Whatever it Takes to Sleep at Night

Everyone makes mistakes, right? Well, yep, we messed up and need to make some apologies. We take the credibility of our blog very seriously, and couldn't sleep at night knowing we caused the world to point fingers at various people who we now know do not deserve blame. Yes, the whole world, we went there (at least in our minds we went global). Anyways, we would now like to take a moment to make things right:

1. We sincerely apologize for labeling all Peruvians as drunks. We drew this conclusion due to the fact that we see people drinking literally all day every day. However, after we found ourselves day drinking for the fifth day in a row, we totally got it. Did we spend a full day baking Sublime cookies? Yes. Did we do this while drinking beers? Yes. It only made sense to bake with beers. Did we find ourselves filling the awkward gap between lunch and dinner with beers? Yes. So, the the people of Ollanta, you aren't alcoholics and we are so sorry for judging you... It's not a disease, it's a way of life (Anyone know if they have AA in Peru?)

2. To the woman we harshly accused of stealing our 50 cent dinner knives .. We really jumped the gun on that one. Although all the evidence pointed toward Heather, turns out after actually taking the time to talk to her there is no way she was the thief. In fact, Heather is a really nice girl and a fellow victim of kitchen robbery. We are really sorry for painting Heather as the culprit... Thank goodness we changed her name. 

3. This apology is specifically directed toward Micol Spinazzi, who is our symbol for all the muggles of the world who have sustained injuries (pickups 2012 was no joke). Honestly, muggle injuries are real and hurt a lot and really deserve attention without judgement from athletes. As retired athletes and thus real world muggles, Claire has recently punctured her hand with a pocket knife while trying to cut a water bottle in half to clean her retainer in Clorox. On top of this, Alison has likely broken her ankle while walking at a leisurely pace on cobblestone. Both of these catastrophes have impacted our lives greatly. We dare say they are in the ranks with a year long concussion and two ACL tears. *For anyone who can't figure out what a muggle is, it's a nonathlete.

4. Eugenio. Where to begin. Eugenio is a 35 year old restaurant owner who we have befriended. Despite having been to Miami and New York, Eugenio's favorite place in America is Maryland because he loved the deer and squirrels. I mean, come on, how cute is that? The first time Eugenio invited us to a party, we lied and said we were going to Cusco. Awkward when we later saw him in the streets of Ollanta. When he asked us to a second party, we felt bad and decided we had to go. This time we were seriously going to go, until the most insane thunderstorm/tornado hit Ollanta. Shockingly enough the one time we needed to make a call on our joint Peruvian cell phone we didn't have any minutes. To make things worse, when Eugenio called us out for standing him up twice, Alison misinterpreted the comment and responded with "In your dreams." Language barriers will really put you in a pickle sometimes. So, to Eugenio, lover of deer and squirrels, we really apologize, and will send you a picture from your favorite state, Maryland. 

While hearing these apologies may make you think we feel bad about everyone we have accused or judged, this is not the case. There are some people we will just never forgive. These people include the 9 year-old devil Tienda worker, Esquina Man (the owner of a local restaurant) who also gives us small food portions and watches in disgust as we fill our water bottles, and the woman who charged double for a bread and cheese sandwich. We genuinely think you are mean people. It also makes us really sad that none of you like us.. People freaking love us. Also, our consistent eating is your main source of income. You're welcome for those new shoes, we see you. 

Although we have had some rough nights dealing with the guilt of wrongly accusing the innocent, we have somehow managed to continue to live our lives. Claire turned 22. That's a surprise in and of itself. Instead of having 22 beers poured over her head in the Cottage tap room as was the case with 20, this year Claire's head was shoved into a full cake by two 15 year old girls. No matter where she goes, birthdays for Claire somehow always end in her needing to take a shower to get food or drinks out of her hair. Cake was followed by a dance party, the attendees being eight 12-17 year old girls. Isn't this how everyone celebrates their 22nd birthday?? 

The night we ditched Eugenio because of the storm/tornado. We can't say enough about headlamps, they're the greatest invention of all time. As for the beers... Beers and bed, it only makes sense. Again, we apologize to all Peruvians. 

Why don't boys like us? Talk about a dance floor!

Cuiy, aka guinea pig. Yeah, we ate that. After trying to avoid Cuiy like the plague, our student, Luis, insisted his mom make us a proper goodbye meal. It was Cuiy. You know, now that we think about it, we should apologize to our childhood pets, whose cousins are now in our bellies. If you're interested, it tasted like a strange mixture of pig and chicken. 

Well, we are now headed to Bolivia to travel around for a month. We don't really know how that will turn out, but yeah, it's happening. 

Until next time ya guys,

Alison and Claire

P.S. turns out the girls in the dorm we worked at (the invite list for Claire's 22 bday party) thought we were a band, "Grupo Alison y Cler".  Look out for our next hit single, "La Vida Gorda"

Whatever it Takes to Solve the Mysteries

Well guys, we've been robbed. What was stolen from us you ask? Our iPods? Money? Passports? No, no, even worse.. Our dinner knives. It has now been a full week since our 50 cent knives have gone missing. In that time we have compiled a thorough list of suspects. 

Suspect 1: Crazy Lady - this chick is nuts and happens to live below us. On the first day we met her, she chased Alison around the kitchen with a broom. We thought, okay maybe she's having a bad day. Then she started speaking Spanish to us and English to our Peruvian landlord. That just doesn't make sense. The kicker was when she told us she doesn't believe in Internet and only believes in person-to-person interactions. This is hysterical because she's the least personable human we've ever met. It doesn't help that her butt crack is always hanging out. We've decided Crazy needed the knives to simultaneously kill us. 

Suspect 2: Third Floor Ghost - we don't know why, but every morning at 8am the ghost on the third floor rearranges the furniture in the room. Incredible seeing as the furniture just includes a bed, chair, and side table. Also incredible because we have been living here for 3 weeks and have never seen anyone go up or come down from the third floor. Ghosts could need knives, right?

Suspect 3: 9-year-old Tienda Worker - we know this girl is 9, but she is the devil. Why? Not only did she try to sell us bread for five times the actual price, but she also gives us the smallest pieces of cake. You just cannot trust people who don't serve good desert portions. Thus, she is a suspect. 

Suspect 4: Our Quechua-speaking Witch Abuela - we haven't seen our Quechua-speaking abuela since we moved out, and are pretty sure she has been up to some witch business. What better way to drive to two fat gringas crazy than steal a necessary tool for eating? 

Suspect 5: Heather*: We're actually pretty sure this is the culprit. Turns out she's the only other one who uses the kitchen.  Also, when our mug was previously stolen it was returned with lipstick marks. Heather was conveniently wearing lipstick the night before for Halloween. Coincidence? We don't think so *Name was changed to protect the identity of our suspect. 

For now, the case is open, but we'll let you know if we solve it. In the mean time, remember that time we told you we were going to Bolivia? We went. 

Usually you have to take a 12 hour bus to Puno, hop in a colectivo, catch a bike taxi, cross the border, and then take another colectivo to get to Copacabana. So when the director of our program, Gabby, invited us to go to Bolivia with her and her friend, Manuel, who owns a car, we were pretty pumped. We thought, "How comfortable! How quick and easy! How safe it will be driving with the locals." Absolutely every assumption we had was incorrect. How is this this possible? Well, let us tell you:

We woke up at 430AM super eager to start the trip. We walk outside and see a beautiful, brand new Chevy SUV, with a warm scrambled egg breakfast waiting for us. This can't be real.. Talk about the best trip ever! We got on the road, and man, Manuel had a bomb road trip playlist featuring One Republic, Don Omar, Katy Perry and some awesome Spanish dance tunes. As we jammed to P!nk's Raise Your Glass, we kind of forgot we weren't in America and instead were roadtripping through the Andes in Peru with an Argentinian and Peruvian. We were literally thrown back to reality when we flew over a speed bump at serious pace. We quickly learned that Manuel had no clue how to drive. It also didn't help that he might be legally blind. We don't have enough fingers to count the number of times he ran into stationary objects. He also actually hit a dog (as dog lovers that part was really hard for us so we ate our feelings away with sublimes and bread. Classic). We were making great time, and by 10AM we were only about 15 minutes away from Puno, the main city on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, close to the Bolivian border. Anddd that's where we stopped. Remember that time when we went to go to the "jungle" and had to ride in an 18 wheeler with eggs and sugar because of a strike? Welp, the strike struck again. The road was covered with boulders and tree trunks so no cars could pass into the town of Juliaca, which was on strike because of raised taxes. Why they chose to protest the tax in the form of closing the roads is beyond us. We parked behind a row of cars waiting to pass, and with nothing else to do, decided it was the perfect time for a picnic. Seeing as we were in the middle of nowhere with very limited food options, we had to make the most of what was available at the closest store. By this we mean we ate "atun" which is supposed to be tuna, but we are pretty sure was canned sardines, white bread, bottled yogurt, and saltine crackers. What a nutritious meal. So that brought us to about noon, giving us 6 more hours until the strike was supposed to be over. What came next? A beer.

Parked waiting for the road to open... Those rocks in the distance are nothing compared to what we drove through later in Juliaca 

Picnic lunch in the middle of a Peruvian strike. It makes sense 

 It's weird how we have found ourselves in a car during a strike drinking a beer more than once. 

The boredom was actually unbearable, so we decided to backtrack an hour to visit some pre Inca ruins in the middle of nowhere. This decision ended up being great. The ruins were incredible, and the timing was perfect. When we got back, the road was open. "What luck! How perfect! It's gonna be smooth sailing from here!" We literally couldn't have been more wrong. While waiting 8 hours for the road to open was miserably boring, driving through Juliaca was actually hell. We know we exaggerate a lot (examples: this is the coldest day of my life, She's my nightmare, you're the funniest person I know), but this time we are under exaggerating so our parents don't have heart attacks. People were lighting everything on fire, the roads were covered with glass, boulders, and huge mounds of dirt, people were yelling very mean things at us, there was even an abuela threatening to throw rocks at the car and a child ready to hit the car with plywood. So yeah, whoever said the strike was over was way off. To avoid the madness we found a nice, local taxi driver to lead us through the back roads to get out of this hell. Two hours later and 200 yards away from the road to Puno literally the worst possible thing happened. We got a flat tire. We can't say we were surprised we got a flat due to the facts that our driver was blind and the road was completely covered with broken glass and boulders. Oh, and at this point it was freezing cold, pouring rain, pitch black, and the brand new car didn't come with a wrench to change the tire. So that's all ideal. After a half hour of walking through the pouring rain searching for help, Manuel returned with two Peruvian angels and the proper wrench and fixed the tire. By midnight, after 19 hours of travel, we arrived in Puno. NOT EVEN COPACABANA. 

We don't have a photo of the hell that was Juliaca because we were focused on staying alive and guarding our belongings from the lunatics. Here's a photo from the Pukara Ruins though!

The next morning we woke up and began attempt number 2. For some strange reason we found ourselves leaving the car at a police station just outside the border. Turns out you can't really take a car across the border. Good thing our local Peruvian and Argentinian friends looked into that before the trip. Just as we would have had we taken the bus, we took a colectivo to the border where you walk about 50 steps and boom you're in Bolivia. At 2pm on Friday we finally arrived in Copacabana. Though getting there was a nightmare, Copacabana was sick. The town is right on Lake Titicaca with unreal views. The Lake is at such high altitude it looked like it was in the clouds. So crazy. Speaking of crazy, we visited the beautiful white church and the Virgin Mary shrine where it's tradition for visitors to light a candle, each of which has a particular significance. Pretty ironic when us two broke, unemployed Princeton grads randomly were given the candles for money and work. Rather than taking this as a sign to get our lives together, we decided to continue our adventure and go to Isla Del Sol, an island in Lake Titicaca. Isla Del Sol was unbelievable. We got dropped off at the north dock where we hiked up to a Labryinth of ruins. From here, we hiked from the north end through the island to the southern dock. During the 2 hour hike we saw the terrain change from Arizona desert to a forest to a terraced mountainside all while being surrounded by the worlds highest navigable lake. Work and money can wait while we take in sights like these. 

View of Copacabana and Lake Titicaca

'twas beautiful 

Isla Del Sol

Top of Isla Del Sol with our Peruvian and Argentinian 

From Hell in Juliaca to The path to Heaven on Isla Del Sol

The lake in the sky .. Trippy

Luckily we made it back to Ollanta safe, and walked right into a 7 day fiesta. Who would have thought town anniversaries are a huge deal here? Parades, concerts, dances, abuelas posted up on the curb with cases on cases of beer, it's a sight and a half. In the spirit of the fiesta, we decided to go to our first and last discoteca. It would have been culturally insensitive to not celebrate. Unfortunately, discotecas happen to be the hot spot for 15 year old boys in Ollanta. Yes, we do just mean boys. On the opposite end of the age spectrum, we recently had a 5'4", 80 year old abuelo and a 50 year old business man get in a legit fist fight over us. This happened at Urubamba's anniversary party. At first we thought it was cute, we were salsa dancing with the abuelo, he bought us a beer, what a nice guy. We decided it was time to leave when the abuelo professed his love and karate kicked the business man who was also attempting to express his love. Why is it that Peruvian abuelos are fighting over us but we cant get boyfriends in the U.S? All around weird Anniversary experiences. Probably not as weird as our recent trip to the corn fields, though. Our old house mom, Sonia, invited us over for lunch on Day of the Living (yeah, we didn't know that was a thing either.. They really celebrate everything here). After living there for a month and seeing the ragers Sonia usually throws, we were expecting a lot of people and music. So we were a little confused when it was just us, Sonia, and her daughter eating greasy pork and tomales. Just as we were starting to feel special since we were the only ones invited, thinking she really must have missed us, she dropped the bomb. This was all a ploy to get us to work in her corn field. We tried to avoid it, throwing out excuse after excuse, but she was persistent. Realizing we had no other option, we hopped in the van and headed to work in the fields. We didn't really do much, but we learned two things: 1) never give a child a machete, and 2) a day of work in Ollanta always ends with beer.. Two good lessons if you ask us. We also walked away with pieces of Inca pottery because the field is on Inca ceramic grounds. That was pretty cool. As funny as it was to be conned into working the fields it was great catching up with our Peruvian family. 

This is Rio, our 5 year old "brother," with multiple machetes in the field. The good thing about language barriers is the entire time Rio was running wild with multiple machetes, we were able to make comments like "you're out of your mind," "who is your mother?" "there's something wrong with you," without anyone understanding and being offended. 

Aside from our Peruvian family we have also gotten close with the rural community of Pomatales where we teach primary school. Since we are headed to Bolivia soon, we just had our last day of teaching which was so depressing. The school threw us a little goodbye ceremony where the students recited poems, gave us flowers, and man we got a lot of love notes. We decided we can't volunteer anymore because it's just too hard on our hearts. How the hell do you respond when small children are begging you to stay? That ain't right. But back to us, woof, we were flattered. The flattery faded fast when a five year old boy touched Alison's leg and reacted with "gorda," (Translation: fat), followed by the teacher straight up saying "you girls are fat." Ya hate to hear that. We won't let em get to us though! We still end every night with Sublime time. Also, due to our frequent (read: every night) cake purchases, we were just offered a discount on all desserts and pizzas at a local restaurant. This will seriously save us a lot of money. 

Claire's Soccer Squad

Alison's Squad 

Where dreams come true.. School on the left. Baller, Nicanor, with the ball

Morning line up

The kids who called us fat.. How cool are they though?

We just went on a hike to Maray Terraces and are now firm believers in aliens. We are going to leave it at that. 

WHATTTT IS THIS??

HOW DID THEY DO IT??

WE DON'T GET IT .. But smile!

Passed these Salt Pans on the way .. Lots of salt 

Also passed the two coolest women of all time from New Jersey (okay, this might be an exaggeration). Had to take a pic

Well guys, we leave you with the ugliest picture you will ever lay eyes on. Hope you are entertained by this. We are now thinking this "game" where our wrists were tied together was actually a ploy the teachers had to watch two gringas look like idiots. They were successful. How about our hats though? Pretty sweet. 

This Is The End:

9. We hear the lunatics of Juliaca yelling "Decapitate Them!" Seriously? Wo says that?

10. Alison gets the first Parasite. 

11. Learning that cars stop going back to Ollanta from Urubamba at 6PM. We were in Urubamba and it was 9PM. That's a sticky situation 

12. 5 year old Rio swinging two machetes around while we stand in a burning field. That was pretty dangerous actually 

13. Sometimes we get really bored in the small town of Ollanta. To curb this boredom, we picked up the only logical hobby: glass cutting. Just so you know, trying to cut a beer bottle with string, nail polish remover, and matches is pretty difficult and ridiculously dangerous 

Whatever it Takes to Get Street Cred

Peruvians get hammered.

Coming off senior spring where we took drinking season very seriously, we are now learning that was child's play compared to the perpetual drinking life of Peru. Not only did multiple 75 year old grandmas drink us under the table, but an 8 year old child was putting it back with more style. Our first marathon drinking experience was at our host dad's birthday party. We went to bed the night before with plans to wake up, work off some sublimes, and live a healthy lifestyle. Plans changed very quickly when we were awoken at 6:30AM for chocolate cake and Lima bean liquor (Lima bean liquor, that's healthy, right?) The real drinking began at noon. Once we finished a plate with about half a chicken, we were immediately handed a 40 of Cusqueña. Two hours and a few 40's later, we were served dinner which consisted of a stuffed pepper, huge chunk of pork, pasta, 3 regular potatoes, and 2 sweet potatoes-- so yeah, it was a light meal and right on track with the plan to live a generally healthy lifestyle. We decided a healthy lifestyle can take a backseat to earning some Peruvian street cred though. Feeling the need to burn off some calories, we decided to introduce the party to the classic game of flip cup. Now, remember this was our host dads birthday, so the average player age was about 45, with us and our Quechua-speaking abuela being the outliers. Speaking of which, we may not be able to understand a single word abuela says, but we bonded over the universal language of beer drinking. Homegirl's a tank. 

Sharing a beer with abuela- she's probably casting spells on us, but we interpreted it as "salud"

Our amazement at the witch-abuela's drinking ability soon faded while at a traditional Peruvian wedding when we learned that all abuelas here are excessive drinkers. Yep, that's right, we actually managed to get invited to a wedding. Not just any wedding, but one in the deep rural villages of the Andes Mountains called Soccma. I'm sure you're wondering how we got there. Well, remember that time we got in the back of an 18 wheeler and went to the jungle and said we would never do it again? That lasted about as long as our healthy lifestyle. So after the church service in Ollanta, we jumped in the back of an 18 wheeler with about 25 Peruvians and headed up to Soccma. We really had no choice but to get in.. Our street cred was at stake. If you haven't figured it out yet, we are really into street cred right now.   

At least this time we were in the back with people rather than sugar and eggs. The fact we didn't know anyone is irrelevant. 

Right when we got to Soccma we were immediately handed a cup of Chicha. This corn-based alcohol is absolutely disgusting. We liken it to a frothy foot milkshake that for some strange reason the locals are obsessed with. We should also note that it is made in those containers you buy gas in that have large "Xs" printed on them. So we got that going for us. After forcing down a few cups of Chicha, we were served Lechon. We don't really know what Lechon is, but in this case it was mass amounts of pig that we ate with our hands. Who needs utensils? Speaking of useless things- bathrooms. Turns out they aren't a thing in Soccma. It's always awkward when you eat half a pig, drink feet, and chug beer without a bathroom nearby. Use your imagination with that one. Another cultural difference we experienced at the wedding was the very public display of gift giving. Everyone in attendance is expected to approach the bride and groom and give them money, the amount of which is announced to the entire party. Talk about awkward. Even more awkward was when we went up, and were announced as Alison and her daughter. We are still trying to figure out who should be embarrassed here. 

We've carried a lot of cases in our day, but a case of 40s through the Andes Mountains was definitely a first

Wedding celebration with some friends. See that pank drank? Yeah, that's the frothy foot milkshake Peruvians like to call Chicha. 

While heavy drinking and consistently eating half of whatever animal is served has done some damage to the body, we have still managed to go on a few hikes. The first of which was to a tiny town called Markaqocha. We never really know where we are going when we set out, all we know is that we are supposed to end up somewhere awesome. So this time after hiking for 3 hours and ending up at nothing we were pretty confused. This confusion is probably a result of the guide book we have been using. To give you an idea, here are a few of our favorite directions: "the path is not always clear but continue traveling left and downhill," "walk up the road to an electrical pole on the left labeled 2224 and take a left on a path that leads behind some houses," "follow the trail straight past the foundations and ignore other paths that intersect this trail." As for getting to Markaqocha, we were told to "follow the path down through the fields, across a stream, and to the ruins on the far end of the football field." There are so many things wrong with this. First, this "path" was literally a cliff down to a stream. This brings us to the issue of the stream. It was a freaking river with level five rapids. Finally, they left out the minor detail that the ruins were atop another mountain that you have to hike. We aren't even going to address the fact that football fields do not exist, so who knows what that was referring to. After exploring and forging our own path we were thankfully able to get to the ruins. What. A. Sight. Not only were there incredible Inca ruins, but there was a group of girls in traditional garb playing soccer. Life doesn't get much better than that. But wait, as we were picnicking we heard faint Andean music playing in the background. As the music grew louder we noticed a man, also in traditional garb, traversing down the mountainside playing the beautiful music. You could say the scene was pretty unreal. 

Looking down on the Inca ruins and girls playing soccer

Close up - girls in traditional garb playing soccer alongside some bulls and sheep 

Just getting a little artsy

Though we got a little lost and struggled with directions, Markaqocha was a pretty easy hike. Our second hike to Las Canteras was entirely different. Interpreting the difficulty rating of "moderate" as a leisurely hike, we were blindsided when we found ourselves hiking straight up a mountain. After about an hour of scaling this mountain we came to the first of two rock quarries that were used to supply the rocks to build Ollantaytambo. Here, we found a bunch of adorable mini houses. "How cute! The Incas must have been mini people," we thought as we imagined a land of Oompa Loompa Incas. Oh god were we mistaken. We later found out they were tombs.  

So yeah, that's Alison sitting inside an Inca tomb. 

Looking back, there were a lot of deadly undertones to this hike. Aside from the mini houses aka tombs at the first quarry, the second rock quarry boasted some real-dead skeletons in a cave. Unfortunately, the directions to find the skeletons within the huge quarry were shockingly unclear and involved following a path of rocks. Seeing as the quarry was filled with rocks it was a little difficult to decipher which ones made up this so-called path. So, as per usual, we forged our own way. After two hours of serious rock climbing, we found those sneaky bones. Honestly though, thank god we did because they were absolutely amazing. These skeletons were at least 600 years young, and haven't been moved from this cave, 1000m above Ollanta. So what do we do when we find something like this? But of course, have a photo shoot! Or better yet, if you're Claire, really hit it off and become besties with the skellies. 

We actually have no clue why Claire was cracking up - those must have been some funny bones, eh? 

Creepy yet awesome. Anyone know if that's hair or rope coming off that dead person's head?

Just us and our new buds. We may not have live friends but we kill it with the dead people 

We are really hoping that hanging out with skeletons and inside tombs isn't a bad omen. Especially since we just moved into a new place. After spending a month with a host family, we decided, ya know, why not rent our first apartment while traveling in Peru? We like to think that since we are renting a place and have to cook for ourselves that we are now in the real world (how do you feel about that Sheehy?) Strangely enough our real world happens to be in the middle of the Andes Mountains and doesn't involve employment. We'll see how that works for us..

And this brings us to our This Is The End segment:

5. We hop in the back of an 18 wheeler with 25 Peruvians while waving bye to the only two people we knew who were "meeting us there" (they took a much more logical mode of transportation- moto)

6. Due to unemployment we decide to eat at a 4 sole ($1.30) place in the Urubamba market. What did we get for $1.30? Soup, rice, fries, huge piece of fried chicken, salad and soda. We were the only two gringas... Anything in the name of street cred

7. While searching for skeletons we decided to split up to cover more ground. After 2 hours of searching in different areas, we couldn't hear or see each other. Ya know, three tombs are easier to find than one, right? 

8. Pisac market post 5pm. Who knew it turns into a creepy ghost town? We clearly didn't as per usual 

We've decided to go to Bolivia this weekend for a casual weekend trip to Lake Titicaca. We'll try to travel in something other than an 18 wheeler but can't make any promises. 

Until next time,

Alison and Claire 

Whatever it Takes to Get There

Let's get this started with a little message about Sublimes (read: soob-leem-ays). We know our last post started with an ad for TACA, but since we are laying in our beds eating sublimes as we have done every night, we figured we would give them a shout out. While the ingredients read "chocolate, peanuts, and milk," there is just no way that can be true due to our physical and mental addiction to the candy. We kid you not when we say that we have "sublime time" every single night where we sit cross-legged on our respective beds in silence until someone finishes and consequently talks about how sad they are that it's gone. In order to cater to this addiction, we are probably going to have to start a Sublime branch in the US when we get back... Honestly, you're welcome. 

While this intro may make you think all we do is eat Sublimes (not entirely false), we have actually ventured around the Sacred Valley a lot in the past week. It only makes sense to start with the headliner of our trip thus far. Let us clarify that we specifically chose the word headliner because it was in no way a highlight, but instead one of the most bizarre things that we have ever done. Which is really saying something because we are quite odd and have had some really strange experiences. Anyways, here goes nothing (we no longer say "here goes nothing" because that's what got us into this mess). 

Traveling throughout South America, we have learned to truly embrace expecting the unexpected (Thanks for the training, Shacks). So when the power went out in Ollanta shutting down the entire town, our friend Juan- a Rustic Pathways guide- asked us if we wanted to tag along with him to meet up with his gap year tour group in the jungle. We figured, "hey, that's cool... We like jungles... We like animals... Let's go." Usually it's a simple trip where you catch a coach bus in the town center and arrive in the jungle about five hours later. Are you shocked to hear that there were no busses running on this particular day? Yeah, we weren't too surprised either. But now are you shocked to hear that we found ourselves in the back of an 18 wheeler, sitting on sacks of sugar, surrounded by eggs, with a random, yet very friendly, Brazilian? Actually this one was a little surprising, even for us. After riding in the back with Juan and our Brazilian for about an hour, the driver asked if anyone wanted to sit up front with him. Since the view from the back consisted of rotten wooden walls and a trailer door, we figured, yeah, it might be nice to see the Andes mountains and a glacial peak. Soon after joining Carlos, the driver, and his copilot, Quechi, we were drowned in cultural facts about Peru, and asked if we had tried Peru's most famous beer, Cusqueña. Soon, we were no longer drowned in historical facts, but rather beer. By this, we mean Carlos and Quechi stopped in every small town we passed to buy us more Cusqueña. While we may have drank a few too many Cusqueñas, heard the entire history of Peru, and had countless "what is going on" moments, after nine hours, four more than usual, we made it safely to the jungle. As we clarified the headliner, we should also clarify what we mean by jungle. In our minds there were jaguars, monkeys, lush banana trees, we don't know, maybe even a sloth. Turns out the only animals in this jungle were Mosquitos. Not your everyday Mosquitos, or even malaria Mosquitos, but Mosquitos that leave you with a blood blister to compliment the never ending itch (seriously never ending, it's been a week). Aside from all this, there were some positives: we camped in the "Peruvian jungle," there were some pretty cool hot springs, and man, what a story. But wait, the biggest up side is that we bought sublimes, coke, and animal crackers, which we enjoyed on the five hour drive home. Yes, we did make this drive at 9am the next morning, meaning we were in "the jungle" for a total of 9.5 hours, 6 of which we were sleeping. 

Back of the 18 wheeler- Juan taking a snooze and Claire taking in the beauty of the wooden walls and sugar bags 

Hot springs and the bathroom across from our Sublime stop- told you the addiction is serious

Moving away from the headline, there have been some serious highlights. The majority of these highlights have been hikes in the Sacred Valley surrounding Ollanta:

Hike 1: Incan Pool. We went on this easy hike with a local friend, and went swimming in an Ancient Incan pool that overlooked the river, Andes, town, and our friend, Veronica (a glacier.. Friends are hard to make here. But hey, we have five total contacts in our cell phone now. Yes, one contact is our own number because we can't remember it to save our lives. Talk about popular)

Hike 2: Intiwatana. Since we think we are Incan, we decided to forge our own hiking path to the Intiwatana ruins. The ruins were awesome, but a recent forest fire burnt everything which led to mixed feelings. It was terrible but made the ruins look so cool. 

Ruins in the distance, valley, mountains, cool

Hike 3: Pumamarca. Like we said, it's hard to make friends here. So, when we were accompanied by two great dogs, Puma and Stan (great names, we know, we named them), we were pretty happy. The ruins were about four miles through the mountains and overlooked an isolated farm, 3,425 meters high. There's not much to say other than they were incredible. 

Ruins and dogs

Big girl little door - Incans were miniature 

When we aren't hiking, riding in 18 wheelers, or eating sublimes, we do something relatively normal (Well, normal if you overlook the 1.5 hour walk and 20 minute moto ride)- we teach English at a grade school in the rural village of Pomatales. The great thing about grade school is they still have recess, which gave us a prime opportunity to draft teams for a soccer game (we can't give up the dream). Pretty sure recess was extended by about 30 minutes, but as true Princeton athletes, we believe in Education through Athletics. 

To end, we wanted to introduce everyone to a little thing we call "This is the End" (Libby, 2013) (honor code, gotta give our friend Libby credit for this idea which arose after hearing about "the jungle"). We will be keeping track of the moments when we think to ourselves, "oh yeah, this is the end."  Here we go:

This is the End 

1. Nabs falls up makeshift ladder, spills bucket of contaminated, muddy, puddle water and swallows it 

2. Claire refuses to brush her teeth with purified water because she is too lazy to carry a water bottle to the bathroom

3. We are in the back of an 18 wheeler on route to "the jungle"

4. The Quechua-speaking abuela/witch. She will kill us. Don't know how, don't know when, but when she is in view we know it could be the end. 

All good for now though! 

Whatever it takes to defy social norms

Hola amigos! 

First things first, let us take a minute to tell you about the greatest airline known to man-TACA/Avianca. Flying TACA was like a dream. Nowadays, airlines make you pay for a checked bag, you get about 7 mini pretzels and two sips of flat soda. While We are fans of mini things this does not translate to food. Imagine our utter delight when we were served two warm, dare I say homemade meals that included an appetizer, entree and desert. But wait, turns out TACA doubles as a club (please read cloob), and gave out free alcohol! I mean come on, it doesn't get better than that. So yeah, we really appreciated that during our 21hours of travel. Anyways, enough of theTACA advertisement.

We made it to Ollantaytambo, Peru! Ollanta is a tiny town in the Sacred Valley surrounded by the Andes mountains, Incan ruins, a river and a huge glacier. So yeah, the view sucks.

 We are working for an organization called The Sacred Valley Project, which works to further the education of girls from the rural Andean communities by providing them with a safe dorm in Ollanta where they can attend school. The girls live in the dorm through the week and then walk home for the weekend. By walk home we mean go on intense hikes through the Andes, lasting anywhere from 2-6 hours. You may think we are sitting teaching English or helping with normal things, but that's ridiculous because normal things don't happen to us. Instead, the organization is building a brand new dormitory for the girls, and these two gringas are wheelbarrowing mass amounts of rock and sand to the construction site since it can't be accessed by car. Lets just say this work definitely doesn't require real clothes. 

Besides wheelbarrowing we have been tirelessly accosting the locals looking for a way to play soccer (for Princeton soccer girls, FIGHT). Here are the most common responses: 1. There is a women's league, butttt you must have had at least two kids (we can't even get boyfriends, let alone two kids); 2. You can field a team of six girls and try to get in during pick up (it's been a tough recruiting season); and 3. Silence because girls don't play (this situation is very awkward). Whether they wanted us to or we were just too persistent and annoying, we were finally asked to play on Friday. The games were at "la loza" which is a 30ish yard cement field. You come with a team, and its 5v5, first to two goals, loser owes the winning team 5 soles. Our team, which consisted of us and three American men working on projects in town, looked a little out of place. No matter how weird it was, it was awesome and after a few wins earned some respect (or so we think...but then again, we couldn't understand half the stuff they were yelling from the sidelines). 

Now to give you a peek into our home lives. We are staying in a hostel/homestay/who really knows what you call a place you pay 8 dollars a night for, dinner included. We have a mom, dad, sister, 5-year old brother, and grandma. The family is super cool and so welcoming that we were invited to our "sister," Cora's sweet 16 on our first night here. At the fiesta, our "mom," Sonia, must have sensed that we have no dancing abilities and gave us and a few other people staying at the hostel a much needed salsa tutorial. Not to downplay the importance of the cottage dance floor, but salsa is freaking awesome! While we have been speaking Spanish and getting to know the family, we have no clue in the world what the grandma is saying. For whatever reason though, she continues to speak the old Incan language of Quechua at us. 

Yesterday, we went on a hike to the Pinkuylluna ruins which served as a storage area for the Incans way back in the day. Our house is also 550 years old, so we are pretty much Incan. 

The town in the foreground is Ollanta and in the background is the Incan Fortress which overlooks Ollanta. Also note that the fortress in the shape of a llama (head on the left) ..Honestly how the hell did they do that..

Pinkuylluna ruins. Pretty incredible. 

Pinkuylluna ruins again. See that little person in the front? That's our new friend Sarah having a casual Sunday read. Weird fact: she lives 35 minutes away from Claire in Connecticut and is our year. Surprising? Of course not.. Who doesn't meet their neighbor in the middle of an Incan ruin on a mountaintop in a rural village in Peru?