended up getting a room in a hostel owned by the cousin of the tour guy. long story... Anyway, we both slept for a few hours after all of the rush this morning. Daniel woke up feeling much better, so we decided to find something to do. We roamed around the city(and found the Abraham Lincoln school lol), bought some bread for lunch, then decided to do something exciting. We were recommended to go to La Laguna de Paca, so we went. Why not?

To get there we took a combi to Chupaca, then a taxi to la laguna. The taxi driver was awesome. His name was brian and he offered to come back to get us later if we wanted. I took his cell number and Daniel and i set off across the field to see la laguna. eh... not impressed. Not quite the excitement we were looking for, we decided to make our own. We were in a valley and looking to the left decided it would be pretty sweet to climb the hill and look down on the laguna. So we did. It was all super except that our hill ended up going on forever. (about dead center in this picture is where we wanted to get to the top...)

Here are a few pics from the climb... i took a million. it was all beautiful! I'll try to post them all on facebook.

It took us a good two/three hours to get to what we thought was the top. lol. we were wrong. As we came to the crest, we realized that we had alot to go. We both wanted to get to the top, so we kept going. We reached the top... again. Only to find... again, that we were still quite far from our goal. Unfortunately, we couldn't go on. We had to get back down... but not before we were captivated by the sunset. Now, if you know me, you know i love sunsets just as much as the sunrise. Well, i happened to be with a boy who likes the sunset just as much as me, so we therefore stopped to take pictures. Now those of you who have more experience in climbing mountains than i do, would realize right away that stopping on top of a mountain to watch the sunset is a bad plan because after the sun sets... you have no light in order to get off the mountain.

Yeah, so, we started back down. Quickly. well, as quickly as you can go when you're climbing among rocks and it's continously getting darker and darker and you're sliding as much as you're walking. We finally did make if down, but it was quite the adventure let me tell you! Being in the middle of nowhere, there were like, zero lights anywhere. It was some serious dark!!!

Luckily, we had Brian's number cause there was no one left at la laguna. We would have been stuck for a while. After getting back to Huancayo, we searched around for ice cream... but got distracted by the picarrones. Then back to the hostel for a semi-early night before Huaytapallana tomorrow!!!

bailaton

Dance off... chevere! So every Thursday, classes are suspended from noon until 3. (Luis finally provided the answer to the mystery of why there are always a million people meandering on Thursday afternoons) During those hours there are always activities going on and things to do. Well, yesterday, there was a dance off... It was sweet! Of course, it happened to be a ridiculously hot day with the sun beating down... poor dancers. Would have been easier to dance for two hours strait if it had been colder. Anyway, i met Sara there early and we actually got seats on the bleachers. :) Unfortunately, the pairs that we liked best were eliminated after three or four rounds. Although we had to admit that the pair that won, was pretty darn incredible. they deserved their award. Even though fairly close, the songs were all soo upbeat that it was hard to snap good pictures. (not to mention that i forgot to charge my camera as i haven't used it in a while and only had a quarter of a battery). I also took a few videos, but the quality is b.a.d. Either my camera has been dropping one too many times or something got messed up... it kept refocusing...so upsetting.

new foods...!!!

So, I went out with a friend and tried some new stuff. jeje :) This one, i'm really proud of, although it wasn't my favorite. I definitely couldn't eat very much. I tried to find a picture of it online, but failed... and i can't remember exactly what it's called in Spanish. But, since only a few of you would understand that anyway, i'll just describe it in English.... basically we were walking around the streets of Barranco and there is this place where they sell anticucho. Yay! I love that, so we were going to eat... and Luis asked me if i had tried this other thing. No... but i'll try it now. BAD DECISION... this "other thing" happened to be random pieces of cow that no one else eats. lol. No, the stomach, intestines, and liver were basically cooked on a grill, piled high on a plate, and served with choclo and potato. Bon apetit... :) Liver... i liked. intestine was a little chewy, but not bad (although i did have trouble with the whole circular shape of it... strange!), stomach. eww. Weirdest texture of anything i've ever eaten.