I'm heading back to Peru on Sunday, with a totally different mindset then in the two years past. This year I have a job that I have to return to, a boyfriend that I get to return to :), I'm only going for a month, and though I feel like a I have a good handle on Peru--I know the streets of Iquitos, Miraflores, and a couple other of the towns I'll be checking back in on, I've taken almost every bus company there is, I have family and friends there, and have a sort of comfort with the language and feel of Peru....I am prepared to be humbled by it again. I am also feeling nervous since it seems like so long since I've been there and my Spanish has been corrupted with New Mexican phrases like "hijole!" "pendeja" (my favorite, which means pubic hair and also idiot), and "guera" along with other words not used in SA...and truthfully, that's about all the Spanish I have been speaking since I got here, unlike in the year prior when I was living on the border and using it all the time.
I will arrive in Lima after a stupidly long journey at 430am on Monday. My dear friend Pamela is picking me up from the airport and then recuperating me at her house before my 23hr bus ride at 430pm to the northern town of Chachapoyas. There I will do some hikes to various lesser known ruins (in comparison to Machu Picchu) and to one of the tallest waterfalls in the world, and also just hang out in one of my favorite places in the world: Leymebamba, a small town south of Chacha, where I felt like I fell off the face of the earth--or rather into the center of the earth, and was filled with love and admiration for life and nature--almost 2 years ago. Ahh...I cannot wait!
Then I'm meeting my friend Segundo in Yurimaguas--that is I hope I am! Without the modern conveniences of cell phone service and reliable boat schedules, I'm not exactly sure how we'll be meeting up. The journey from Iquitos to Yuri takes 4-5 days by cargo boat. He is making that journey and then taking me back with him, acting as my bodyguard as he likes to call himself. I wanted to make my journey to Iquitos this year via water, as the only way to reach the jungle city is by boat or plane, and the appeal of sleeping in hammocks and eating fish right out of the river which takes us through a national preserve was just too irresistible. Then I will meet up with Patch Adams and the clowning crew in Iquitos for a 2 week session of loving and working and sweating...a lot. Yay!!!!
See: http://www.patchadams.org/belen-project for info on the project
mantenemos en contacto!
looooooove, Rachel
wedding in Kansas City over the 4th
1 comment:
Sounds like you're going to have a blast! Have fun, miss you, and come see ME soon, too!
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