Even though there is only a one hour time difference between here and Ohio, I am sure that I have never been more burnt out after a series of flights than I am now. The first impression that I gave to Peru was myself running through an airport, my nose sweat on full blast with my dirty braid flying through the air, unable to be tamed. My flight from Lima-Cusco was set to take off 20 minutes after I had my bags checked by customs; I was in full panic mode. Thanks to the friendliness of the Peruvian airport employees though, I was able to skip the lines and head straight to my gate. Crisis averted, but I would be stuck in my now sweaty Patagonia for the rest of the day.
As soon as I landed in Cusco, I truly was in awe. I was surrounded by the Andres mountains on all sides. The first sign I saw when I got off the plane was an advertisement for an altitude sickness medicine. I already regretted not grabbing my prescription before I left Charlotte. For those of you who do not know, Cusco sits at 11,000 feet above sea level and is much higher than Macchu Picchu. What most tourists do is start at Macchu Picchu then end in Cusco in order to accustom themselves to the lack of oxygen. But I would be dealing with the altitude head on, and did not have a lot of faith in my body. (it’s too late) When we arrived at the international office, I was immediately told to start drinking coco tea. This tea is notorious for helping to fight off the symptoms of altitude sickness, and it comes from the same plant as cocaine. So I’m basically pretty heavy into drugs now since I downed like 4 of them in the matter of an hour. After the orientation and a city tour, I was sent off in a Peruvian van to be delivered to my host family like a lovely American gift. I was very excited to meet them because it said on my information packet that they had two dogs. This meant that I could pet these dogs without reprieve since they surely did not have any fleas like those on the street. Too many times that day had I been tempted by one of those adorable pups to come up and give them a big old belly rub and profess my love to them. As I entered the house, I realized that not only was I going to be living with an actual Peruvian family, but also 5 others volunteers who were all from Australia! This pleased me very much because the week before I had taken a BuzzFeed Quiz to see how much I knew about Australia and I had failed miserably. This was my chance to redeem myself….& make friends, I guess ;) After not eating all day except for a bag of peanuts on the plane, I was ready to eat whatever they laid in front of me, even their national dish…the guinuea pig. Yes, the Peruvians eat guinea pig and over here it is called “Cuy”. Luckily, I was not served this. Instead we had a delicious meal of Chaufa, which is a traditional Peruvian plate that has rice, peas, peppers and a chicken wing with a side salad of pickled cucumbers. For a drink we had a peppercorn drink called Chifa. I honestly have zero idea how you would juice corn, let alone peppercorn, but it was very different & I’m anxious to try to alcohol version of this drink. I’ll call it crunk corn. For now I will say goodnight because I have to report to my volunteer site tomorrow by 7:30 am, and my body is already full of regret. Will update you all later on this week!
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