It's Been a Month!

                After a month, I finally feel that my blog deserves it’s title. After our excursion to Colca Canyon I felt like I was going home to Arequipa. Yes, home. My bed is comfortable. I look forward to the strangely large amount of food for lunch each day. I expect fresh juice and pan each morning rather than my american cereal. I can find my way around the city. I know multiple ways to La Universidad and the livestock that sometimes occupies the fields behind our apartment is no longer a surprise. I have a routine, and I love it, but I also try to relish Arequipa everyday. Yesterday I was sitting on a bench in the Plaza de Cayma waiting for a friend. The sun was setting around 5:45pm creating a beautiful glow around the church built from white stone. Combis zoomed by in the street shouting different locations, and I now recognize the names. A woman walked by and said, “hola”, and the Spanish response thoughtlessly flowed from my mouth. As I gazed around the plaza and enjoyed the newly blooming spring flowers, I was overwhelmed by the beautiful fact that Arequipa, Peru is my home for these next months.

 -church in Plaza de Cayma...the best I could do to capture the beauty

-finally a picture of a Combi

             There are so many wonderful things about living here and some many things I have yet to explore. There are many restaurants that I pass every day and I always and filled with curiosity of what deliciousness is found inside. I am comfortable with my Spanish. I can hold a conversation about any thing from schedules, directions and deep feelings. I can understand tours, sermons, and lessons in Spanish. The only time I have difficulty is when the speaker is mumbling, speaking absolutely 100 mph, speaking about something which I have zero vocabulary, or when there are many Peruvians speaking together rapidly. So, no I am not fluent, but I am comfortable. 

Here are some from my every day life things in this past month:

1. I went out to lunch with my family on sunday and it turned out to be a restaurant for seafood. I valiantly ate octopus and ceviche (raw fish... well kinda. A Peruvian will tell you that it's cooked by the insane amount of lime added to the sauce, but in my mind that doesn't really count). Mostly, I ate out of politeness than enjoyment. The flavor of the octopus wasn't so bad, but it was incredibly stringy and tough. 

2. I have mentioned before that volkswagen bugs are a very popular car here and the other day I saw one with the same stripes and number as the Love Bug. (maybe only my family members will get this reference, but I was very sad that I didn't have my camera on me to snap some evidence). 

3. I also visited my first church. Yes, maybe this is a little late and I should admit that in the month I've been here I have only attended church once, but I have been incredibly busy and when my family doesn't go to mass, it's a little hard to get out of the house on sunday mornings. But this church service was a cultural experience worth sharing. It was the "Día de Niños" so picture something like a VBS service. All the songs were children's worship songs. This is not a bad thing, but one of the verses was, "Todos flacos, flacos, flacos, flacos ama a Dios" (for non spanish speakers flacos= skinny people) Todos que no son tan flacos ama a Dios". The fact that the church would openly teach children to sing a song that stated all who are skinny and all who are not so skinny should all love God. I was with some other Calvin students and we couldn't help, but exchange grins at this cultural difference. 

4. Every day that I walk to school, I pass a hospital. One day I walked by and there was an undeniable puddle of blood right in front of the hospital entrance. Another cultural thing that shocked me a little, and made me hope that the source of this blood was in good hands in the hospital. 

5. I have met my "abuelita" here. Her name is Carmen as well and she is all I could ever hope in an endearing host grandmother. 

6. I woke up one morning and felt awful and puked three times. The remedies were a little different here. I drank tea all day and water all day instead of sprite. At the end of the day when I was feeling like I could eat something, my mom insisted that I eat chicken and rice. This sounded a little to heavier than the toast that my mom usually feeds me, but there was no denying her.

7. Although in the first week I was worried I wouldn't get my cravings worth of sweets while in Peru, I have solved that problem by finding some fantastic postres y helado. 

8. I recently made a trip to the supermarket to find some snacks and the meat section turned out to be quite interesting. 

9. I decided to take a wondering walk now that I am more familiar with Cayma (the district in which I live). Exploring, I stumbled upon the cemetery of Cayma. As you can see below, the people are buried in tombs in "walls" instead of taking up room in the ground. As I wandered through this strange maze of a graveyard, I couldn't help but felt surrounded by the dead. I felt a strange mix of beauty and respect and eeriness. Definitely a different feel than the green lawn like cemeteries of Michigan. 

10. I came home to a puppy! Needless to say it made my day because I got to cuddle/play with a puppy. Turns out, it belongs to my cousins, but such a treat. :)

I must at admit that, as having reached my longest time out of Michigan, I am beginning to miss the life I left behind a month ago. I wish I could spend time with the family and friends. I wish I could pet my dog, and play my piano. I think fondly of macaroni and cheese and a freezer that always has ice cream. Although, when I have these longings I always remind myself that I am only in Arequipa for 4 months, and, in contrast, I am committed to Michigan for the next 3.5 years. So, I try a new Peruvian pastry and think of more ways I can enjoy my time here because who knows the next time I will be able to live in Arequipa. I don't want to spend my precious time here wishing I was back in Michigan. After a month away, yes I miss my Michigan home, but I am happy with where I am. I am learning new things. I am exploring my Arequipa home and would not have it any other way. 

Excursion #1: Colca Canyon

           For our first excursion as a Calvin group, we journeyed to Colca Canyon (Cañon de Colca). The canyon is about a 4 hour drive from Arequipa. Turns out, in this case, the journey is just as important and beautiful as the destination so we made a few stops along the way. 

These stops included a the national park of Vicuñas (a wild cousin to the Alpaca and Llama). Also a spectacular view of the mountains through the crisp air of high altitude. The other fun part of this pit stop was that there was snow covering the ground and plants. The snow gave us a feeling of just how high we were, because it only snows on the stops of mountains here. 

Our next stop was to take a remedy for our journey through high altitude. We were encouraged to drink the tea of coca because apparently it is a great preventative for altitude sickness. Therefore, we drank the tea (despite the fact that I felt there was a branch in my tea) and some even took the suggestion to chew the leaves. For those of you who don't know, coca is the plant from which cocaine is made. Turns out you can't get high from these ways of taking the plant, but I did hear a report from someone who chewed three leaves that they could not feel their tongue afterwards. It seems the tea was enough of a preventative, because there was no altitude sickness for me!

The bus paused for a quick view of Alpacas (always necessary). I had never seen so many curious alpaca eyes. I think after this semester I am going to have an obnoxious number of alpaca pictures and I am sorry if you find them obnoxious as well, but I am in Peru and it's a real thing that they love their llamas and alpacas so I can't help love them as well. :) 

Along the road we viewed a settlement of the alpaca owners. I believe those circles of rock wall are the pens for the alpacas at night. Fun fact: there each family has a dog that watches over the pen at night to protect and be a warning for the popular puma in this area. 

At the highest point of our trip (Mirador de los Andes) we stopped to admire the view of the volcanoes from this gorgeous view point. 

These piles of stone were every where as people come and pay their respects to the mountains. 

In this picture Emily is modeling our bathroom at this pit stop: A hut covering a hole in the ground with a see-through door. 

Vicuñas weren't the only wildlife we saw on this trip. We also viewed the rabbit of the Andes. It looks basically the same as a wild rabbit, but with a long tail. 

Our Hotel

If we hadn't felt saturated in Peru before, we definitely did while relaxing in the hammocks (which shared the same yard as an alpaca) and viewing the Andes. 

We were fed very well by a buffet at the hotel that included Alpaca meat! Turns out Alpaca is a tough meat, but very savory. 

Finally, this is the view of the canyon. It is filled with terraces that were made by the pre-incans and are still in use, by the natives today. This canyon is twice the size of the Grand Canyon creating a stunning scenery, that is all to grand and beautiful to be captured by a camera. I tried many times, but the vast land, mountains, and fields were impossible to be captured by my camera. So when you look at this picture try to imagine something 100x's bigger and more beautiful and you might get close to what it actually was. Needless to say, staying at this hotel and with this view made me feel like I could write an article in National Geographic. 

Another tourist attraction was the Bañales Terminales (aka hot mineral springs). Basically it was a great big hot tub of mineral water. A very fun experience, but I must admit that my favorite part may or may not have been the hot shower afterwards. That is something that is no longer guaranteed in my daily life and was a treat to enjoy after our swim. 

The next morning we woke up at 5:15am to see the Condors at the Cruz de Condors. These birds are a very large version of the vulture. They are the second largest bird in the world (second to the albatross). They have a wingspan quite a few feet longer than I am tall. Condors are part of the reason that Colca Canyon is popular because it is one of the few places you can go to view these birds. We were lucky enough to have several flight right above us. 

You have seen a picture of the Condor, and this is a picture of it's habitat. I realize that in this picture (above) it is difficult to see me, but I hope it communicates an idea of just how large these mountains are. Here at the Cruz del Condor, I lost breath, not because of the great altitude, but because of the expanse and size of the mountains. As we walked hiked to the Cruz del Condor, I couldn't help but think of my family. As we have seen together many of the mountains in the US, I also wanted to share with them the grand experience of the Andes as they are so much bigger than anything we have seen. 

 I will treasure forever this experience to be up in the Andes and Colca Canyon for a couple reasons. The obvious reason is because well....they are the Andes Mountains and they are spectacular, but also because they way they quietly show the praise of God. This trip was a wonderful display of God's creation. I feel so blessed to be a part of this experience because each day God is showing me who he is in a different way. On this excursion, God presented me with his vast handiwork of the Andes, Condors, and the Colca Canyon. Up at the Cruz de Condor we had the chance to do devotions and sing praises. It felt so right to praise God for his creation as we sat amidst the biggest landscape I had ever experienced. The cliffs presented the undeniable truth that God so much bigger than any of our wildest dreams or worries. I can't thank God enough for this experience to see more of him.