Sick

It was bound to happen, hard to go through a trip like this without getting sick. Of the five volunteers... all of us are sick. Last night we were all crashed out on the couches watching tv forever because we were too out of it to do anything else. Surviving on carbs and lots of tea. Skipped work today and yesterday, so not much exciting news going on here. I was the only one who felt well enough to go to Urpaycancha with the kids yesterday (along with Eli and Neto, the volunteer coordinators).. and there were only five kids so we ditched the lesson again and just let them color. We were going to have class again today because the others were going to go to the jungle on Friday and we are leaving, but thanks to sickness, jungle is postponed for them and the Thursday class is pushed to Friday. Meaning yesterday was my last day with the kids but I didnt know it till I was actually there, so I dont have any pictures of or with them and I didnt get to say goodbye to most of them. Boo. I´m going to definitely be stealing someone else´s pictures.
I can´t believe its already almost time to go. Leaving tomorrow at 1:30 for the long journey back to Lima and so on. Time went way too fast.. always slow at the beginning and then boom it´s over. I hope I can go to work tomorrow just for a few hours to say goodbye and take some pictures, I´ll see how I´m doing. We may all take a trip to the doctor today to get some antibiotics, maybe. Way cheaper here than in the US and not even worth using travel insurance because it costs way less than the deductible.
Okay, I still havent written about Saturday´s adventures... Started out early driving out to the valley to go horseback riding. My horse was named Harry (with a Spanish accent.. though I keep thinking of his name with a Harry Potter accent for some reason).. and he was the crazy of the bunch. Yay. We rode for three hours, which was awesome, but we were all really really sore for the few days after. Completely different than riding in the US... our guide was in the back and when we were at a juncture and asked him which way to turn, he just shrugged his shoulders and let us go wherever we felt like going, most of the time. We got to lead and my horse being himself, always pushed up to the front and started running off way ahead of the others. So I got an amazing view of the valley and a really fun ride. Went really deep into the valley and up a mountain, and we could see in the distance the glacier that we had climbed to the weekend before, just the tip peaking over other mountains. Passed through a little pueblo (town) where a costumed band was practicing, and through another pueblo where a celebration was going on, and we stopped for a few minutes to watch them dance and sing. At one point, got off our horses and let them rest for a bit while we climbed up part of a mountain to an amazing view of the entire valley. Called Wawi wawi, it means baby in Quechua. Hard to describe what it looked like; I´ll post pictures later. But it was breathtaking. Back down with the horses, we climbed up another hill and felt horrible for the horses because it was really steep and rocky and hard to climb. Harry liked to wander off in his own direction and when I steered him back in the other direction, he trotted off the wrong way instead. Naughty horse! But it´s more fun that way :D Passed by sheep, cows, locals wandering around doing who knows what in the middle of nowhere, far away from their towns. When we were almost back, Harry´s harness decided to break off and suddenly I had no control of him. I held on to his mane and tried to get him to stop, but he kept running away from the guide, who was trying to catch us to put it back on. Eventually cornered him next to a wall and the guide ended up taking out one of his shoelaces and using it to tie the harness back on. The rest of the group had gotten way ahead at this point and Harry, wanting to be the leader, went off at a full paced gallop to catch up with the rest of them the moment the guide let him go. Weee. He was also quite a nasty horse and liked to nip at his cousin and some of the other horses. I almost got nipped at once in return. At the end of the ride, had to go through a river, where I luckily didnt get wet because Harry was the tallest horse, but the others got soaked because the river was really deep.
Drove through a town and stopped to watch part of a wedding, where we felt completely out of place in our disgusting horse clothes and just being foreigners, but it was interesting to see. Stopped by a dairy factory and had the most amazing ice cream ever, the fresh cream from the cows stuck directly into a machine and then right to us. Yummm. Then we went this really pretty place for lunch.. yes, it was completely man made fountains and stones and everything, but it looked almost real and they definitely knew how to make it look good. Everyone else got fresh trout from the river right there, and I got.. yup, potatoes! Was still hungry after so ate a granola bar too. After lunch, we visited a silver factory in another town, where they showed up how they make jewlery using these cool old methods, and for some reason, we have no idea why, put on this really creepy costume and said something about it really quickly in Spanish. Was really cool to watch the jewlery being made and just know that all the really intricate pieces there were pure silver and all made by hand. Then we went to a fabric factory and saw them weaving on their looms and they told us a bit about that.
Back home, we had been planning to go to a Peruvian rock concert of a band whose song we kept hearing on the radio, but we were too exhausted, so rested for a bit and then went to a karaoke bar at night. Yumm pina coladas are good. But actually really expensive (for here) at the place we were at. Went home and crashed after a long day and spent Sunday just lazing around.
Hmm what else.. food is always potatoes potatoes potatoes. One day we went to a chicken restaurant and I asked for potatoes and a salad and my potatoes were a giantttt plate of french fries. Really good fries with a good sauce, but still, I dont think I´ll be eating fries for a while. Another day, we went for pachamanga, a type of food cooked in an underground oven with coals, and almost entirely meat. I got potatoes and this sweet cornbread thing, humitas, wrapped in leaves like tamales are. Actually was a really good lunch. Tried Inka Kola, the most popular soft drink of peru, a neon yellow soda, and it was really really overly sweet and just..yuck. But I had to try it sometime since I´m here. Another night, we went to a Chinese restaurant, and I got a break from potatoes and had really good fried rice. Also had an amazing pisco sour, the famous drink of peru, really really good at that restaurant.. I had tried one somewhere else and this one was a million times better.
Okay, well, I think I´m mostly caught up on everything now, nice super long blog. Goodbye.