Chile

Hey! we are in Chile! we flew into Puerto Montt on the 26th and stayed in Puerto Varas for 2 nights. Its gorgeous here, even in the middle of winter! We have been getting a lot of rain.. but its so nice to see green trees and grass.. a lot different than the landscape in Cusco!

In Puerto Varas we explored the city and visited Petrohue which is a 50 minute bus ride to see an amazing waterfall, which is "gushing" this time of year!! We stayed at this neat little hostal right on the waterfront and met a cute dog named Juni who is about ready to "pop" she is so pregs... we were offered a puppy when they arrive.. we resisited.. we miss kuba!

we took a bus from P. Varas to Pucon and arrived on the 28th at 11pm.. we found or hostal "hostal willy" and are very pleased!!! the most comfy, cozy.. cabin like hostal we have stayed in! Pucon is a resort town...with a lot of adventure sports.. unfortunately, we are here in the winter so that limits the things we can do! we are renting a car tomorrow to drive around and hopefully see an active volcano!

so far.. we are planning on going to Valpraiso on the 31st and then head north to la serena and back down and over to Mendoza Argentina... and perhaps some skiing in Santiago! we have time... we love it!

we hope all is well...

paz!!

Big News!

Hola! :)

A few stories and updates for you guys! thanks for the comments, we love to hear from you.

Two weekends ago we went white water rafting on the Uruabamba River! It was only level 2-3, but we still had an awesome time! Nick was able to get out at one spot and jump off a huge rock into the river.. which was freezing.. his face was priceless.

In the same weekend we went to a town called Pisac. On Sundays this town has a massive market so we did lots of shopping for our friends and family-maybe too much because we are having hard time figuring out how we are going to get it all back to the states. Very cool stuff.

We have also been entering in these "pop quiz" trivia game nights with some of our housemates... It's at a british pub and all the money goes towards a charity called Bruce Peru which supports local schools. It gets very intense and the place gets packed... Unfortunately, we have not gotten 1st place yet.. but come in 2nd and 3rd out of 9-10 teams.. We are smarties. I have a feeling tonight (wednesday) is the night we will get 1st.

We went to one of the Cienciano games, which is the Cusco soccer team. We bought the "popular" tickets, which we didn't know what that meant, but we were sitting with all the locals and right next to the "rowdy" bunch that does all the cheers... it was so much fun! We are going to another one tomorrow night (thursday) and our house is getting all decked out in Cienciano gear for it! It's one of the biggest games!!

Last weekend we went to a city called Arequipa. We took an over night "semi-cama" bus which means that seats basically turn into beds... it was a 10 hour bus ride and we slept like babies most of the way. It was the city's founding day, so there was a massive party and the longest parade we have ever seen... and been a part of. When we got there at 6am and found our hotel and the front desk guy said that they wouldn't have our room ready until 8am.. so we found an awesome place to get some breakfast.. Nick really enjoyed the "Inca Breakfast" (breakfast for a king)! When we got back to the hotel, which was 2 blocks from the main plaza, to check in and we find out that they don't have a "normal room for us" and they are sorry.... but they will have to upgrade us to a suite!!! (yes please).. for 50$. Our room was huge, with a balcony and a gigantic jacuzzi... we were in heaven. After we got settled we decided to watch some of the parade and go see some of the museums! The parade was crazy, there were so many people everywhere you could hardly walk through the plaza. Our hotel happened to be on one of the main drags of the parade... so as we tried to walk back to our hotel we got stuck in between the people in the parade and the floats and the massive crowd of Peruvians... embarrassed and a little confused we tried to exit but a guard told us we would have to walk down to the next street along the parade... As we started to walk the parade watchers started yelling "BAILA" "BAILA" which means dance! Um? Nick grabbed my arm and spun me around and we started swinging and twisting and danced for 1 block down the street while 300 people cheered and took pictures... It was wild!!

Nick's good deed for the day: As we were watching/walking through the plaza we stopped to watch part of the parade. We were standing behind the crowd and there this "shady" looking character to our left. Nick kept a close eye on him, because we were warned that this weekend is when a lot of pickpocketing happens. Sure enough Mr. Creeps reached for a woman's purse... Nick SLAPPED his hand away... and the guy ran!! The woman was very thankful... and I was very proud of Nick!

One of the museums we went to houses a "mummy child" or "Ice Maiden", BUT she is not a mummy because she has all of her organs intact. She is called "Juanita" and was found at the summit of one of the volcano's called Mount Ampato that surrounds Arequipa. She was one of the Inca's daughters and was a sacrafice to the mountain Gods in 1440(ish). An explorer, John Rienhard hiked the volcano in 1995 after a nearby volcano erupted, which spilled hot ash on Mount Ampato exposing some of the Inca's past. She was completely frozen, covered in beautiful blankets. She had all of her hair, nails etc... The story behind the sacrifices the Inca's made is very amazing... The museum is dedicated to different children that were sacrificed on different mountains in Peru. Jaunita is in a special freezing chamber, but you can still see her face and where they gave her a "blow" to the head to kill her.

Back at the hotel we got ready for dinner. It was 8:30pm and the parade which started at 11am was still going... wow.

The next day we just walked around Arequipa and found a movie theater! We saw some independent film which was really good and enjoyed some popcorn and fountain pop!! :) We had another night bus at 7pm... but this time we decided to get a cheaper bus (bad choice) it was a really local bus and people continuously got on and off and were selling things and it was freezing!! It was difficult to sleep... but we made it home at 6:30am.. Nick went to project at 8am and I got some much needed shut-eye. Arequipa was beautiful, and much larger and more developed than Cusco. We enjoyed the weekend!

Now for the big news!!!! We have decided to go to Chile for almost 2 weeks! We leave next wednesday and fly into Puerta Montt, Chile. We are going to do a little spontaneous traveling and just work out way up to Santiago where we fly out of. We don't know exactly where we are going to go yet...we are thinking some of the national parks, maybe a vineyard or two... and of course the beach. We are really excited! We have heard awesome things from housemates that have been there.. and got some really good ideas on where to travel!!! woo!

Here is a link to more photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/thom1571/RaftingPisacAndArequipa?authkey=Gv1sRgCKeNr9OWu4eT_AE&feat=directlink

We hope all is well with you!! Take care!

Besos y abrazos!!

Los Ninos!

Hey! Just an update about how our project is going.

We are still at Madre Teresa, and love it! The kids are so wonderful and we have been doing all we can to help the kids with their needs and improve the facility. Recently, we cleaned out the entire physical therapy room. It was needing a good scrub, and there were a lot of broken toys and blankets that hadn't been washed in lord knows how long. We removed everything from the room and washed all the toys...down to the legos! It looks wonderful now, and there is a lot more room for exercises and playing! The nuns really appreciated our hard work!



One of the boys, Luis, bangs his head on everything... even cement walls and has a mark on his forehead from it and probably some other complications. Obviously, this is not good.. so we came up with the idea to get him a helmet! Nick and our housemate Tyler went to El Molino to try to find one and came back with a boxing helmet! With a little cutting, sewing and adjusting Tyler was able to make it the right size for Luis's cute little head! We were all so excited to see it work the first time.. and he seems to like it! :)

One of the girls puts her hands in her mouth a lot and the doctor is getting really upset because it's hurting her skin. The doctor apparently asked the nuns to do something about it, but without much knowledge on this type of thing the nuns did what they thought was right and just tied her arms down/back in her wheel chair. Well, one evening we noticed that the tie job had cut off the circulation to her hands and they were losing color and she was clearly upset. We decided that we needed to do something! The nuns agreed to let us try out some different ideas. Nick and Tyler again went to El Molino in search for some gloves! They returned with children's boxing gloves! They are perfect... and again our efforts were really appreciated.

Today was Laura and Tyler's (two our of housemates)last day in Peru! They have been in Cusco for 8 weeks and worked mainly at Madre Teresa! We wanted to do something special for their last day with the kids! So... we went to the Zoo!!!! This was so much fun! It was so great for the kids to get out of the house for a while and walk around see the animals! We had 10 volunteers and 11 kids on our little field trip! The zoo had lots of different birds... including Condors, a few bears, lots of monkeys, and a puma! Nick was watching Martin, who has down syndrome and is totally awesome. He loves to make growling bear (we call him "the bear") noises and was really digging the monkeys! I was with Judith and my little buddy Carlos who helped push Judith's wheel chair... even though Judith is blind, she enjoyed the noises at the zoo and was laughing the whole time (we got a good video of her laugh in our Picasa Album)! When we got back to the orphanage we enjoyed some cake that Tyler had brought! The kids thought this was awesome, we are not sure how often they get to have something sweet! We took lots of pictures so hopefully you can get an idea of where we are working and how special all of the kids are to us! :)

Here is the website for the Picasa page with more pictures from our project!: http://picasaweb.google.com/thom1571/MadreTeresa?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaH7ImPyafqFg&feat=directlink

Pictures from Salkantay Trek

Here is a link to the picasa page we made from the Salkantay trek, way too many to post onto a blog directly... The link wasn't working, so you'll have to copy and paste... Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/thom1571/SalkantayPicsToShare?authkey=Gv1sRgCObQlq2lp_SBOA&feat=directlink