Welcome to Lima

Drama is on display in Airports. People leaving for long journeys. Or arriving home weary after long journeys to the familiar sights of their city. It is also the place of joyous reunions and sad departures. In an 8 day span airports would hold both of those things for me.

While Drama is on display in Airports, it isn't made in airports. The drama of airports is made in the weeks and months before the actual happening in airport. And that is what the airport held for me three weeks ago, the realization of things waited for.

So three weeks ago, Jess came to visit me in Peru! I flew in to Lima to meet her and arrived an hour and a half before her flight arrived. I spent a terrible (and extremely long) hour waiting in the Lima Airport food court for her flight to arrive. Thankfully when her flight did arrive she had an easy time picking up her bags and clearing customs!

(insert making a scene in front of total strangers)

After that we just hung out in the airport for a little while, and then our friend Michael picked us up at the airport and brought us to their new apartment in Lima. Michael, Laura and Noah are friends of Jess's from college and mine from language school. So it was great to see them and their new place in Lima where they will be doing ministry. Another friend from language school, David, was also in Lima and also staying with Michael and Laura. So we had a late dinner and stayed up for a little while catching up.

The next day was Sunday so we went to Church with the Salvatierras where they will be serving and had a good time worshiping together. After church and lunch David had to catch his flight back to language school and the Salvatierras had a membership class. So Jess and I went down to the cliffs along the ocean. From there we walked to Larcomar which is a huge mall built into the cliffs overlooking the ocean in a nice section of Lima. After their class, Michael, Laura and Noah met us for dinner at Larcomar. And then it was back to their flat to hang out and watch the office (they are just getting into it!)

The next morning we were off to Arequipa! After a great time in Lima catching up with our friends!

ACC Champs

I should post about my great week with Jess but I don't have enough speed here to post pictures and I'm headed to Arequipa next to pick up my parents so I will do it then!

So to the issue at hand; the hokies! What a season, they have played so well the last 5 games totally dominating every team in their path on the way to redemption against Boston College in the ACC Championship game. I think it is fitting that at the end of this game instead of having Matt Ryan lead a comeback he widened the gap. 2 picks instead of 2 touchdowns. A interception for a touchdown to turn the game into a 14 point win instead of a 14 point comeback.

That loss to Boston College still stings, a lot. It was the only game this whole year that I was able to watch live. Only the second game I've watched without knowing the outcome (I watched a DVD of the ECU game after coming out of the jungle). And that was tough to watch. But getting a second chance at them was great. And finishing them off in this manner was even better! To take from them their dream of a BCS bowl and to send them to the Champs Sports bowl and invalidating their season at the same time is sweet revenge. Another season with over 10 wins, how great is Beamer, the only thing that is missing from this season for me has been not being able to attend or watch the games! And celebrate with my fellow Hokies. But it has been good watching from afar! I can't wait to see the bowl game!

GO HOKIES!

-Seth

OK, I've been lame. Well more correctly, I've been in the jungle. And the altoplano region. Internet there is not very fast, or accessible at all. I wrote while I was in the jungle but I have to figure out the best way to get those posts up! And I'm not sure it is here. I am looking at starting a website, but that will be a little bit down the pipe.

In the mean time, the jungle was awesome. Though I missed Jess a ton! The altoplano is stunning and there is an active volcano near where we live! I'm currently helping two missionary families build houses where they will have a permanent ministry.

I'm excited to be doing physical labor everyday and to get to use my spanish all day every day! Should be great from my body and mind (wow that was lame).

Jess is coming in 2ish weeks and we will do some touring of Peru. So I will hopefully have something figured out then. So check back!

Seth
Kong
Hungry and Thirsty

First Day

Usually you like your first day in a new city to be laid back. You like to have your friends show you around. You like to go out to eat. Do things that give you a sense of the place but let you recover from the travel to get there. This was not one of those first days. I arrived in town on a friday night (about 11pm I think). And because we thought there was going to be a huelga (a strike) the next day, we had to rush off and buy our supplies for our trip to the jungle. So I woke up at 8ish the next morning and went over to my friends house. They helped me put together a list of things to buy so that I would be prepared for our time in the jungle. (I would have been completely lost but thankfully they have done this before and were a great help in preparing) So we head into town about 10 and spend the entire time running between stores buying food. I have never bought that much food in my life. I was embarrassed pulling the 30 boxes of Mac and Cheese out of my cart. As we were nearing the end of our shopping day, we were in the market getting spices when a young boy walked up to me and asked in spanish if that was our car parked outside. I said maybe, I think so. To which he responded, you are being robbed.

Well my friend and I run out to the car. A huge 1980s suburban. We had two months of groceries with us for 3 families. So there was a lot in the car. When we got to the car there were about 8 policemen around and a crowd had gathered at the scene. My friend stars speaking rapidly to the cop in spanish while another police officer pulls some bags out of the bed of their truck. Thankfully they had caught the ladron red handed. And had put him in the truck and recovered our groceries. We decided it would be good to press charges, and the police told us it would only take a few minutes. So we head to the police station and because the thief had broken the lock on the car I had to sit with the car while my friends sorted things out with the cops. About two and a half hours later we left the police station but without the stolen groceries! The police said they needed them until an inspector could go through them. At this point we thought the real robbery had taken place! But thankfully my friends were able to go back about and hour later and get the groceries. (Though they waited an hour and a half more at the police station) Not the way you want to but a good introduction to life in this jungle town.

Tomorrow I leave civilization for two months. So I will have a lot to write about when I get back. Until then.
Seth
Kong
Alley Oop
and Hungry

The Magic Number

Well he magic number is 190.

190 is all I can take. 190kgs on the plane.

Me and Clothes ~ 100kg
Gas ~20kg
General Groceries ~ 28kg
Mac & Cheese and Ramen Noodles ~21kg
Cookies and Crackers and Chips ~5kg
...
...
...

Right now I'm about 15kg over. But I'll be down by monday when we load it all on the plane.

Next Post I'll talk about my first day in Pucallpa

Seth
Kong
Alley Oop
y Hambre

More Colca

Hey So I made it to the edge of the jungle just fine and I will post more on that soon. But for now I owe you more on our colca canyon trip!

Well the adventure started before we even left. We got up at 12:45 in order to catch our taxi at 1. Miriam, Todd, Stephanie, and I were out front waiting for our taxis to take us to the bus station. I forgot my down jacket in the house and we had closed the door. Well none of us had a key for the door. And because it was so late we didn't want to ring the bell! But the window to Todd and Stephs room was unlocked. So we boosted steph up and she was able to open the window, climb in, and get my jacket. After that we got in the taxis and went to the bus station. We were on the bus quickly and our seats were spread out over 3 rows. Todd and I by ourselves and Steph and Miriam sharing a row. I thought I would be able to fall asleep no problem, but I was wrong! The bus was dark and quite and relatively free of passengers on the first stage of our journey. After we arrived in Chivay everything changed! We took on a whole load of Peruvian humanity most of whom didn't have seats! The roads also changed from paved to dirt and the lights were now on the and driver was blasting folk music. Needless to say I didn't sleep. Todd had the worst of it though, he lost his assigned seat when we took on more passengers and spent the whole ride cold, motion sick and in the front of the bus!

so we arrived about 6:45am on the edge of the canyon; not having slept. We had a quick breakfast and then slept on the floor outside in the sun for an hour. After that we started hiking to the bottom.

The hike to the bottom was essentially in three stages. First was a set of switchbacks, then to a flat section along a ridge (in the shade thankfully) then down another set of steeper switchbacks to the bridge at the bottom (you saw most of this in the video). We were really tired after navagating the steep switchbacks with so much water in our packs. Then it was 45min to where we stayed the first night! We were exhausted! We ate lunch and hung out with other people hiking. It was a great time!

The next morning we were up early again. We left the "lodge" by 7am in order to do your ascent in the shade. It was timed just right. As we hit the high point of our hiking that day we came into the sun. The it was along the ridge and back down to the river where another small town was waiting. It was a beautiful place with a really nice lodge and a great pool!

We relaxed the whole afternoon, which was entirely needed! We had to get up early the next day so we went to bed right after we finished listening to Peru play soccer.

We were up even earlier the next morning. We started hiking at 3:15 am!! So early!! The reason it is necessary to leave so early is there are only two buses leaving to go see the condors, one at 6 and one at 8 so in order to catch either of those you have to leave super early! We made good time and reached the top right after 6. After a quick breakfast we headed to catch the bus to the overlook where the condors were. We met up there with a group of our friends that weren't able to go hiking with us but instead did the bus tour of the canyon. We then rode back to Arequipa with them checking out some sites on the way and grabbing lunch in Chivay. It was an incredible time!

Seth
Kong
Ally Opp
y Hambre

Colca Canyon

Well all here is a video I made really quick about our trip to colca. It doesn't have everything in it as my camera died (batteries) mid way through day one. So I will post a write up with pictures soon but the video will give you an idea of what is going on. Keep in mind that I had slept maybe two hours the night before, so if stuff isn't clear blame it on that

Nicknames

Well here in South America everyone has a nickname. It is unlikely that you will be called your normal name by most of your friends. At the very least you will have an sita added to your name. So I am no longer Seth but sethsita. It is just a term of endearment. So Carmen is now Carmensita and and Pablo is pabloita (I think). But they like most everywhere else have other nicknames. Diego is kiki. Juan Carlos is lilitos. And I'm Set (you don't pronounce the H in spanish) y Hambre. This is a really good and funny nickname I think. In spanish (for those of you not familiar with language I am trying to learn) sed is thirsty and hambre is hungry. So it is a play on words with my name. So I'm now thirsty and hungry, which is also good because most of the time I am those things. I like that everyone here has nicknames. I've previously had nicknames and tried to give my self nicknames but they haven't really stuck. But maybe this one will...

Seth
Kong
Alley Oop
Hungry and Thirsty

Raw Fish

Well today I had ceviche for the first time. This is a traditional Peruvian dish. And as you can guess by the title of this post it a dish of raw fish. Well raw probably isn't the right word, uncooked by heat is probably the right word. And I know at this point you are probably thinking what other ways are there to took food than by using heat (boiling, baking, frying and my favorite, grilling). Well you cook the fish using acid. Well not the type of acid that you immediately think of when you hear acid (I generally think sulfuric) but citric acid. The fish is "cooked" by bathing it in lemon and lime juice. And I can tell you that it is excellent. I would suggest that you head out to your nearest Peruvian restaurant and get some, and make sure to wash it down with a pisco sour! Que Rico!

Seth
Kong
Alley Opp

Honk like you mean it

Well this will be a short first post. I just wanted to let get a feel for the driving here. If I described the driving here in one word it would be chaotic! People go for no reason, drive in the opposite lanes, drive in two lanes and don't stop at places where you would expect them to! But the big thing you notice here his the honking. Back at home people honk for usually one reason, they are mad at you (I know, sometimes you honk to let the person in front of you at a green left turn signal know that he can go). But here in Arequipa (and in Lima and I'm sure the rest of Peru) you honk for various reasons:
-To let everyone in the intersection know that you aren't stopping and are barreling right through
-To tell pedestrians that they better move or die
-To tell the 20 people in front of you that they should go even though the light just turned.
-To tell the cars in front of you that you are going around them.
-Just for fun

So I hope that gives you a little idea of what driving in Arequipa is like. Hopefully I will post frequently, so please comment and let me know what you like hearing about and what is dumb.

Seth
Kong
Alley Oop
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