There are very few environmental volunteers from my group with beautiful mountain sites...i am not one of them. Like most of the other volunteers, my site is in the dry forest in the coastal zone. My hypothesis for why my director put me there is that he figured an Iowan would keel over dead if they went above 1000meters. I have now proven him wrong as I am currently writing this from the georgeous mountain city of Cajamarca. Every volunteer gets 4 days of vacation for Holy Week (Semana Santa) and most of the volunteers chose to go to the beach. Not me! I get sufficient sun and sand in my site so I and a small group of other volunteers (and the visiting brother and friend of a volunteer) went to the mountains (despite many people asking us if we are aware there is no beach in Cajamarca and that it is currently the rainy season...yep, knew that). It took me about a day of complaining about the cold before my body adjusted. It didnīt help that when I was packing in the 90 degree weather I could not bring myself to pack a fleece. There was no way I would want to put on a fleece and it would just be big and bulky...oops. Itīs damn cold and I bought a warmer shirt but am sticking it out in the sandals I brought while my friend Karen broke down and bought shoes.
So, to tell you a bit about what weīve been doing. We left Chiclayo on a morning bus and rode the 6 hours to get here. The senery along the way was an increadable assortment of mountains, rivers, farmland, and small peruvian villages. Since a picture is worth a thousand words you should just check out my pictures. We stayed in a hostal that is the same price of our hostal in Chiclayo but about 10 times nicer. It had a cute little garden in the center and was in a really good location close to the plaza. There were beautiful old chrches all over the city and one afternoon Karen and I took a walk to look in some of them and watch a few moments of their holy week services. We found an artisin store with a really friendly woman named Maritza. I couldnīt find a ourse I liked so I told her what I wanted (despite the fact that my spanish vocab doesnīt include too many desctiptive words for purses) and picked out the material and whe made it for me while I watched.
Yesterday we were prettly lazy and spent the day relaxing, walking around the city, and drinking a little too much wine. Today we visited the Incan baths which were not quite what I expected but nice none the less. We paid 5 soles to bathe in the hotspring water but it was odd because it was actual bathroom type tubs and you turned on the faucet to fill them with water. The only other hotsprings I have been to were in Turkey and were outside as opposed to these which were in an enlosed room. It still felt amazing to imerse my entire body in hot water after 6 monthes of cold bucket baths.
There is still alot to see but we are heading back tomorrow. I have decided (rather unofficialy) to make Cajamarca my new capital city...even though thatīs not really allowed perse with the Peace Corps. I like Chicalyo because I can get everything I need done and we have a really good group of volunteers there but damn it is pretty here. The roads are paved with cobblestones and the architecture is not too shabby. I will gladly travel the 7 hours to get from my site to here again in the future. Just a note that the spell check on this computer wasnīt working and I am a horrible speller and didnīt take the time to read over this before I posted it...sorry.
Peace,
Susan
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