Monkeys playing tag

Thank goodness that today is not a bus day. We took a boat instead. We were on the boat 5 hours, it might be a long time but is so much better than 5 hours in bus. Before we left Erika Lodge we went on a walk with Jose, Tasha and Max while the others were zip-linning. The monkeys were really active, swinging around and playing what looked like tag. The two types of monkeys we saw were Brown Capuchins and the Common Squirrel Monkey. The Brown Capuchins are the ones that you see most but the others are prettier. We watched them for a while and then returned to the lodge to play cards before the others came back.

We stopped in Boca Manu (a little town 5 minutes away from the next lodge) to buy drinks after the boat ride. In the little abarrotes shop (that sells grains, fruits, vegetables, and candy) on the way into town we saw baby chickens, baby ducks and a pig. Helen and I had a fun time catching the chicks and naming them. Fuzzball was my favorite, the Crooked Wing, Big Chick and Ugly. He really was ugly.

When we got to Boca Lodge we were met by the sweetest puppy named Lobo. Almost all the dogs I know or have heard of are Lomo or Lobo but I do think they are nice names. The puppy ran around us until he needed to rest so we could pet him. The lodge was more like lots of cabins with their own bathrooms!!! Our beds had mosquito nets like always so I wore a t-shirt to bed for the first time. Before dinner everyone went on a night walk which was really creepy. We saw the biggest tarantula I have ever seen in my life, the body was bigger than my palm. We saw some big pawprints of a jaguar or puma but we didn't meet the real thing. I'm so glad we brought flashlights because at night the jungle is PITCH BLACK. It was pretty creepy. We also saw a couple Bullet Ants that were almost as long as my pinky. Jose told us that the local people call them 24 hour ants because your arm will hurt for 24 hours if it bites you. Jack was thinking about doing it but I am so glad he didn't. In Brazil for a boy to "come of age" he has to put his hand in a bag for 10 minutes with the Bullet Ants inside. They really do take that seriously!

Getting Soaked

Today we woke up at 6:00 at San Pedro Lodge and took a walk down the hill. There we saw Cock of the Rock the national bird of Peru. It had a red head with a black and gray body. After we walked for about a hour the bus came and picked us up and we rode for another hour. When we turned up at a little town, Jose (our guide) told us that we were going to raft here. We followed him inside the gates and we saw a parrot that could talk. When Meghan said "Hola" to the parrot it squawked back "Hola!". We found our raft guide and he told us that there were bathrooms so we could change into our bathing suits. Afterwards we listened to the guide about how to raft. Then we split into two groups (our family was with two british people called Jack and Charlie. We were in the boat with Angel (our raft guide) and the other group was with another guide that only spoke spanish. It was really fun except Meghan and I didn't get to paddle but otherwise watching everybody paddle was really fun. One time we pulled up next to a water fall and Meghan and I moved to the front so we could get soaked.

When the rafting was finished we pulled up at a town called Atalaya Port. Meghan met a girl called Mikaela who was freinds with Meghan. In Atalya port we got out of the raft and got into a big motorized canoe that we took too Erika Lodge. When we got to the lodge José told us to put our stuff in our room and change our clothes and come back. When we got back he selected 6 people to go zip lining today and the other group would go tomorrow. We were in the group to go today with a couple called Max and Tash. We got ready and then played cards while we waited for our zip linning guide. When we were ready we got rubber boots and backpacks that weighed 15 kg and we started hiking up the hill. At the first platform our guide explained how to zip line. There were two handlebars that he said we had to push up to go and pull down to stop. Daddy went first, then Meghan, then me. It felt so good to be zip linning again but this time was better because I got to go by myself. On the first one, I stopped to quick and had to be rescued but on the others I did fine.
When we got to the last platform our guide tied a rope onto a tree and we all slid down. It was very fun. We walked back to the lodge, ate dinner and went to bed. I love the jungle, the mighty jungle!

Manu National Park

Meghan and Helen are out of school this week so we are taking an 8 day vacation from the daily grind (not mine, theirs) and heading down the Andes to one of the largest reserves in the Amazon basin, Manu. Day one is all travel and we start early - picked up in a van by our guide, driver and cook at 5am and then make several other stops in town to gather the other 8 on our tour - 4 English, 1 German, 1 Canadian and 2 Dutch. Over the comming week we really get to know these folks and enjoy their company as we travel closely together. We make a quick stop in Pisac for breakfast and then climb East to the continental divide at about 13,000 ft before starting the long descent into the cloud forest and rain forest below.

The highland road is bumpy and I feel sorry for the many shepherds we disturb as we disrupt any sense of order to their marching herd of llamas, sheep, cattle - honking and kicking up dust clouds as we round each bend. As we continue down the road narrows and the dusty ruts and pot holes are now full of water. It is evident from the many landslides above and below us, that it is common for this road to colapse and slide down the mountain and we are often times less than a foot from the edge of loose embankments holding us to the side of the mountains. There are no culvert systems to drain the many streams making their way to the river below and several times our guide gives the order to exit and walk while the van forges alone. Our adventure tour is already exciting and we have just begun.

After a long day in the van we reach the very rustic San Pedro Lodge at 5,000 ft in the cloud forest still under blue skies - rare for this time of year as our guide mentions. It is nice to have full lungs after living 3 and a half months above 12,000 ft. Dinner as will always be is served at 7 and the generator only runs from 6-9 so it is an early evening after some spectacular gazing of the Milky Way, Southern Cross and a shooting star.

My Class

At 6:00 in the morning we get up and dress, eat, and get ready for school. The bus comes at 7:15 to pick us up. The bus is tiny but we are able to fit like, twenty five people in a fifteen person bus. My schedule is pretty cool. I get taught by a woman called Maria Rene she is nice and kind. My other main teacher is called Ricardo he is the teacher of spanish. My other teacher's are teacher's for Pottery, Computer, P.E., Music and Drama. My Freinds are called Killia Eilleen and Alejandra. They were my best freinds because I sat with them at the beginning of the season. Killia is from England and she's funny, kind and caring but sometimes she is a bit crazy.

Eilleen is much more serios then Killia. She's playful and happy almost every minute.
Alejandra is small and is eager to learn almost everything. During almost every recess me and the rest of the girls play jump rope. We play a game called clock. It's where one person runs right throgh the spinning rope and thats zero and the next is one and then two and so on. During some of the recesses I go to the library where I spend my time reading book after book. Ausangate is a tiny school but I think that tiny schools are the best kind.

Sexto B 2011

It's kind of annoying to have to wake up at 6:30 am everyday but it is definately worth it! We are now into the second month and things have gotten so much better. Easier and less homework! In spanish with miss Karina we have finished our first unit in social studys and are working on our second. My ultimate success in the last unit was making a Power Point by myself all in spanish, on central america including the Aztecs and the Mayans. María José and I were partners and we both got 19 out of 20 on our presentation, which was the highest mark in the class!!! Right now our unit is on the choices of the government and how they effect the people. In this unit the first part is all about money. Things like, Where do they print money and who has the right to do it? Also, Why don't they print money all the time? For homework we are investigating economic models like capitalism and socialism. In language arts we are working on where to put the the accents on certain words. We had a test on the accents and I got 68 out of 78. I wasn't very happy at first but then not many people got over 70! Wednesday is now my favorite day of the week. We get computer in the mornings with miss Natie and then spanish. After lunch we have english but thats ok because all we do is math. Then after the big recess we have music and drama. Music is the most boring class in the world. Worse than Razonamiento Matemática which is math in spanish. We sing ¿Estrellita dónde estás? Which is twinkle twinkle little star in spanish. We also have baby games but at least that is only for 45 minutes! Drama is really fun and next week we are going to start doing little plays in groups of 6!!! We continue singing the national anthem every Monday and I am suprised that I've almost memorized it! Helen and I are still taking afterschool and my volleyball skills are improving rapidly! María José is now "mi mejor amiga" (my best friend). I think that is so great that a girl from another continent is as awesome of a friend as any of the girls in the U.S!!! My other best friend is Nicole from the other sixth grade class. She is really funny and likes to pretend she's a hippie fortune teller and reads palms. We always play volleyball together at recess and last Friday mister Wilson came out to play with us. We played really well so the camera man that is making videos for the school filmed us!!! In 2 weeks we have our "fall" break and we are going to go to the jungle!

Left to right.

Top row: Profe Wilson, Alessandra, Camila, Gabo, Adolfo, María José and Profe Karina

Middle row: Carmen, Alex, Renán, Catalina, Sabrina and Ana Lucía Casapino

Bottom row: Antonella, Josep, Daniela, Me, Ana Lucía Gomez and Stefany/Tófi

Missing: Isabelle

I ate the face!

Today we finally went to Tipon, one of the small towns outside of Cusco. The town is famous for two things. The beautiful ruins and the best known place to eat cuy (guinea pig). Once the bus dropped us off we took a taxi up past town to the ruins. Most of the park is grass and terraces but the attraction for tourists is the water in aqueducts and fountains. Almost every single place you walk you can hear the running water. We walked up the "Inca Road" to get to the top of the ruins. On that walk I saw the biggest spider in Peru. All over the trail are little holes that spiders live in. Mom and I were walking by one and mom stopped really fast. She motioned me to stop and took one of my feather dusters and put it close to the hole. The spider came out and he was about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide (not including his legs). It scared me so bad I almost screamed. Beside its huge hole was the baby hole that had a mini spider in it. We caught up with everyone else at the top of the ruins, right before there is a big mountain. Up there you have a beautiful view of all the valley. We stayed up there for a while to rest before we hiked back down.

The cab ride back down to town was gorgeous but I was so excited to eat cuy I didn't look around much. We went to the restaurant "Escondida" which means hide and seek (or hidden) in Spanish. I guess it wasn't that easy to find but the locals knew exactly where it was. They had one of the huge ovens that could fit about 20 cuy in at a time. We got a big one for everyone to split (I got dibs on the head) even though not many of us ate a lot. The inside was stuffed with an herb that none of us liked but the leg was good. It was almost exactly like a chicken leg. There wasn't very much meat so I got the head to nibble on. The cheeks were the best part but David thought I was nutso. IT WAS GOOD!!! Everyone that thinks "Oh my gosh that is so gross", it is just the opposite!

Choco Museo

Today we went to the Choco Museo with David and Nancy. It was where you could learn about chocolate, but we went there for a special tour to learn how to make chocolate. When we got there a delicious smell filled the room. I looked upstairs and there were exhibits that told you all about chocolate. Once we heard that it was time, we hurried into the kitchen. There was a man standing there. He told us tha he was Alan. Then he took us upstairs to see the cocoa beans. There was a big fake tree that had fake cocoa beans. After that we went back to the kitchen. Alan took out a bunch of cocoa beans. We took them over to the stove and heated them. I stirred them around and then we took them back and started pealing them from the skin. We put the beans into a large glass bowl. He gave us the tools that we would need, a mortal and pestal! I had never used one before! We each took a handfull of the beans and crushed them into the finest dust we could, but it wasn't good enough. Alan said that it needed to be a little more soft so we put them into a grinder.
After it was very soft, we added water and mashed it up and drank it just like the Mayans used to. It was the most disgusting drink ever. Nobody liked it except David.
Next Alan took out melted chocolate that he had already made and he took out molds. He gave us each one bowl of chocolate and we were to put it into the molds. Once I was finished, my mold was covered in chocolate. Once everybody had finished (Meghan was the last because she had two molds) we were going to come back and get them. I had so much fun at the museum!