Adventures in Teaching

Puno We arrived in Puno and got settled in at our Hostel. It was another very basic place. Puno is a small town that doesn't have a lot of tourism. We spent the day wandering a bit in the plaza and visiting the church. There was a festival and a lot of places were closed. That afternoon we took our tour of the floating islands in Lake Titicaca. It was very cold on the lake. We took a boat about 30 minutes out to the islands. They are a series of islands that are grouped together. The tours take turns going to different islands and the people pool their money to support the community. When we arrived we were taken to an area to sit on the reeds and a local spokes person gave us information on their life and the islands. He showed us how they layer the reeds on top of the root blocks to make the island (approx 3 feet thick). We learned that they need refreshing regularly. We learned that traditionally the reeds are edible and combined with fishing this was the main sustenance.  Now...

We left Nasca on June 17 on an overnight bus to Arequipa. It sucked. We were seated in the back of the bus. It was smelly, hot, and uncomfortable. I woke up multiple times with claustrophobia because my legs were trapped by the reclining seats in front of us. It was horrible. We arrived in Arequipa around 5 in the morning. We elected to stay at the Casa de Avila, but we were leaving that morning for a 2 day tour of Colca canyon. The hotel was a converted colonial mansion. They were so very kind and the allowed us to store our bags and to rest in one of the common rooms until breakfast. We then were picked up for our trip to Colca canyon. The road to Colca Canyon Wild vicuña  on the side of the road The trip out of Arequipa took about an hour because of traffic. We then began our climb. The drive took us up past 15,000 feet elevation. We stopped at the highest point to see the volcanos, stacked rocks, and domestic Llamas and Alpacas. We arrived in Chivay in time for lunch. T...

Huacachina The bus took us to our next destination, Huacachina, a desert oasis in the south of Peru. The town is built around a lagoon and surrounded by dunes. This was the first time we weren't able to get the hotel we wanted as it was sold out. We ended up at a basic hotel that was clean and quite with good food.  This town was a bit of a backpacker town so there wasn't a lot to do outside of the dune buggy tour. The buggy took us out into the dunes before sunset and we had the option to stop and sand board down the dunes. I passed as I was afraid of hurting myself, but it was fun to watch everyone slide down. climbing on the buggy a dune Selfie time The sand our driver texting on his phone the hazy view the oasis after our adventure  Nasca The next day we got up early for a transfer to the Nasca airport. It was about an hour drive away. We had reservations, but they really seemed to mean nothing other than to give us a...