Jake y Lunahuaná, una semana llena!
Hola chicos, this last week has been rather busy because my boyfriend came to visit and I had a one night trip to Lunahuaná right after he left. This week’s post will be a narrative of the things I saw/did, and hopefully we will find some interesting topics to address!
Gatito se acuesta en las flores
The day after Jake landed I took him to Miraflores, my home district. He met my host-mother and sisters and had his first Peruvian meal of pesto fettucini, pork chops, papa a la huancaína, y chica morada. A couple days after that he kept me company on campus and tried to pet our deer. I recently found out that the deer on campus are there only because a long time ago some deer escaped from the neighboring zoo and went to the school, and since then they have kept them there rather than return them. Speaking of which, Jake and I went to the zoo and saw lots of interesting animals, here are some photos!
Oso
Tortugas y pajaro
Pajaro feo, no?
Vaca
Patagonian Mara
One of the weirdest animals I have seen.
Here are three gorgeous panthers I took some video of at the zoo. Be sure to view it in 720p!
Having Jake visit Lima gave me a lot of perspective on how much I have grown in my cultural experiences here. Everything turned his head, while I nonchalantly walked past. He noticed how many stores employ a bureaucratic system of payment; first you tell someone you want to buy a certain item, they write it down on a receipt and give it to you, you go to a cashier and give them the receipt and money, they stamp it and give it back, you bring the stamped receipt to the original person and receive your item. Seems like a lot of work, doesn’t it?
Others things that were strange to him were the multitudes of pharmacies and snack stands/convenience stores. Walking down a street you may encounter a snack stand, newspaper stand, and pharmacy within 50 feet of each other. It was also a new experience for me to have to translate everything for Jake, because he doesn’t speak a bit of Spanish. People usually turned to him first because he is a man, but once they saw that lost look in his eye they quickly figured out I was the one to talk to!
This is the inside of the Catholic church in the main plaza of Lima
This Catholic church is exceptionally huge and beautiful, with giant alcoves all along the walls of different saints, and even viewing areas for the catacombs! Traditionally, Catholic families were buried under the church instead of the usual open-air cemeteries due to overcrowding and lack of available land.
Calaveras
Esqueleto, creepy!
The morning after he left I was whisked away to Lunahuaná with my CIEE group. We were on a cramped bus for two hours, stopped by police on the highway for no good reason (they wanted to check IDs but never actually did so..), and finally arrived at a beautiful hotel surrounded by rocky mountains. First activity was to white-water raft, but those pictures will have to wait because the tour company hasn’t posted them yet. We also hiked up a hill to see walls, and the next day we did another morning hike to see a mummy!
Muras de Lunahuaná
Una momía en la tierra, protegido por una caja con vidrio
We also had the chance to buy honey and wine. One thing that I bought was pollen, which the woman said a teaspoon a day for a month, and three months without, would improve energy, reduce stress, and help sleeping patterns. I plan to give it to my aunt in Portland, who is an organic-crazy, raw food-loving, health-obsessed lady :)
Our final activities were horse-back riding and ATV riding, both very brief and basic but fun nonetheless.
Quadrimotos
I received a nice coating of dust, can you see the sunglasses shape?
My question for you this week is first to think about a place you visited, and then tell me what made your head turn the most. Jake told me he noticed architecture and the style of homes the most (from the garage doors to the balconies). What is something you noticed in a place you visited?
Here’s a short video of how we crossed the river on our morning hike!
Reporting Live from Lima, Peru 
in hollywood it is very humid
I went to Mexico and saw a whole skinned cow hanging from the ceiling. Wow! those pictures are amazing, your very lucky to have such a one in a lifetime experience.
since i have never been out of the country i wouldnt know about different customs other countries had. i did notice though, that when i went to Eugene they had a Blockbuster Video when they had gone out of buisness in Portland.
Blockbuster is now a rare thing in the U.S., isn’t it?
the coolest place i have visited is probably mexico and i was amazed how many people went out of their way to try to speak a few words in english to us. there were a lot of shops with beuatiful handmade items with the children of the family accually working there! i really liked the videos you posted! in the jaguar one and could hear ;lots of background noise of other animals!
I’ve noticed that people try to speak english to me as well if they know it. I think they are trying to be helpful and want to practice their english. When I was translating for Jake in a store the lady asked me what the translation was so she could learn new words.
My name is Ethan and i went to Paris a couple years ago. I like how there was lots of cool building to see and tons of people there. the culture there is a lot different there because most people live in apartments and there isnt that many houses. I didnt like how there was a lot of museums.
I agree, museums are boring (usually). I have heard that Europe has way more apartments than houses.
Me gustaría tener un amigo o miembro de la familia que vivía en el Perú, a fin de que yo pudiera visitar!
Cuando fui a México en marzo, creo que la única cosa que noté fue el más todos los edificios de colores. Tengo muchas ganas de ir a Perú algún día!
Peter: I have visited Morocco. I noticed that there weren’t any traffic lights even on the busiest of intersections. Also you could bargain for lower prices.
Sophie: I have visited Greece. I noticed that many people would have ancient ruins in their back yards. When I was in Israel I noticed that most of the people wore religious clothing.
Do you think traffic works better without lights? Some would say so.
That’s interesting that ruins were in people’s yards, is it because they’re so common that they don’t need to protect every single one?
One time, I went to Rode Island, and there was fallen trees everywhere, and I thought that was weird.
The zoo looked like the one we have in Oregon.Did they have tigers at the zoo?
I think they did but I didn’t see them, a lot of the big cats were moved somewhere else from their usual habitats at the time.
Hola! A place i went was New York. What was crazy about NY was it was roomy and barley had any space to get around.The food was all fast food. But it was a fun place. Georgia
I haven’t been many places, I went to Washington it wasn’t that bad but it was one of those places there’s not much to do. Emily.
In responce to your question….
This is Kira and a place that I visited was the 9/11 memorial site in New York. It was really sad and there were many landmakers but some of the things that made my head turn were the “survivor tree (only tree that survived from 9/11), the new building tht is replacing the twin towers (soon to be the highest building in the nation), and the only piece of wood left from the twin towers. It was a beautiful landmark that I would want to visit agia-***n
-Kira C.
When I visted New Mexico for the firt time I remember, it was hot and everybody spoke spanish (I could communicate). But the thing that made my head turn was a wild LLAMA!
-Corazon C
Hola Brooke! It’s Mirabella. Those animals look so cool! I agree with you that the one animal was super weird! The calaveras were extremely creepy, but the church was really beautiful!
HI Brooke! It’s Gracie. The bird is very ugly, but pretty at the same time. The zoo in Peru compared to the one in Portland is way more exotic. My favorite animal out of the ones you saw was the weird rabbit like thing.
The weird rabbits are sooo interesting. I hope I can see them in the wild if I ever go to Argentina. Remember that if a Peruvian came to the Portland zoo they would think it is very exotic, it’s all about perspective!
hola one place weve been to is Newport which is a little town by the ocean. One thing that made our heads turn was the aquarium which had alot of exotic fish!
Dear Brooke,
When I was in Italia, my favorite thing to do was try and listen to people to see if I could pick up palabras with my limited Italiano. I also enjoyed translating for my parents when they were trying to order vino at a ristorante.
The conversation went like this:
Parents: vino?
Waitress: speaking very fast in Italian until I hear dolce.
Me: dolce! the house wine is sweet, a dessert wine.
Waitress:(seeing that I understand) parla(speak) Italiano?
Me: si… un piccolo(little).
Waitress: starts speaking very slow
Me: the house wine is sweet!
Parents: ah, Chianti (a kind of wine) then
Waitress: Chianti?
Parents: si
What I really noticed in Italy were the little things. In Italy, you don’t pick out your own produce, the ladies working there pick them out. The toilets are different too. Like I said its the little things.
I wonder why the salespeople pick the fruit for you. Here you choose your own stuff, they even have a section in grocery stores where you fill a bag with however much and whatever types of bread you want. People are quite meticulous and picky.
Hola Brooke,
Last summer I went to Spain, and did the Camino De Santiago with my sister and dad. It is a religious pilgrimage, though we just did it to see Spain and my dad had done the Camino Frances, one of the different routes of the Camino. What I liked about Spain was the different foods and the oldtown parts of cities such as Santiago de Compostela. The cobblestones and ‘squished’ together houses were cool.
Europe and Spain are so much more crowded, aren’t they? It is pretty crowded in Lima but there are still lots of neighborhoods with decent sized houses.
my answer for weeks is when I visit my mom on christmas and she told me and my 2 brothers and sister that she was is going to have a b#by it was the most surprising thing that happened last year and she had a heathy baby boy on october 21 friday 2012
we would like to know what that zip line thing is in the video.
-eliana and zoe
It is how you can get across the river without a bridge. You glide as much as your weight will take you and then pull yourself along the rope or have someone on the other side pull you.
Un lugar que visité, hace cuatro años, es Londres. Allí la cosa que me llamó la ateción más fue que los cuartos/dormitorios del hotel eran muy pequeños. Usualmente cuando quedabamos en hoteles cuando visitamos diferentes lugares en méxico los cuartos eran, por lo menos, dos veces más grandes que los cuartos de los hotels en Londres. Otra cosa que me llamo la ateción era que la leche sabia exraño. Era “skimmed milk” y tenía un sabor de césped/pasto y agua. Mi papá me explico que era porque las vacas comían cosas diferentes de las vacas en méxico.
En Londres no hay mucho espacio, entonces las casas y los dormitorios tienen que ser más pequeños. En Perú, las hamburguesas sabe diferente que las en los EEUU.
Yo visite a Sunriver y era muy bonita. Era nieve en todos lados y los arboles eran brillando. Me vi a muchos tipos de animales. Muchos de los casas eran grande y muy bonita. Hay espacios de arboles donde no puedes ver nada mas de la naturalesa. Es como tres horas de Portland Or.
En Lima tienes que manejar muchas horas para ir a un lugar donde no hay civilización en los bosques.
Yo no se exactamente el nombre del lugar donde yo visite. Pero me acuerdo que todo era diferente. Porque comian diferente manera y tenian diferentes costumbres.
Cuando era bebe mis padres me llevaron ha mexico, creo que tenia 2 o 3 anos de edad pero no me acuerdo porque era bebe. Mi pregunta para usted es, ” Que has echo en Lima Peru oh otro lugar que te ha encantado mucho y sera muy memorable?
Cuando fui a Iquitos era muy lindo porque podía ver muchos animales y conocer gente diferente.
El lugar ultimo que fui. Fue Disneyland y alla la cosa que hace mi cabeza voltar fue la multidad de la gente al parque.
-Kris Nine
when I went to Boise,Idaho I was always looking around and noticing how things are so different than in Portland,Oregon or Mexico city. Everything in Boise was neat, clean and all the houses looked similar. To me it was weird. I am used to things being different from each other, not being picture perfect. The really weird thing is that all my life I have visited Boise each summer and never noticed how different things are from Portland or Mexico city (Destrito Federal).
Yes that is an interesting thing to notice. In Lima it is normal for buildings to look way different from each other in a neighborhood. I notice all the time that two stores sharing the same building will have a line where one store painted the front green and the other painted it orange. In certain parts in the U.S. that wouldn’t be acceptable.
Yo fui a Mexico. Uno de los cosa que yo vi era que los calles son adoquines. Los casas eran muy viejos
Es verdad, es porque estas calles y casas son bien viejas, son de la epoca de los conquistadores de otros países.
Yo viajo a Mexico y lo que yo vio lo mas interesante fue la comida había comida en todos los lugares también había muchas personas que quería vendar cosas a mi y mi familia. Eso fue muy interesante pero yo no tenia tanto dinero para comprar todo.
Sí, en otros países mucha gente vende cosas en las calles por ejemplo comida, ropa, y cigarros.
Cuando fui a Utah en Junio no fue muy diferente que aqui. Habian muchas cosas naturales de rocas que fueron muy interesantes. La cultura de alli no fue muy diferente que aqui.
La gente de Utah se actuan el mismo que en Oregon, or diferente?