To Patagonia and Back Again

Romans 1:20
"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse"

Standing in front of the Torres del Paine

This verse and others like it, kept on running through my head throughout my trip in Patagonia.  I am pretty sure that I have never been in a place so beautiful.  Nestled in the southern tip of South America, Patagonia is one amazing canvas for God's handiwork.  Around every bend there were granite towers whose beauty surpassed any cathedral, breathtaking skies, and deep mountain lakes tinted with blues and teals.  As I looked at this beautiful scenery, all I could do was think "wow if the artwork is this beautiful, how amazing must the Artist be!"
I ended up staying in Patagonia for 5 days, trekking with an international group across what is known as the W trail.  At first I didn't think that this trip would have a particularly high difficulty level; however, we did end up putting in more miles than I realized. We ended up trekking an average of 12 miles a day, granted that was just with day packs and that we stayed in mountain refugios and not tents.  It was quite the experience.  On the last two days, our group eased on the hiking and turned to other means of the exploring the Patagonian wilderness: kayaking and glacier trekking.  

Getting ready to kayak!

When we were preparing to kayak, we put on wet suits and jackets to protect ourselves from the cold, but then there was one more article of clothing that at first I did not know what to do with.  It was this semi-round piece of cloth with a hole in the middle.  I then realized that it was the skirt that sealed us into our kayaks.  So, yes, I have now worn a skirt in my adult life, and I was very glad that I did.  I was amazed at how well the sealant worked at keeping the freezing water out of the kayak and us dry.  When we started, I was in a two man kayak with a new friend I met named Suen and we decided to put me in the back because I weighed more.  That position, however, also meant I was in control of the rudder which took some time to get used to.  I am sure that after crashing into a small iceberg in the first few minutes, that Suen was rethinking our plan of having me in the back!  Fortunately, it wasn't just pilot error as the rudder wasn't in the water yet, but I still felt bad.  After that I learned quickly and we avoided any more collisions with icebergs.  The experience was a blast!  I will never forget how amazing it was to see towering icebergs rising out of the water in front of your kayak.  It made you feel small and mesmerized at the same time.

A view of one of the icebergs from the water.

The next day we had trekking on Glacier Grey on our itinerary, but then the only tourist boat broke down and we had no way of getting back to Puerto Natales except to go back on the trail we came with our packs.  This option was not one that we were not so keen on, especially because it would mean that we would have to miss the glacier trekking and some of us had very heavy packs.  But due to  our awesome guide and some persistence, we finally were able to get a non-tourist boat to convey us to the end of the lake after our trek.  In the morning when we found out, I was inside the refugio and I could literally hear one of the girls in our group let out a shriek of excitement outside. It turned out that I was very glad that we did not have to give up that part of the trip.  The glacier trekking was amazing.  One of my favorite parts, was a deep blue pool  that we stopped at, complete with three waterfalls.  It was spectacular.  Besides the beautiful scenery, at that point we also got to try our hand at ice climbing!

Now I am sitting in the airport on my way home, and am reflecting on my experiences.  Patagonia was probably on of the best ways I could have ended my trip. It was breath taking and gave me the space to think about my trip outside of the context of Lima.  As I have been thinking, I have been realizing how much God as blessed me these past 4 and half months.  I have gone through some lonely times, I have seen some spectacular sights, and I learned a lot about myself and this world that I live in, yet through it all the most important thing that I have seen is that God was with me every step of the way.  At no point did he need me, but He always loved me.  In fact in many ways, my plans didn't work out according to the way I had thought that they would in my head, but rather the things God had planned for me He did in His timing and His way.  It was almost as if He were saying to me "Nathan, I am the planner and I have everything in control.  My plans will be fulfilled with or without you, so all you have to be concerned with is being faithful and obedient in the situations I have placed you."  My hope is that, if there is nothing else, that I can take that with me from this experience.  I have seen His faithfulness and now is the time to use what I have learned and put it into practice in my daily life.  I will post one more time once I reach San Diego.  I hope that this blog has helped you guys get a small taste of my experiences abroad.

Plane, Taxi, Combi, Schoolbus?

So these last two days have been filled with interesting travel stories.  It is not so much about what I saw, as much as it was about how I got there.  It all started when Jason and I tried to find a combi that would take us from Puno to Juliaca to get to the airport on Friday morning.  We had decided that we wanted to see the Chulpas (ancient Incan funerary towers which lie between the two cities), and so our plan was to take a combi to the halfway point, take a collective taxi to the Chulpas, stop and see the Chulpas quickly enough to to take some pictures and see some surrounding scenery, take another collective taxi back to the main road where we would hail another combi to take us to Juliaca, and then take one final taxi to the airport from the bus stop. A lot of taxi/combi hopping, right?  Definitely true, but we are young and ambitious with our time.

A mesa in the middle of an Andean lake

So back to the story.  At the beginning of the day, Jason and I asked for directions to the combi stop from the hostel, and were given right directions to the wrong set of combis. That was the first of the delays, but it wasn´t so bad because we found a bus that was going to Juliaca and climbed aboard.  What we didn´t realize; however, is that this bus would stop every block until we got out of Puno to get more passengers. Let´s just say we have had faster.  After that, we got to our next stop and the Chulpas without any problem, but once at the Chulpas we realized that we only had 20 minutes that we could spend there. Due to our time crunch we asked the taxi driver if he could wait for us because the taxis in the area can be sporadic. He agreed to our surprise and we quickly headed up the hill toward the ruins. Along the way, we ran into a group of school children who saw us and got excited to see "gringos." If you travel to Peru and happen to have blonde hair or blue eyes, it is important to know that you will be seen as a novelty almost everywhere.  Anyway, after the school children ran into us, we decided it was time to head back to our cab, but lo and behold, the cab driver was gone and thus we had no ride.  At this point we began to get nervous because we still weren´t near Juliaca and our departure time was coming closer and closer.  After a few minutes of discussing our options, Jason and I  finally decided to ask the school bus driver of the school group if we could hitch a ride with them.  He said yes, and there was my first and probably what is going to be my strangest hitch hiking experience.  I mean, how many people can say they have hitch hiked in a Peruvian school bus in the Andes?  I feel like that is as strange as they come.  From that point on we got to the main highway fine, but then ran into our next snag: no combi that we hailed would pick us up.  After about 6 passed us, we decided that we should start walking to the checkpoint a half mile away, and it was then that a combi pulled over and picked up a local family behind us. We turned around and made large gestures to hail the driver, and luckily this time it worked.  We were on our way.  When we arrived in Juliaca, we got off the combi and tried to do what we thought was going to be the easiest part of our trip: hail a taxi.  In Lima this is no problem because taxis are everywhere and often times try to hail you with their car horns, but in Juliaca it was a different story.  Every taxi either passed us by or told us that they had already recieved a call to pick someone else up.  Around this time is was 11:40 am and our flight was at 12:35 pm. We found ourselves rideless and running against the clock.  Out of desperation, I asked a random woman from the street if she knew where we could pick up a cab, and to my surprise she actually offered to stand with us and hail one for us.  So there we were, two American college students standing with a Peruvian woman and her child trying to hail a cab. It was a sight for sure.  Unfortunately it didn´t work, but we did find a combi, shortly after, that was going to the airport.  We said goodbye to our new found friend and scrambled on.  The time was now 11:50, the flight was leaving at 12:35, and the combi driver told us that it would take 20 minutes to get to the airport.  Wow did we cut it close!  But somehow we made it and were able to breath a sigh of relief on the plane.  That seems like there were plenty of issues for one day on its own, but the adventure didn´t stop there.  One last surprise waiting for us. When I got off the plane I forgot my jacket and a permanent water bottle in a white bag on the plane, and security wouldn´t let me go back and grab it.  Instead they told me that I would have to pick it up the next day. That was a big problem for me because I had my flight to Chile at 6:45 pm that night and needed that water bottle for patagonia.  Jason waited with me for a while, as we tried to get it resolved, but I finally told him to go because he had a test that afternoon and I didn´t want him to be late.  Two hours later I finally got my stuff back due to the hard work of one of the airport employees.
It was one crazy day!  Even with all the chaos, there was one thing that became clear to me: God must have definitely been looking out for us. We had a lot of snags, but we also had a lot of "luck" between well timed people in the right places and random good samaritans. It was just one of those moments, where you look back and you just marvel at the good things that were provided.

Patagonia sky

Now I am in Patagonia, and it is amazing.  It is actually a lot like Alaska here, and because it is summer, the sun doesn´t set till 11:30 pm!  We had a lot of rain today, but the countryside is none the less beautiful. Unlike Alaska; however, it is not all mountainous.  There is  a good portion of it that is rolling hills filled with pastures and forests.  Tomorrow I head out into the wilderness with a trekking group and won´t be back until Thursday.  I am pretty sure that I won´t have internet, so I will see when I can update you guys next.  Until then!

LakeTiticaca

Today was the day that Jason and I went to tour Lake Titicaca, which is on the border of Bolivia and Peru.  There iare a couple of things that you should know before I continue with this post.  First, Lake Titicaca is the highest navegable lake in the world (meaning that it is used for shipping products and has port cities) at a whopping 12,500 feet.  It is also the legendary birth place of the original Inca, and it contains just under a hundred floating islands made by the indigenous people.  All in all a pretty cool place!

Needless to say I was pretty excited to finally get to see it, but then some wrenches were thrown into the mix.  Last night when I went to bed, I was feeling pretty drained and thought it was just being tired from the amount of walking we had done that day, combined with the high altitude, but when I woke up in the middle of the night with a throbbing headache, weakness, more cold than usual, a fast heart beat, and nausea, I realized that I was suffering not from your general, run of the mill fatigue, but high altitude sickness (known here as soroche).  I tried sleeping it off because the next morning at 6:45 am, Jason and I had already paid for our tour on the lake and I would only be able to get half of the cost back if I couldn´t go.  6:00 am rolled around and still didn´t feel better.  I knew from my years of backpacking experience that once you have high altitude sickness the last thing you want to do is try to "push through it" because that can make it way worse!  So I told Jason to have fun and take lots of pictures for me, while I holed up in bed with a jacket and tea by my side.  I was pretty bummed, but more importantly I just wanted to feel better.  Around 11:30 am I finally decided that I was done with my bed and made my way down stairs with a book to sit in the lobby and get some tea.  Although it doesn´t sound like things were going very well for me, it was actually at that point that I had one of my highlights of the day.

The book I had brought down with me is called Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  I had read it once before, but I wanted to take more time to really think about it in depth.  So I started reading, doubtful of whether it would last very long, because reading is one of those things that is the last thing someone wants to do when there sick.  At least its that way for me. Anyway, the premise of the book is how God´s love for us is crazy, and that we should live our lives in response to that lavishing love that He shows each of us.  This time when I started reading, I rediscovered some very powerful points that I know I am prone to forget. Francis Chan started off the chapter with a quote from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 13 verse 44.  Here is what it said:

"The kindom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

Although I had heard it many times before, that verse struck me.  Do I seek Jesus and his life plans for me like that?  Am I willing to set everything else aside for Him? I continued reading, meditating on those questions, which I absolutely wanted to say yes to, because I know that God´s plans and life with Jesus at the wheel is so much better than my way, but I had to look at my life and see if my actions backed that up.  The chapter then continued to talk more in depth about how Jesus isn´t looking for halfhearted people to follow Him, but rather people who are willing to go all in. A couple of other verses jumped out at me later:

Luke 9:23
"The he said to them all: 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.'"

Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me,'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."

Its not that Francis Chan was saying that we are saved by doing good things, we aren´t, but these Bible verses do show that God is looking for people who are serious about Him.  We all fail, that is to be sure, but the difference is that we get back up and keep following Him even after failure.  This last semester, I definitely found myself taking my own route over God´s.  They weren´t necessarily all in "bad" things either... such as Netflix, but I knew that I was prioritizing things in a way that didn´t always have God as number one. I never cease to be amazed how God is so good at grabbing our attention in unexpected ways.  So basically what I found today was that God used my high altitude sickness to get my attention, and as weird as it sounds I am thankful that.  Later in the day, my altitude sickness got a lot better, and I was actually able to make it out the floating islands (such an awesome experience). Thus in the end I still got to do most of what I had been looking forward to doing, it was just in a different order than I though. So anyway, that was a big thing that happened to me today and just wanted to share with you guy

Tomorrow I am heading out to Chile and will have very limited internet access, but will post again when I get the chance.  Till next time!

The End of the Semester

So here I have come, to the end of the semester and the times of goodbyes to the world that I have come to know so intimately.  It is crazy to think about how long and how short 4.5 months can seem at the same time.  Because of the countless farewell events, and thank you letters  to people who have made big impacts on  my time here, I have been doing some more reflection about my experience.  I feel like in a lot of ways Lima was everything I had hoped.  It was a chance to meet a new culture, be immersed in Spanish, travel, find amazing friends, and most importantly discover about myself.  The last one is the benefit that I have focused on the most, and I am really interested to see what happens as I return to the US and see face to face the changes that living abroad has made on me.  Coming to Lima, I got the chance to step out of my regular routine of life and see myself outside of the context of the "next thing" or the oh so come refrain that everything is "crazy busy."  Now I am looking to see the same thing happen, but instead of getting the chance to see myself in a context outside of my home, I am getting the chance to see how I have changed and grown through this experience.  Despite all of the successes I have seen in my time here, I also learned a lot from my expectations for myself that turned out as failures.  One of those to write for this blog every week, while I was here... which obviously did not happen. Or another more serious one was the way I saw myself getting involved in a church community and acting through faith.  This part especially was an interesting aspect for me, as I saw a lot of my expectations for how that would look fail in one way or another.  What I did find; however, was that God is always faithful and will use someone in ways that they least expect, if only they are willing.  He also taught me that my life isn´t about my plans, but ultimately His (something I feel like we all struggle with at some level).  And so while, I feel that Lima was different than my plans in some ways, I am definitely thankful for the opportunity to have gotten to live here.

On a different note:
There is a lot that I have neglected to tell you all over the past month in this blog and it would take too long to rehash a months worth of abroad life, so I won´t do that.   What I have decided; however, is that for this last week and half of this journal, I am going to try to be more faithful to document my post semester travels. Right now I am in Puno on Lake Titicaca.  I arrived today, and am travelling with Jason (you guys have heard of him in other, earlier posts).  Tomorrow we are going on the tour on the floating islands.  More info on that later so keep looking for the next post!  I promise it will be soon.

Off the Coast of Lima

This last week, I got the opportunity to go with Jason and his host family on a island cruise off the coast of Callao, the port city of Lima.  Jason had mentioned it to me the week before, and two days before my host dad (who happens to be really good friends with Jason's host dad)  asked me if I was interested in going.  I didn't have anything else going on and thought that it would be a cool opportunity to explore a new part of the city that I hadn't seen, so I said yes.  I had no idea how much of a highlight that trip would turn out to be.  I was supposed to meet up with Jason and his family at their house after church and then we would drive to Callao - about a 30 minute drive from where we live.  During church I then get a text message from Jason telling me that I needed to give him my passport number so that I could go on the excursion.  Giving out passport numbers is a common occurrence here as Peruvian law requires vendors of tourism and housing accommodations to have that information on file for foreigners. Although it meant I would have to make a detour and go back to my house before I met up with the others, I thought no problem.  Then just as church ended, I received a phone call from my host dad who told me that I had to get them my passport number right then or otherwise I might not be able to go!  Talk about stressful. I made a quick stop to take out some money from the ATM, and booked it back to my house to grab my passport.  It turned out that it wasn't as big of a deal as we thought, and I made it in plenty of time to Jason's house, but it was interesting snag for reasons you will find out later.

When we finally made it to Callao we boarded the boat that would take us around the Palomino Islands and headed to our first destination.  Although I live next to the beach, I don't normally go down the cliffs to get to it very often (mostly because I don't want to climb up the cliffs again and the water is cold this time of year).  When we disembarked from the dock, I remembered how much I love the ocean.  There is something about the salt air, majestic swell of waves, and sound of sea that just makes me love it!
On our way I was staring into the water when I suddenly saw a red mass whisk past our boat, followed by an orange and a white one.  They were huge, ranging from the size of a duffel bag to a full grown man.  I quickly realized that they were jelly fish.  I had to agree with the assessment of the Spanish name "malagua" as it means "bad water" and I certainly lost all desire to go swimming when I saw them.  I mean, they were cool, but just from the boat. I think they would lose their "coolness" up close in the water.


The first island that we stopped at was a preserve for sea lions.  It was incredible.  We were told by our guide that there were over 9000 sea lions on the island.  They covered it like ants.  Another interesting fact I learned was that the Spanish name for sea lion is "lobo del mar" or wolf of the sea.  Its really interesting to learn the names of animals in other languages because it gives you a sense of how they view them.  After we left the island we made our way to our next stop which was an island with penguins.  It was cool to get to see this as penguins only exist in a few select habitats of the world.  To top of the day, we got see a beautiful Lima sunset.  It was a rare treat and absolutely stunning.  All in all the to trip the ocean that day was definite highlight of my time in Lima.

So earlier in the post I mentioned that my passport issues turned out to be a snag for me later, and now as promised I will tell you why.  The following day, I was coming home from school and decided to stop to buy some groceries. I didn't have any cash on me so I decided that I would just pay for it with my bank card.  That's when I realized that I didn't have the card and that I had left it in the ATM in the rush to get my passport!  Luckily I was able to use my credit card, but my heart sank at the thought of my lost bank card.  It was too late to do anything that day, so I just went home slightly depressed and hoping that someone wasn't having the time of their lives on my tab.  The next day I went to a local branch to cancel my card and get a new one, but they told me that I could only have my card replaced at the branch it was issued (45 min. away).  I was not excited about that, so I decided to go talk to the bank where I originally lost the card.  When I got there, I explained my situation and asked the watchman at the door who I needed to see.  He directed me to sit in front of an empty desk and told me to wait.  I was there for about ten minutes and was beginning to think that I had been forgotten, when finally one of the clerks saw me and called me over.  To my surprise he opened up a drawer in his desk, and pulled out my card; the card I had lost two days before!  I was so excited that he had it and that it wasn't stolen.  That was a huge blessing from God and it made my day.

So that is what I have for y'all for now.  Hopefully I will be posting on here again soon as I have a  trip to El Carmen this weekend.  ¡Hasta luego!

Lima Life Top 10

Over the past two weeks, I haven't been very active about posting on my blog, and most of my previous posts have been about the trips I have gone or insights I have had, so this post I decided to dedicate to telling you all about some of my favorite things about Lima.  A sort of top ten, but this one doesn't have any particular order.  So here we go...

1.  The Malecon.  It is this breathtaking set of cliffs, covered by ivy, overlooking the ocean here in Miraflores, perfect for walking, running, or just hanging out with friends.  I can't believe how blessed I am to be able to live in just a short walking distance of this gem.

 2.  My host family.  I love that I have gotten the chance to live with and get to know these guys.  Whether it is long talks in the kitchen with my host dad or talking about sports games with my host brothers, I love having a family to come back to at the end of the day.  Also a special shout out to Neri, she is the women who works as a house keeper at our condo.  Although she is not pictured below, she has been a great source of encouragement and I have been lucky to have her around.

3.  The combis.  This is a love/ hate relationship at its finest.  Hate because I am always too big for the seats and my knees will forever feel scrunched with the seat in front of me.  Love because although the system is chaotic, it makes it super affordable and easy to get from place to another.

 4. Lali, Mama Laura, and Maria Elena.  These are the women that make the IFSA study abroad program run.  No matter what you know that they are there for you, whether it is help with figuring out school stuff, adjusting to Peruvian life, or just simply cookies and a chat.  Whenever you see one of these awesome people, you always leave smiling.  In the photo, Lali is getting into the spirit of Halloween and helping us "gringos" feel a little more home.

5.  The parks.  Featured below is Parque Kennedy, but I really love how many parks we have in Lima. They are a great place to meet up with friends, and experience the cultural side of Lima.  Whenever I get the chance I try to make sure my route includes a park because you never know what you will find. One time, I found a mime group, another it was group of elderly couples dancing to classic Limeña songs; life is full of surprises.

6.  La Lucha. This sandwich shop is amazing and delicious, but I choose this to represent food here in Peru in general.  It is delicious and cheap.  I mean,  I certainly couldn't get a three course meal and drink for $2.80 in the US!

7.  The coffee shops.  I have been able to explore the numerous cafes, like Arabica shown below, and have developed a love for the great study atmosphere and good cup of americano.  They have given me just another way to explore the city.

 8.  Chifa (aka Peruvian Chinese food).  It is a staple here with Chifa restaurants practically everywhere, you will soon fall in love with it too, after living here for a while.  It is its own unique blend of two very different cultures that always makes my taste buds thank me.

 9.  The mixture of the ancient with the modern.  Many cities can boast about having a cool mixture of the new and the old.  Their version of old is 100 to maybe a 1000 years old, but in Lima it dates back to before Christ.  This is a picture on the street just outside my house, and at the end of the street is Huaca Pucllana, the ruins of an ancient temple.  How cool is that?

 10.  Friends.  God has blessed me with some pretty cool friends here.  They each have their own distinct, cool personalities that makes me love hanging out with them so much.  I am glad to have them here on study abroad and it has been awesome to go through all of the ups, downs, and everything in between during our time here in Peru!

Anyway,  I hope that gives a little bit of the flavor of what Lima life is like that maybe my other posts haven't covered.  I just wanted to take this chance to share with you some of those "everyday thing" highlights.
1 Thessalonians 5:17-18
"Pray without ceasing, in everything gives thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

Lima Celebrations, Intermurals, and More!

The image of El Señor de los Milagros

This past week, the big event in Lima was El Señor de los Milagros,which translated to English means Lord of Miracles.  The centerpiece of this celebration is the procession of a mural of the crucifixion.   It was incredible.  The streets of central Lima were teeming with thousands of people who came out to observe the festival.  Some estimates of the number of people who participate in the procession are in the hundreds of thousands, making the streets seem like a sea of purple robes. Through out the days of the celebration, flowers are thrown from the rooftops as the image draws near and the streets are adorned with huge banners of purple.  I ended up going to see this festival with a friend named Jason, another study abroad student.  On the morning that we were set to go, his host dad surprised us with invitations to watch the procession from the Municipal Palace of Lima with the mayor!  Apparently Jason's host dad is the mayor's brother.  Who knew?  The experience was incredible and completely unexpected.  All we could do was laugh at how fortunate we were: it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences.  Topped off with fireworks shot off from the cathedral, El Señor de los Milagros is something that I will not soon forget.  After that we headed to Barranco to meet up with the other kids from our study abroad program to celebrate a birthday with burritos.  All in all it was a very successful day.

This picture just gives you a sample of
the number of people at the procession

The next day, Saturday, I started off my day competing in long jump.  Yes I said long jump... the track event that I have not competed in since junior high!  My facultdad, the School of Social Sciences, needed volunteers to fill spots, and on Thursday asked me if I would compete.  They needed warm bodies and I had had some experience, so I decided why not?!  I was definitely not the star of the event, but it was fun.  Next week I will try my hand at competing for my facultad in swimming.  I haven't competed in that for a long time either, but I am expecting to do a lot better in that because swimming is my life during the summers when I am working as a swim instructor.  After the competition, I spent most of the afternoon volunteering at the parochial clinic where I work.  Although I don't plan on going into dentistry, I love the experience that I am getting there.  I get to have a lot of hands-on contact with patients, and the doctors go out of their way to teach me and explain what they are doing.  I feel like I am really able to be useful there, and that I am learning a lot about the Peruvian health system and patient care.  The clinic is a definite blessing.

If there is one thing I have learned while studying abroad is that life in Lima if full of the unexpected.   This week has definitely stayed true to that.  Until my next update!

Coffee and Church

This past week has been the week of midterms for me in Lima, or as they are known here "parciales."  What has this meant for me?  It has meant that I have spent a lot of time in coffee shops than I have before, because I have learned that in the confines of my room I am bombarded with the temptations of movies, facebook, or just simply taking a nap.   My room is a place where I my productiveness takes a major hit.   Normally I would decide that this means it is time to hit up the library, but as my school is a round trip of anywhere from 1.5 to 2 hours, this is not an option.  So off I go to find coffee shops to learn what the study life of a commuting college student is like.  Although the studying part of this week has not been highlight, the excuse to get out and do a little more exploring of Miraflores has been a welcome change.  I am now proud to report that I have found 3 new coffee shops that are both cheap and conducive to studying, and have discovered a number of hidden gems in my neighborhood that were previously unknown to me.  Luckily for me, everything in Peru is cheaper than in the US and so my new found coffee spree this week can be done with moderately little impact on my wallet.  Aside from being a great place to study,  I have also found that coffee shops are a great place to get out and think.  So have I turned hipster?  I don't think so, but I have come to appreciate the wonder of coffee shops that some of my friends from Houston having being telling me about for a while.

Aside from my excursions to coffee shops, think I have finally found a church that I can call "home" in Peru.  It is called Calvary Chapel Miraflores.  This church is small and definitely does not have a lot whistles and bells. To give you an idea of how small the church is, it meets in a single medium sized room, has only about 30 people, and we don't have a worship team. Instead we sing with recordings and words projected on the wall.  So why did I decide to go with this church?  It was because I can see how God is working in it.  Every time I go, I find that God speaks to me through the pastor, prompting me to refocus on Him, and the people who are there really want to live for God.  Church isn't about the social atmosphere for them.  Its about seeking after a God who loves them and reached out to them first.  So that is the latest update from Peru, and what I have been up to lately.  Until I write next time!

First Days of Clinic

This last week I began my first day at a local clinic where I am volunteering.  The clinic is a small church-run office in a neighborhood near mine called Surquillo.  My commute is only about 15 minutes, which is great especially considering that my commute to school is somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour and 15 min depending on traffic! All in all, I have very little to complain about.  But now for a little more description about the clinic.  The clinic is equipped with a pharmacy, a waiting room, two exam rooms and few offices.  Each day the clinic has a different healthcare professional come in and volunteer in the afternoons on a weekly basis.  This is great because it means that I will get the chance to possibly see a variety of areas in medicine.  Some days the healthcare professional is a dentist, others we have a general practitioner.  I am excited to finally have this opportunity to work in an NGO.  Most of the students in my program had begun their volunteer positions with their NGO's about a month ago, but I had some complications in finding a medical clinic to work with because of a healthcare strike in Peru and some other problematic circumstances.  It is a relief to be able to start and know that I finally can begin to volunteer.  For my first two days in the clinic I was assisting a dentist named Doctor Elsa.  She is one of the healthcare professionals who I will be working with the most closely.  Even from just the two days I spent with her, I feel like I have learned some useful things. Over the past year, I have taken two semesters of medical Spanish, but that did not necessarily have a focus on the mouth or dental procedures.   With Doctor Elsa, I have already learned a lot more about the names of dental tools and equipment. She is patient, fun to work with and a great dentist.  I look forward to getting to work with her more and learning about the differences between the healthcare system in Peru and the United States.   Anyway,  that's all the update from Peru that I have for now.  I didn't get a chance to take any pictures this last week, but I will try to get a couple for my future posts about the clinic.

Whirlwind Weeks and the Land of the Inca

Cutting the cake at my birthday dinner.

This past week and half has been a whirlwind.  It started off on 23rd with my birthday when I turned 21 and experienced my birthday Peruvian style.  For most of the day I had classes, but there were a couple of highlights that made it special.  The first was that during lunch at PUCP, some of my Peruvian friends decided to sing happy birthday to me in the middle of the dining commons and then proceeded to give me a ton of chocolates. Later that night, my host family threw a special dinner for me complete with cake and wine.  My birthday was very relaxed, and I couldn't have asked for a better 21st.   Even though I was away from my friends and family in the States this year, I had people around me who went out their way to make my birthday special.
Despite how relaxing my birthday was, the day following my birthday was far from relaxing.  On Tuesdays I normally am at school from 9:30 am to 9:30 pm, and I finally get home ready to eat and fall asleep around 10:30 pm.  That Tuesday; however, I also had to finish an 9 page paper in Spanish and pack for my trip to Cusco at 9:00 am the following morning.  A nine page paper wouldn't be that bad normally, except in Peru essays are single spaced not double spaced.  Needless to say, it was a long night.

The walls of Sacsaywaman.  

On Wednesday, my study abroad program met at the airport for our flight to Cusco.  When we arrived at the airport around 7:30 am, I could tell that I was not only one who was both tired from a late night and excited for 5 day trip ahead to the land of the Incas.  Before I say more though, there are a couple of things that I should explain about Cusco.  The first is that there is a huge difference in altitude between Lima (sea level) and Cusco (around 11,200 ft).  This means that when some one travels to Cusco, they are going to inevitably feel the effects of the altitude.  In fact a common myth here in Peru is that someone will get altitude sickness if they do not give homage to the Apu's (the mountain deities of the Andes).  In order to prevent the light headedness and symptoms of high altitude sickness, there are a couple of things that a person can do.  Among which are refrain from eating fat the day before, getting lots of sleep, drinking plenty of liquids, taking certain medications, not over-exerting yourself upon arrival, and drinking a local tea brewed from Coca leaves.  I did all of these things except for the last because Coca leaves contain a compound that is a derivative of cocaine and decided that it was cultural experience that I would leave by the wayside.  I am happy to report that I successfully avoided getting sick, although I could definitely feel the affects of the altitude even just on a short walk.  When we got off of the plane and had time to rest and eat a little, my group boarded a bus to see the first of many ruins around Cusco.

This is a picture of the protest
 from my hostel room's window

 The first place we went was called Sacsaywaman (known to gringos as "sexy woman") and I have to say that the height and size of the stones were very impressive, especially against the backdrop of the deep blue cloud spotted Cusco sky.  After that first site, Cusco became one of my favorite places on earth.  We continued on after that to other ruin sites including and aqueduct and mummification site.  The Incans were very impressive with their technology resourcefulness.
The next day the group was originally supposed to visit the countryside around Cusco to see how regular cusqueños lived and to visit a Catholic orphanage that is tied with our program, but these plans were changed due to safety concerns with a large strike that happened that day.  We woke up in that morning to the sounds of drums and whistles and when my roommate, Jason, and I looked out our window we saw that the protestors were coming down the street where our hostel was located.  Quickly the street transformed from a bustling street with open shops, to a road of closed shops filled with an organized protest.   They quickly moved on without incident, and it turned out to be relatively peaceful, but it was still something to see.  Because of all the protests, a group of friends of mine and I decided that we would make that day our shopping day in the local plazas away from the strikes.

A sample of the colors that can
be made from the local plants
and minerals in the Andes.

The following day, our group departed from Cusco, and started heading south to Machu Picchu.  Along the way we made stops throughout the Sacred Valley which included high Incan terraces, more handcraft markets and a llama farm.  The llama farm was one of the first stops we made that day, and we got to not only pet and feed llamas (yes, I even took a shameless selfie with a llama), but also learned about how the locals make their famous llama and alpaca cloths.  It is amazing how many diverse colors the local people could make just using local resources.  At the end of the tour we also stopped in the boutique to look at the Alpaca and llama products that they sold there.  They say that the fur of a baby Alpaca is one of the softest materials in Peru, and I believe it. Unfortunately while the clothes were beautiful, they were also super expensive.
 From there we headed to Pisac, one of the most famous sites for the terraced farms of the Incas.  Pisac has probably over one hundred terraces below a ancient Incan citadel where the Incans would grow their crops in the mountainside.  It was very impressive.  Even now, it is hard for me to understand how a place like Pisac which seems so defensible could have been conquered by the Spanish.  It really gives a whole new meaning to the role that sickness played in the conquest of the Andes by the Spanish.  That night we boarded the train to head to Machu Picchu, and the highlight of our trip.

Admiring the beauty of the ruins of Machu Picchu.

We woke the next morning around 4:30 am to be the first people in the park.  Machu Picchu is situated on a crest of a mountain in the middle of the high selva and in order to get there, you have to take a bus that drops you off just outside the ruins.  The early morning was a struggle, but once we finally arrived at Machu Picchu we realized that the early morning was well worth it.  Words and pictures don't do justice to Machu Picchu.  The sprawling ruins with back drop of the high selva mountains shrouded in mist simply takes your breath away.  It makes you want to be quiet, sit still and take it all in.  I remember I decided to climb to one section of the terraces just above the city itself to be by myself and soak it in.  My first thoughts were how amazing God must be.  The grandeur of the site was just a little portion of creation that was proclaiming how great its Creator is.  My next thought was then how crazy it is that a God that could create something so beautiful as that, would also love me so much and want to have a relationship with me.  The only appropriate response I could think of was to start to sing a song I had learned as a kid: "God of Wonders."

Here are the lyrics:
Lord of all creation
Of water, earth, and sky
The heavens are Your tabernacle
Glory to the Lord on High

God of wonders, beyond our galaxy
You are holy, holy
The universe declares Your majesty
You are holy, holy

My roommate and I on top of Huayna Picchu.

We later climbed a the mountain that is behind Machu Picchu which is called Huayna Picchu.  The hike was  definitely not easy as it was almost completely stairs climbing some 1000 feet in elevation gain, but the view at the end was definitely worth it.  I was blown away at the vastness of the valleys that spread out below me, and to top it off there were some more ruins of  an ancient Incan temple of the moon and the homes of the temple priests and virgins.  It was crazy to think that people actually lived on the peak of the mountain.  By the time we had gotten back down the mountain and left the park it had begun to rain (I guess that would be why they call it the rain forest), and so we headed for lunch and then afterwards took advantage of some local hot springs before we had to catch our train back to Cusco.  That day was long, but one of the most unforgettable experiences of my time in Peru.

Breakfast in the country side.

On the last day of our trip, we took a break from the typical tourist sites of ruins, llamas and markets and instead headed into the heart of the countryside around Cusco.  There we got the chance to meet and eat breakfast with some of the local farmers and learn how they live.  The breakfast was far from your traditional breakfast.  It included variations of potatoes, roasted corn, bread with homemade cheese, roasted lima beans, Spanish tortillas, eggs, homemade teas,  and a lima bean drink called ponche.  It was definitely a special treat to be able to try those foods and get to talk with the people who invited us to their home.  One thing that was especially interesting was to hear their Quechua accents interplay with the way they spoke Spanish.  We have learning our Peruvian Social Reality class that many people of Andean decent are discriminated against because of this accent, but this was the first time that I had actually heard it in real life.  After we left the farm, our bus headed for the last place we would visit during our time in Cusco, a Catholic orphanage for girls called Casa Hogar de Maria de Nazareth.  Our program's director has a special relationship with this orphanage where she is known as the godmother for several of the girls there.  These girls are cared for by only 3 nuns, and look forward with great anticipation for when the gringos will come visit.  They prepared a show for us of a series of dances that they had been practicing for weeks, and then we reciprocated with several songs of our own, played with them, and finally gave them care-packages that IFSA has assembled from various donors.  It was a neat experience to be able to bring those girls, whose lives had been very hard some joy and to give the nuns who are over worked a small break.

Well now you know what a whirlwind this past week and half have been. Cusco was an amazing trip and I miss the mountains and deep blue sky, but returning back to Lima has been nice too. While I was away from Lima, I found that missed not being around my host family, and having a regular schedule.  I have come back to Lima with not only lots of great memories, but also renewed readiness to take on life in Lima and make the most of my opportunities that I am presented with.  Until I write next!

My shameless selfie with a llama!

High, Lows and Lessons

Guinea Pig is a delicacy here!

This last week has been a week of highs and lows to say the least.  I will start by telling you about where I left off last time, last Friday at Mistura.  Mistura is a annual food festival that happens in Lima that offers basically every type of Peruvian food imaginable.  They call each section its own "world" which tips you off right away that there is going to be a lot of food. There was an Amazonian World, Bread World, Coffee World, Chocolate World, Ceviche World and more worlds than I could visit! My taste buds were thanking me, and my stomach was reveling in the richness.  At Mistura, eating is like a sport; you have to pace yourself, take breaks and strategize.  It was definitely not an experience I will forget.
Mistura was one high, and the next day I got up super early to  go with my study abroad group to Caral.  Caral is the most ancient city in the Americas, complete with pyramids and breathe taking mountain backdrops.  The bus ride to the city itself took several hours.  This was partly due to the distance, and partly the fault of our driver who was very slow and had to ask for directions several times.  We were all ready for the bus ride to be over, but I also found it to be a fun chance to get to know more of my fellow international students.  Caral was definitely worth the trip, but then that night began the lows of my week.

One of the ancient pyramids of Caral

Saturday night I got sick with a form of Montezuma's revenge.  It's something that was bound to happen at some point, but is miserable while you are going through it. After two days of staying at home, I decided it was time to go to the local clinic to get rid of the bug I had gotten. Luckily, I have been blessed with a great director, who gave me all the information I needed for the local clinic, and an awesome host dad who took me to the get checked out.  Within 24 hours of going to the clinic I felt immensely better and started moving from my BRAT diet, which consisted of crackers and liquids, to real food. On Tuesday I was back at school, and by my class that night I was craving something substantial, like a nice big tasty burger.  It is amazing how much more you appreciate food after not being able to eat it for a couple of days!

A sample of the awesome mountain backdrop of Caral

I have now returned back to normal and am getting back into the swing of things.  The time while I was sick was a definite low, but I also found that it gave me a chance to think.  While I was sick I did a lot of sleeping and watching Netflix, but what I didn't do was spend time with God.  I could see how that affected me other areas of my life such as what I thought about, or my daily priorities.  After I had gotten better, the part of the Lord's Prayer came to my mind where Jesus said "Give me this day, my daily bread."  I had always heard that phrase applied to physical things; we should rely on God's provision for our needs. But it just struck home this time that maybe Jesus was also talking about our spiritual needs too.  Just like physical food is important for our bodies, we have to have daily time with God to be able to grow spiritually.  When I wasn't able to eat, I felt physically weak and I think that spiritually speaking it isn't really all that different.  Anyway, that is what I have been going through here in Peru. Life has all sorts of twists and turns.  Who knows what will happen next!

Never Taking Things For Granted

Miraflores on a sunny day.

If there is one thing that Lima has taught me so far, it is to appreciate the sun.  Growing up in southern California, I never quite understood how spoiled I was to be able to enjoy the sun during any given day of the year.  Today is one of those days here that the sun has decided to make its appearance.  It is one of those days that you decide that it is better to walk than take a combi because you want to be able to soak up the rays.  Aside from appreciating the beautiful weather outside, I am also beginning to figure out what a Lima student study schedule is like.  Yes, I know that it is hard to believe that the word "study" in study abroad is actually a real thing, but it comes with the territory of cultural immersion. For me, my study habits vary with location.  If I am at the university, it is the library.  The library is quiet, for sure, but if you can snag it, it also provides a great view of the university while you are hitting the books.  For all those days I am not at the university though, I have had to be a bit more creative.  One gem I stumbled upon is a coffee shop called Arabica.  It is a one of those off the beaten path locations that is definitely worth the effort.  From the street, it would be pretty easy to miss as you shops here aren't as prominently advertised in the States.  I found this last week, Arabica to be a place of magic as I entered with lots of reading to do, and left a few hours later with a good chunk of work done and my stomach satisfied with a cappuccino.

A sample of what Arabica is like.

Speaking of satisfying one's stomach, the food here in Lima has two consistent qualities delicious and cheap.  What more could a college student ask for?  However, because I have been so spoiled, I and my other fellow American students have found that our ideas about what constitutes expensive have changed dramatically.  A usual meal for us will cost anywhere from 4-12 soles which translates to $1.50 to $4.50.  Now whenever we see a meal that cost 15-20 or more soles ($5.60 - $7.40) we immediately think that it is too expensive.  An average meal in Subway would cost more than our 15 sol expensive threshold!  It is amazing how much the concept of "normal" can change.

Well, that is all of my updates for you right now.  I am sure I will have more coming soon as tomorrow is Mistura (a huge food festival here in Lima) and on Saturday I will be going to Caral, the oldest cities in the Americas and the second oldest in the world, with my study abroad group.  Until my next post!

Nature and Real Life

Nature has always had a special place in my life.  Ever since I was a kid, my dad would take me and each of my siblings on our own back packing trip.  For me, being up in the mountains is calming and exhilarating at the same time.  I look out at a vast ravine, or serene mountain lake and am in awe of God's creation and how much He loves me.  Yesterday,  I got the chance to go out and explore the mountains around Surco, a town that is around 3 hours east of downtown Lima.  Our destination: Palakala cascades.  I met up at 6:30 AM in Kennedy Park with a small group of other study abroad students and we started the journey to the mountains.  There are no direct buses to get to Surco from Miraflores, so we had to hop from combi to combi to taxi to another combi to get there.  It was an adventure to say the least, and by far worth it.  As we travelled farther from the city, the sky gradually transformed from the ever present Lima gray, to a breathe-taking deep blue.
We arrived in Surco around 11:00 AM and after getting our ticket to enter the trail, we started up, and the trail was literally uphill the entire way.  These were not little hills that I am talking about, but full scale mountains.  Bailey, one of the girls on the trip, and I tried to figure out how tall they were.  After a rough estimation converting meters to feet, we decided that they were about 13,000 to 14,000 feet tall!  The trail led us through a series of mountain side subsistence living farms. It was a very cool way to see how people in the country side lived.   What a contrast from the very urban Lima!  We decided that if we ever lived in Peru permanently that Surco would be a great choice because of the mountains, blue sky, and how clean the town was.  On the return trip back to Lima, we made amazing time.  The day was a blast, but we were all pretty ready for showers and dinner.  What a day!

After a day like that, you don't want to have to do work, but the reality of school is starting to hit and the honeymoon season of the semester is over.  I have been assigned my first essays, and been given a mountain of readings to do.  It is a lot, but I enjoy the subjects and what I am learning.  I also finally have my NGO figured out for the semester.  As a part of the program I am with, I have work with a NGO to help give me a broader perspective of Peruvian culture.  I am going to be working with a small, Catholic medical clinic called "La Parroquia." I start my first official day next Thursday.  I met with the doctor who runs the clinic this last Thursday who gave me a few details and helped me figure out my work schedule.  I am not sure what to expect, but I guess I will see what comes.  

Lima Life

The group that went to the Museo del Arte

Today was the start of my third week of classes.  I have settled down on the four courses that I am taking: Advanced Academic Spanish and Culture, Peruvian Social Reality, Amazonian Ethnography, and Ethnicities and Ethnic Minorities.  The next step is to start working with the NGO I have chosen, but more info on that will come later.  For right now, I am just focusing on getting connected with student life.  One opportunity that has come up is the chance to do some intramural sports.  A friend of mine from my Ethnicities class has been trying to convince me to join.  I sounds like a lot of fun, but I am trying to weigh my time between school, my NGO, and possible travel plans.  I want to join because it sounds like a great way to get plugged into the school, but I will just have to see how my schedule falls into place.

One of the buildings in the park outside of the museum.

In contrast with my weekend in Nazca, this last weekend was very relaxing and gave me the chance to catch up on some much needed rest.  It made it even better that it was a long weekend due to Santa Rosa de Lima. One night I fell asleep at 8pm and woke up at 9 the following morning.  Needless to say, I was tired!  Even though the theme of this last weekend was rest and recovery, I did get out and do a couple of things.  On Friday, I got chance to visit the Museum of Art with some friends.  It was fun to get out and see a little more of Lima.  Just outside the museum, there was a park was also dedicated to art.  It was interesting to say the least.  It had everything from architecture to a live Elvis impersonator!  On Sunday, I took up the church hunt again and visited Emmanuel Bible Church in San Isidro.  The church was actually pretty big and seemed to have a lot of resources to offer.  I met with one of the staff (Ricardo) to find out about small groups, and on the wall of his office I saw a map of Lima with a whole bunch of pins on it.  I was intrigued by it, so I asked Ricardo what it was and he told me that it was a map of the church's small groups.  It was so cool to see in a visual way, how God is at work in this city.  That is one thing that I have consistently noticed while I have been in Peru, that the Christians I have met are on fire for God and I can see Him working powerfully in their lives.  This next week, I am going to go with Ricardo to one of those small groups.  I excited to finally have community to get plugged in with here in Lima.

This week didn't have the glamour of travel, but I do like that I am finally seeing things how life in Lima is unfolding for me, and it is no less of an adventure.  This week I may have done less exploring of tourist sites, but I did delve deeper into life in Lima!

Ica, Nazca, and the General Adventures

My group in the sand dunes.

Oasis of Huacachina

My second week of classes is over, and I am using my long weekend to rest and recuperate.  This week has been an exciting, yet tiring week.  To start off, last weekend I decided to go on a road trip to southern Peru to Ica and Nazca with friends from my study abroad group.  It was a blast!  We woke up at 4:30 AM on Friday morning to catch the early bus out of Lima.  The bus was very nice, but the ride was definitely long.  Around noon we arrived in Ica where we had made reservations to go sandboarding.  When I first heard about sandboarding I thought that it was just going to be on some random small dunes in the desert, but oh how I was wrong!  After dropping our stuff off at our hostel in Ica, the group drove to Huacachina where we were going to meet the dune buggy for our excursion.  The landscape immediately changed from a flat, rocky desert floor to humongous sand dunes that made you feel as if you had been transported to the middle east.  Then after we round one of the sand dunes, we suddenly come upon an oasis.  It was one of the coolest sites of the trip.  We quickly got connected with our buggy and once everyone had gotten strapped in, the driver took us up into the sand dunes. I feel like a more appropriate name for the is the sand mountain range.  The ride was crazy, like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, only more intense and real.  We would careen up to the top of the dunes, and then there was the moment where it looked like you were about to drop of the edge of a cliff before you went rocketing down the other side!  After about 15 minutes of the dune buggy, we stopped to sandboard.  There are two ways to sandboard, one is like snow boarding and the other, which is way more fun, is to sled down on your belly.  What an experience!

The Miradors

The next day we left Ica headed in a less touristy bus to Nazca.  Nazca is famous for huge 2000 year old lines which depict things like monkeys, cranes, and the ancient royal families.  They have lasted so long because the climate is so dry and also because they are magnetic, which helps to keep the sand and dust off of them. When we arrived in Nazca we came to our hostel, which was called Hospedaje Brabant.  It was a nice hostel with a terrace on the roof, but the cool surprise was that the owners are Christians.  When I walked in the door, I heard praise music in Spanish, and asked one of the women there about it.  She then told me that they were Christians and that have a small Bible study (church) in their homes every Saturday night and invited me to come that evening.  I was so stoked.  It is amazing how God brings people to encourage you in places and in ways that you never expect.  I love it how fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ is so strong no matter where you go.  There is a special connection that you feel when you come in contact with another believer that makes you feel at home, even when those brothers and sister live a continent away from you and are people you have never met.    I can't express how blessed I felt to be able to join them for that Bible study that night.

This picture was taken of the view outside our front
 windshield during the sand storm

The following day my group woke up and went to the local street side market before we went out to view the lines on the desert floor.  It was another experience that I have never had before.  The street was lined with vendors selling just about everything from crabs that are still moving in their boxes, to full chickens lined up on tables, to mounds of fresh fruit.  I have been to third world countries before, but had never gotten the chance to see something like that.  After the market we decided to use the miradors to view the Nazca lines.  A mirador is a tower that is several stories tall, that was built to allow people to view the lines (because you can only see the lines when you are above them).  I was able to get some pictures from the first mirador we went to, but then after that a sand storm hit and I didn't want to damage my camera.  The sand storm, while unfortunate for the purpose of viewing the lines, was actually pretty cool.  The desert floor around us  whited out, or I should say tanned out.  You could only see 10 to 20 yards ahead of you, and the wind was also super strong.  If you jumped straight up, it would push you backwards!  In the middle of the sand storm, we took refuge in a museum dedicated to the lines.  It  talked some about the history of the lines and the story of how they were preserved, but the most interesting part was a mummy that they had on display.  The mummy was over 2000 years old and still had hair, skin and its tattoos.    Talk about tattoos lasting forever!  That night (Sunday) we boarded the bus and made the long trip back to Lima where we arrived just after midnight.  We loved the sun, the blue sky, and fresh air, but we were ready to be back in our own beds.

The next day we all had to get up early (the late night made this hard, but we struggled through it)  for matriculation.  I got all the classes I was hoping for, but the process was long and a little inefficient.
The last week has been amazing, but to give my self some time to recuperate, I staying in Lima this weekend.  Tomorrow is the festival of Santa Rosa of Lima.  I am interested to see what that is all about.  I will try to give my next update in the next couple of days.  My goal is to do at least 2 a week.