Peru Pictures

Peru pictures are up and currently still being uploaded! See what's up so far by following this link: http://s827.photobucket.com/albums/zz195/derekantrican/Peru%20Trip/

Strange things we have eaten on this trip

This is a list I have compiled of all the stance things dad and I have eaten on this trip.

- Capybara (World's largest rodent. Still had the bullets in it)
- Ahi (Onions chopped up and soaked in lemon juice with peppers. VERY SOUR!!)
- Bananas in every way you can imagine (not strange, but we've had it enough that I thought I'd mention it)
- Paiche (this is that really big fish I talked about that can get up to 15 feet long)
- Corvina (Another fish. This is the one I posted pictures of earlier)
- Donachelo (another fish)
- Ceviche (raw seafood. On that seafood platter I had in the last day in Pucallpa)
- Alpaca loin (speaks for itself)
- Turtle egg (apparently, no matter how long you cook it, the egg white never hardens. So the egg white was slimy and the yolk was like eating wet sand)
- Corn Drink (some sort of warm corn drink that we had at the wedding reception)

Waiting for the last flight home

We are currently waiting at the airport in San Francisco for a flight back to Portland.

Catching up & Machu Picchu

I apologize for the lack in posts. The first night I missed posting I had gotten a bad case of altitude sickness. Here's what we did that day:

We got up and waited for our tour guide we had hired the day before. She came and we went from there in a taxi to the outskirts of Cusco. We stopped at quite a few different archeological sites and ruins such as Tambomachay, Sacsayhuaman, etc (we probably stopped at about 5 or 6 sites). We then toured the biggest cathedral in Cusco (right in the main Cusco square). The Spanish Conquistadors had taken stones and offerings of gold from all the sites they came across and had used them to build this cathedral. And as even more of an insult to the Incas, they demolished the Incan fortress/mansion/capital and put their cathedral in the same spot. This cathedral is like three cathedrals next to each other because it has three main sanctuaries or halls. We had lunch next and the tour guide decided to take her daughter to a KFC right off of the main square (we went somewhere else). After that we saw two more cathedrals and went back got the hotel because the altitude sickness was getting to me. I then slept for 15 hours (until the next morning).

The next day we took a cab from the hostal (Hostal Pension Aleman) to the city of Ollantaytambo. We met a family of 4 from New York and a couple from Scotland that were going to be going on the biking/camping/hiking trip with us. From there we loaded up in a van and went to a pass in the Andes mountains called Abra Malagros. It was quite cold (there was even snow) but we started our bike trip from there (below is a picture of me at Abra Malagros). Biking was great! I flew over the front of my bike once and Dad did the same (but rolled a couple times at once into an irrigation ditch) but neither of us got hurt. We stopped for lunch at some ruins and loaded up the bikes. From there we traveled along a cliff-hugging road to the campsite (which actually turned out to be a couple tents by a medium-sized outdoor kitchen and eating area. Not real camping). I slept in the hammock that night.

The next day I got to hike up (with nearly everyone else in our group) and do the Cola de Mono (monkey tail) zipline. It's the second highest zipline in the world and consists of 6 different stretches of cable across a canyon! Dad stayed on the ground. After that we had lunch and took a van (back along the "safest road in the world") to the gate at which we would disembark and hike 10 km to Aguas Calientes. During the hike we got to a bridge for trains that had a "sidewalk" on the right (the sidewalk pretty much looked like spare pieces of sheet metal that were welded along the side of the bridge). Dad walked about 10 feet, then backed up (saying things like "that's not happening" and other things that shouldn't be repeated). The guides came back across the bridge and led him across while he closed his eyes. The rest of the hike was great and we got into Aguas Calientes fairly quickly. That night we all had pizza at a place called Pueblo Viejo (they had the best limeade ever!).

The next day we went up to Machu Picchu. The bus ride up was another cliff-hugging, hairpin-turning road with buses passing each other all the way up. When we got up there, dad made it through the gate and to Machu Picchu, but not into the actual archeological site itself. I have a picture of me in it, though and I'll post a link later with all my Peru pictures (with about 600 from Machu Picchu alone). We then went back to the hotel and watched tv until about 5 pm (when we thought was a reasonable time to eat dinner). For dinner we were back at Pueblo Viejo (and for dessert we got the Pueblo Viejo Pancake which was similar to a crepe filled with chocolate and fruit with chocolate drizzled on top). Then we took a train back to Ollantaytambo and spent the night at a Hostal called KBTambo.

In the morning we got a van "Collectivo" (which means pretty much anyone who wants a ride only has to pay a few soles and packs into a 15 passenger van. I think there were 23 people including the driver and 3 kids in the van) to Urubamba. From Urubamba we got a cab "Collectivo" (same thing, but it was us and two other people in a cab) for the long ride to Cusco. The ride to Cusco was probably an hour or two and only cost us about $5. In Cusco we did some more souvineer shopping, had lunch (dad had alpaca loin and I had cheese pizza), and took a cab to the airport. Currently, I am on the flight to Lima, but by the time I post this, I will have landed.

Below are pictures from Sacsayhuaman, the bike ride, and Machu Picchu (in that order).

First day in Cusco

We woke up at 5 am today, packed all our stuff, and were at the airport at 6:00 am. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 6:30, but didn't actually depart until about 7:00. We arrived in Lima at about 8:00 and were going through security at about 8:45 when we realized that our next flight was scheduled to depart at 8:30. We hustled through security (as fast as you can hustle through airport security) and ran to the gate. Turns out that the time on the ticket (8:30) is when the plane arrives at the gate, not when it starts boarding. We had until about 9:35 till the plane started boarding.

I don't think I mentioned this, but this year is the 100th year anniversary since Machu Picchu was discovered. Because of that, on the plane we didn't get the average pretzel or nut mix snack. We got a small box of candy/snacks. There was a caramel-filled chocolate egg-shaped-like-candy, a thing that was similar to kit kat except bigger and a lot more wafer and a lot less chocolate. And there were also some crackers.

We arrived in Cusco (the flight in is pretty interesting. You fly awfully close to some mountains and the runway seems to be just enough to land the plane) and it was very cold. Instead of being like 99 all day and 80 at night like in Pucallpa, it's about 69 all day and about 35 at night.

Today we explored the town square and many beautiful architectural buildings. (A lot of the streets are one-lane cobblestone streets. Imagine something along the lines of urban-French-roads).

Tomorrow we will be shopping around.

If anyone wants to Skype, I'll probably be online somewhere from (5:00 pm to 8:00 pm pacific time tomorrow). My Skype name is "derekantrican".

*sorry there aren't any photos for today. Maybe I'll add some later. Though I have taken around 400 photos so far this trip with my SLR (most of them today). Those will be added to my photobucket after the trip.

Final Day in Pucallpa

This was supposed to be posted last night but none of the networks were working, so I am posting it now.

So today was our last full day in Pucallpa. We did even less than yesterday. Here's how the day went:

We got up and my dad was put to work cutting palm branches while I was sent to buy "platanos cerdas" (ripe bananas). Antonio, another teenage boy, went with me. We stopped at about 8 stores all through the neighborhood and surrounding area before we finally found them.

Breakfast this morning was scrambled eggs with tomatoes, onions, and a side of...you guessed it...fried bananas. (also strawberry banana smoothie).

*Nothing important enough for this blog happened in this time slot.

For lunch we went to the same resturaunt that we had dinner at the first night. We got seafood platters (see picture below) with Paiche (the really big fish I talked about yesterday), crab, crawdad, seaweed, fried corn (tasted like corn nuts), regular cooked corn, yucca, and sweet potato.

We then visited the lake near the properties that we saw yesterday (you can see it in the background of the picture of Jenny and me below) there is an island in the lake and a small outlet to the river. People travel up the river to their farms in the jungle to collect various fruits and other things that they sell on the shore of the lake. There are many shops on the shore of the lake selling products of the jungle and products for the journey to and through the jungle.

We picked up Ulysses from the house and left to visit the "Retreat center" the church has. It's basically about 3 2-acre (or so) sized lots that have many different plants on them including yucca, guava, mango, naranja, starfruit, etc. When we were there, the sun set so we got back to the church when it was dark (6:00 pm or so).

Ulysses, Eli, Me and some other guys (seen in the picture below. Ulysses is on the far left and Eli, pronounced "eh-li", is on the far right) moved the scaffolding (two stories above the ground at the top) over to a fan that was just put in whose blades were upside-down. Of course, the scaffolding was too short, and of course (like the average teenage boys) didn't want to waste time putting together the next story of scaffolding...so we put a ladder on top. You can see in the picture below that I held the ladder steady while Eli (and sometimes Ulysses as well) were on it. It took a couple hours because apparently taking blades out of a fan 3 stories off the ground and cleaning them is muy facíl, but putting them back is muy díficil.

After that (at about 9:45 pm) we had spaghetti for dinner.

Tomorrow we get up at 5 am and our flight is at 7:25 am to Lima, then to Cuzco.

Also: can anyone tell me what kind of spider is in that last picture? It is in our bathroom and I really don't want to be sleeping in a room right next to the room with a brown recluse.

Day 2 in Pucallpa

First I'm going to start off stating some things I missed yesterday that are just general things about Peru and the Church we're staying at. This Sabado (Saturday), is Peru's first Día de Gracía (Day of Thanks). The churches started doing it years ago and proposed it to the officials as a National Holiday. Sabado will be the first and Iglesia Luz Divina is having over a hundred officials over (including Mayors, the Governor, etc) and all the Pastors from around the area over for their celebration (which consists of exactly an hour service of thanks, music, etc).

Also, tomorrow is Peru's independence day. I don't know as much about that.

Today we got up and cleaned an outdoor projector screen (which refused to roll up properly). We also demolished a small hut (a thatched roof on 4 posts) and I have pictures of that below.

*Side note: there are quite a few cockroaches here (see pics below), but they like to stay hidden in the cracks and trees. You won't see them unless you are doing a project like ours and demolishing their habitat.

Then we had breakfast (same as yesterday but this time, of course, with bananas). We were also given a taste of capybara (the largest rodent in the world. Looks like a large brown guinea pig. Large as in small dog). We were told that they're hunted at night and shot. We found evidence of this because there were at least two small pieces of metal shot (like from a shotgun) in the meat.

While we were inside, a couple large machines (see pictures below) and a steamroller had showed up to smooth out the dirt roads. Jenny said that she has been talking to the mayor and that he sent his tractors to fix the roads and put gravel on them. They worked all day (in fact, the steamroller is still sitting outside the church right now).

We then washed a bunch of chairs and tables for the Día de Gracía with Ulysses.

We went to visit a piece of land that the Iglesia is thinking about buying (these are the shots below of the "countryside-like" views).

Lunch was at a wedding reception for a friend of Jenny's. We had sopa de pollo y yucca (chicken and yucca soup. Yucca is a plant that closely resembles a potato). The second course was pollo, yucca, onions, olives, y boiled egg (see picture below). Pardon my Spanglish.

We then visited the "slums" of Pucallpa. This is the area where the houses are so close to the river that they flood, even when they are on stilts (see the picture below. The line on the house is where it floods to).

For dinner we went downtown and had a fish that is commonly about 15 feet long. The scales of this fish are about an inch in radius and are used to make necklaces. It was really good and a lot more flavorful than most fish.

*Also below is a picture of the inside of the Iglesia. You can see the beautiful rainforest mural on the back wall.