The adventure continues

Well, if anyone still reads this, I thought I would write up a little bit on what I have been up to.

I finished my Peace Corps experience on May 13th. It was also the day the trainees swore in and became real volunteers. There is something poetic about that. The last week was in Tegucigalpa finishing reports and medical tests. There is just something degrading about having to poo in a cup.

Before that I had a bunch of good-byes. Two weekends before, the volunteers in the department of El Paraiso threw me a good bye weekend. We went to two small towns that I had never visited. We had a barbeque at hot springs in one town followed by fresh strawberries at a freezing cold pool at the second town.

My host family threw me a pupusa and margarita party my last night in site. My whole host family was there and it was a really calm night just talking to everyone.

My last night was actually at the lake, where I met a close volunteer friend. We spent one night at a hotel, then the next day went to a giant waterfall.

THe next night, I didn´t stay in the hotel in teguc, but with friends. It was good to spend a calm night with them and talk.

So, after doing the paperwork and tests, I left! THere are both happy and sad feelings about that, but I don´t have time to express all of them.

The first night I had a 13 hour lay-over in San Jose, Costa Rica, where I met my friend Ryan. He had left two weeks before me and was on the last night of his travels, while I was on the first night of my travels. We went to a chinese place for dinner and just chilled, I got in too late to see much of the city. I will say though, that it is very different from Tegucigalpa, it is developed and has highways, and green in the city.

Finally, on Saturday morning, after an hour layover in Panama, I flew to Lima. This is when the giant panic happened. Apparently, my bank limited how much money I could get out, and I didn´t know this, so I flipped because i couldn´t get money out, i was in a foreign country and couldn´t get in touch with the guy I was couchsurfing with. I had friends who were on their last night of travelling in Colombia and Peru, and I had an idea where they were staying with, so I charged the overpriced airport taxi to my credit card and went to their hostel.

I had a good conversation with the taxi driver (yeah for speaking spanish) and because the hostel was on the other side of the city, I got to see a bunch of the city. I get there, start rehearsing how I am going to talk my way through the door and immediately see one of my friends. She was online trying to get a message to me, so seeing me was weird. At that point, we dropped my stuff off in their room, I used to internet to try and get in touch with couchsurfing guy, then we went out. We went to find an atm, my card still didn´t work, tried another one- no luck, and then went to email couchsurfing guy again, because the number he gave me didn´t work. We went to eat, at one point I called couchsurfing guy and that finally resolved itself.

At night, CS guy met me at the hostel and we all had a beer in the restaurant there, then I went to his sister´s house. We stayed there a little bit then went out for a walking tour of the historic district of Lima. It was really nice, so safe and so different than Teguc.

The next morning we did the walking tour during the day and got to see more and I was able to take photos. Then, I tried my debit card and decided to take a giant wad of money out so that I would never get stuck without money, well at least for a few weeks.

Lima is really nice, but it was so good to have a local guide. I can imagine that alone it wouldn´t be as nice. It is also pretty cheap, not as cheap as Honduras, but that is the price of development. Speaking of development, my friend told me that ten years ago the center was a bad place and that the government and investors spent a lot of money on it, and in my opinion it paid off.

I had dinner with his whole family, and then went to bed early because I literally could not keep my eyes open.

I then went to Cusco. I again had to pay a lot for the airport taxi only to get dropped off below the hill from my hostel. Not cool. I had my giant bag, and then there is not too much oxygen up here. We are around 3300m, or over 10,000 ft. I thought my heart was going to pound hard enough to explode. I got my room, dropped my stuff off and then went exploring.

I like exploring Cusco alone. I can go anywhere, spend as much time as I want people watching and having fun. I found the market, which turns out to be the cheapest place to eat lunch. I am going to need to control myself on how much I buy here though. I can´t help it, there are just that many things for sale that I really like. The one thing stopping me is that my bag is already full and heavy, so i don´t want more weight.

Oh, and my first night here, I lost the key to my lock! I had to make due with what I had in my purse for the night, then headed out early to buy a twin to my lock to be able to change and shower.

I leave early tomorrow for my hike, so it will be six days before I can post again.

Jill
PS photos will have to wait, i don´t want to load them now