Perú: A Quick Trip Across the Border

The past week has been a week of running, hiking, buses, and lots of delicious food.  Lauren and I arrived in Lima, Perú early Friday morning.  Friday and Saturday were spent exploring Lima and trying lots of delicious Peruvian food.  It was fun to see the similarities and differences between Quito and Lima.  And I loved the change in food flavors (Peruvian food had a lot of Asian influence)!  Sunday, I ran my first ever half-marathon (yes - ran the WHOLE thing!).  While I enjoyed running through the city (kinda like a city-tour), I think I'm gonna stick with swimming :)

Five hours after we finished our races, we boarded our bus headed to Cusco (probably not the best idea considering it was a 22 hour bus ride).   Once we arrived in Cusco, we took an hour and half bus ride to Ollantaytambo, where we caught a 2 hour train to Aguas Calientes.  Midnight on Monday. we at our final destination, the town of Machu Picchu!  We spent Tuesday exploring Machu Picchu (and trust me, the travel was SOOOOO worth it - Machu Picchu was absolutely amazing!).  We hiked La Montaña Machu Picchu in the morning, giving us a wonderful view of the whole ruins site, and then spent the afternoon wandering throughout the ruins.  Wednesday morning, we hiked around the town of Ollantaytambo before heading back to Cusco to catch another 22 hour bus back to Lima.  In Lima, we had our final Peruvian meal before catching our flight back to Quito. 

Overall, it was a very quick trip, but so worth it!  Now, the adventures continue as I head off to the Amazon for 10 days on another Timmy brigade before heading back home to the states.  See you in 15 days West Chester!

Excited for our races!

Cusco plaza - I loved the backdrop of mountains!

On top of Montaña MachuPicchu

Looking out as the clouds cleared

Wandering through the ruins

A hike through ruins in Ollantaytambo before heading back to Lima

The Freedom Climb

Throughout my time here, I have become involved with several different organizations and foundations, one of which is Dunamis.  Dunamis is a ministry that focuses on teaching life skills to women who have been victims of rape, sex trafficking, domestic abuse and labor trafficking.  The girls from ACF visit Dunamis three times a week.  Dunamis holds workshops to teach the girls the basic skills of jewelry-making, sewing, and beauty, hoping to increase the girls' chances of finding a job and decrease the girls' chances of returning to prostitution.  

Every year, Dunamis holds "The Freedom Climb", a challenging hike on one of Ecuador's mountains with the goal to raise awareness of the human trafficking problem in Ecuador.   This year, we hiked Guagua Pichincha (the mountain that the TeleferiQo is on).  This hike was one of the hardest hikes I have ever done - I swear we were climbing at a 90 degree incline.  I was so proud to see all my ACF girls finish, as I know it was even more challenging for them.  Overall, a great hike with great people for a great cause.  

With Mar-loes and Melissa - two of my closest friends throughout this experience

The Dunamis team + me!

The End at 3,936 meters!

Congratulations after finishing the hike

An Adventure Weekend in Baños

As my time here is quickly coming to an end, I have been super busy: visiting some final places on my bucket list, working my final days at the shelter, and beginning to say many difficult goodbyes to my friends and family here.  With that being said, get ready for multiple posts with some updates on my past few weeks of adventures!

First, my trip to Baños.   A few weekends ago, Melissa, Bijan (from Timmy global health) and I traveled to Baños (known as the "Adventure Capital of Ecuador") for a long weekend.  Baños is a half Andean/half Amazonian town at the base of the Tungurahua volcano.  We arrived on a Friday around noon and immediately went to the market for some lunch (add that to the list of things I will miss from Ecuador: $2 delicious lunches!). After lunch, we started out on hike #1.  We hiked to the top of a mountain in order to get a view of Tungurahua and it was a success!  We finished off the day with some meat and cheese fondue - so yummy!  The next day, we decided to rent bikes to visit the multiple waterfalls just outside of town.  The pouring rain didn't stop us :)  By noon, we had visited all the waterfalls and still had plenty of energy, so we decided to keep riding for a little longer.  Three hours and 60km later, we reached Puyo, Ecuador's largest jungle town.  After a little rest, we caught a bus back to Baños as we couldn't even imagine sitting on those bikes for a minute more.  Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early to hike up to "La Casa de Arból" (the famous tree house of Baños), where you can "swing at the end of the world".  

Tungurahua Volcano

"Swinging at the end of the world"

Quick Trip To Mindo

I know this is long overdue, but better late than never right :) 

Over Easter weekend, my friend Melissa and I decided to take a quick trip to explore Mindo, a cloud forest reserve.  As Mindo is a little less than 2 hours from Quito, a day trip was entirely possible - we just wanted to do some hiking and get out of the city for a bit.   After arriving early Saturday morning, we hired a truck to take us up the mountain to a cable car (a very rickety cable car), which we would use to cross over a canyon to get to the waterfalls.  Once across the canyon, we spent the morning hiking through jungle-like forestation, and lots of mud, to about 7 different waterfalls.  It was absolutely gorgeous, especially how green everything was.  Plus, as Mindo is known for its butterflies, it was fun to see how many we could spot along the way.  After a full 4 hours of hiking, we returned to the center of Mindo for lunch.  We then caught our bus home to Quito, early enough that I could help Matele with some final preparations for Easter lunch the next day! 

Passing over the canyon in the cable car

Melissa and I