The FPP: Final Peru Post

I can't believe we're here! My final post from Peru. Man, time has flown. Let me fill you in on my last few days:

Tobi and I arrived back in on Thursday Lima after a slight delay, and just crashed in the hotel until dinner. We are at a cool sushi place and got milkshakes at the hotel restaurant. It was pretty low-key.

Friday was Tobi's final full day in Peru, so we decided to go to the natural history museum. We took a taxi right to the front gate, to find out it was closed for the day. So we walked aimlessly for a while. We found a cool park that had a pond with swan boats and other children's rides. We kept walking and found another park that was weird, to say the least.

First we saw some kids, most of them dressed in all black, who we thought were street acrobats. We were wrong, they started their performance and the only move they sorta did was the one where you're kind of rolling with another person. You hold on to their ankles, they hold on to yours and you're supposed to create momentum between the two of you. These people could get from one persons back to the others, but everything stopped there. It was pretty indicative of what else we would see there.

We walked past the world's scariest pupper theatre, which actually just looks like a haunted house. 

We saw a boy doing a version of the worm (as in the dance move). Except instead of up and down on the ground, it was more side to side. If he hadn't sat up after about a minute, I would've asked if he needed help. 

We then saw ballerinas covered in blood (makeup) and that was weird.

And just as we were about to leave, I spotted a pretty building that seemed legit. We got up closer and it turned out to be the art museum!

It was here I discovered my greatest talent: putting funny captions on art pictures. 

 

   

I'm really proud of these actually. 

Afterwards, we met up with Dawn and went to Chilis, for the second time on this trip. Then we walked to Plaza de Armas and tried to go to the Chocolate museum, but it was closed.

All three of us returned to our hotel for a quick nap before dinner. It was nice seeing Dawn again! And eating with Tobi one last time. Within ten hours of that both of them had left me alone in Lima. Dawn left that night, and Tobi left early Saturday morning.

Which brings me to Saturday! I was very anxious about being alone in a big city. So I started with a small expedition in the morning. To the chocolate museum! I bought way too much tea, and some body scrub, and (because Tobi stole mine) some lip balm. ''Twas a successful trip. 

After eating lunch, I headed to the famed Museo Larco! It's an awesome museum featuring the ceramic archaeological findings in Peru. It was huge and there was SO MUCH STUFF. There was also an entire exhibit dedicated to erotic ceramics. 10/10 would recommend because it's super funny, especially when you read the reasons behind making these things.

I was unsure what I was going to do after the museum, so I was dropped off at Parque Kennedy and wandered for a bit. It wasn't for very long because I ran into Anne from the lab inHuari! Her and I grabbed drinks and talked the afternoon away. We soon parted ways, but it was really nice seeing her!

I was kind of exhausted after, so I ate in the hotel and went to bed early. 

Sunday (today), I went back to Plaza de Armas. There are some beautiful churches at and around the plaza, so I explored those for a while. I also found my way into a agricultural museum, I think. Everything there was in Spanish, but it was clearly all about food. They also had these wax figures of tradition cookie scenarios. A bakery, a rural kitchen, a chicken roaster. It was cool.

The highlight of my day has been the catacombs by far. I can't tell you much about the history of it, because somehow I made my way into a all Spanish tour. But under the San Francisco are lots and lots and lots of bones. You're not allowed to take photos, but I did anyway. Oops!

After, I shopped around for fifteen minutes before I needed to return to my hotel. The past few days I've been noticing that my nose has been running, and my throat hurts, and I've been extra tired. I think I'm getting sick, if I'm not already sick. I laid low this afternoon, packing and writing this post in an effort to conserve energy. I'm pretty sure as soon as I get back to Chicago, if not at my connection in Miami, I'm gonna crash. 

But I do have good news, which is that my bag is actually lighter than when I got to Peru. I dropped different things here and there, but I have so much less stuff, that I was able to stick my big backpack into my checked suitcase! I bought a cute tourist-y smaller backpack for like my iPad and phone, but it's way way less than before! I'm so glad. I most certainly over packed for this trip. But all is well that ends well, and I'm just looking forward to getting home. Even though my parents and sister and brother won't be there, my cat will be. And I miss him so much.

Thanks to everyone for reading this summer, and see you (kinda) on the next trip!

As always,

Julia Rose 

Adios Huari! Hola Cusco!

And just like that! Field school is over. I can't believe it!

I went back up the mountain after my tough weekend at Marcajirca and camped out for three nights with everybody. A lot of cool stuff was found: a stone spoon, a figurine head, the dog piece from monopoly, a turquoise bead, and a singular tooth. Though we didn't find any new graves, I learned a LOT about just archaeology in general. It was an awesome trip.

We said goodbye to our wonderful teachers, Bebel and Carlos and Anne and Jason and we hopped on an overnight bus back to Lima. That's group started to split up :( at the bus station at 4 AM I said goodbye to a few members of our team and one of our teachers Oscar. It's pretty sad seeing the band break up, but I was excited for the adventures ahead. 

My buddies for the week are Tobi and Mackenzie. 

But because our bus got in so early, our room was FAR from ready. So for about an hour we just sat in the lobby of our hotel. Enjoying about ten minutes of wifi at a time. Anjulika came with us, she was staying with Alice and felt bad about potentially waking her up super early. So she stayed for about an hour too, until probably 5:30 before leaving.

It was just three of us at that point. We were tired from not sleeping well on the bus, and hungry because they didn't really feed us. It was decided that we would walk the short walk to Parque Kennedy (the park with all the cats) and eat at the McDonalds.

At first, things really seemed to look up. For some reason, none of us were really in the mood for breakfast food (my stateside friends who eat this garbage know that these things are not normally served before 11) and we saw people leaving eating burgers and McNuggets. We go in, leave Tobi on the second floor with our stuff (yeah, this Micky D's had two floors) and got in line for food. 

A guy who didn't work there tried to be nice to us and direct us into the shortest line. It was surprisingly packed for just after 6 AM on a Sunday. We make it to the front of the line only to find out that we've been waiting in the food pickup line.

Mackenzie and I quickly move into one of the correct lines and hope food will come to us soon. I start looking around to scope for ketchup. I love ketchup, and sometimes you can ask for packets and sometimes you can pump it into a little paper cup. At this establishment, the condiments were in lunch lady tubs, like the guacamole at Chipotle. The biggest difference from that was that there was no one putting the condiments in nice little cups (not that I expected it to be) it was just an open setting. I go to inspect the amount left in each tub, despite the sketchy looking couple standing right there. In the small moment I was standing there, I made eye contact with the man as he took a bite of a McNugget and proceeded to dip it straight into the tub of ketchup. So that was a little scary, and I decided I could deal with just eating fries with no condiments. 

I rejoin Mackenzie in line and patiently wait, trying to forget the horror I just witnessed against ketchup everywhere. The cash registers seemed to be on the fritz a little bit, but everyone ahead of us was paying eventually.

But for SOME REASON when we get to the front of the line, the cashier decided she needs to close the register. She just points us to the back of the next line and we were just so hungry we obliged. 

As we get in line once again, a group of about 15-17 people enter the place. They're mostly adolescent men, who decide cheering and rapping at 6:30 in the morning, in a McDonald's was what needed to happen. The girls they were with didn't seem to mind, and also somehow made in line in front of us. 

We endure the suddenly rowdy crowd for another 20 minutes until we are once again at the front of the line.

And once again, we are told that that cash register is closed. 

At this point, I was hungry, tired, and fed up. I dragged my friends out of that hell hole and back to the hotel.

And in case you're wondering how haggard we looked as a group, upon walking into the front door of the hotel, we were asked "Are you waiting for the bus?" So that was that morning, in case you were wondering. 

 The day improved though and after spending a night at our beautiful hotel and finally once again feeling clean, we jetted off to Cusco to begin our Machu Picchu trip!

 

Cool, yet crappy, photo of the mountains from the plane!

On the 18th we arrived in Cusco, a city I think I may like the best of all the cities I've been to in Peru so far. For one, the plane ride is perfect: short and beautiful. You fly between these mountains to see this sprawling city. I don't think I've ever been in a plane that was still so far from landing and at the same time really close to the ground. That may be hard to understand, and I could explain it, but you should just ask me in person.

We had dinner and enjoyed the city at night. Plaza de Armas is SO beautiful! It's all lit up and bustling, and we had awesome pizza. No complaints yet!

The 19th, yesterday, was our day at the one and only Machu Picchu. We were up and out of the hotel by 6 AM, which weirdly by noon didn't feel early enough. Our train kept stopping and it took much longer than expected. But we still made it up the mountain! 

 

Here's the only picture I took on my phone.

I bought this nifty book that allows you to self guide your own tour of the site, and we learned so much! 

Machu Picchu was once one of the holiest sites of the Inca empire. It contained the royal family and a number of sacred rocks. It's so remote too it's practically impossible to imagine that every person there had to make an insane trek up to visit. Props to my friends who have completed/will complete the Inca trail, because I sure don't have the attention span or athletic capacity to do it. 

Also a notably awesome part of Machu Picchu are the llamas that are allowed to roam anywhere on the site. They just looked so confused and wise at the same time. It was great.

Pictures of all my travels will be posted probably once I'm actually home. Sorry. 

Today, the 20th, is Mackenzie's last day with us. She's opted to return home tomorrow morning at 2 AM, so I'm sure she'll have fun with that. We're going to the tattoo parlor today (don't worry Dad, I'm probably only going to get another piercing on my ear), and do some other shopping around!

Update: I did get a piercing. Number 8! 

Tomorrow, Tobi and I head back to Lima to be tourists for just a few days more and then this wonderful Peru trip will be over. I can't believe it! I'm not ready to return. But alas, I must. I'll probably write one more post before I go!

As always,

Julia Rose

Sooo many things!

Well, I'm sitting here in Huari watching my sauce simmer. That's right: I made tomato sauce from scratch with limited ingredients in Peru. This is basically a cooking blog now. 

Not really though. 

I'll be glad to announce to the world that I survived a full week (5 nights) of camping. It was only mildly unpleasant. And as it turns out, I'm pretty great at putting together tents. The other ladies and I were given an "eight" person tent (though it only comfortably fits five) and on the first try it was a hot mess. I don't think even the adorable dogs would live in there. 

But once I broke out and interpreted the directions, we all nailed it! But in truth it wouldn't have been possible without me (#modest). 

The field work was why I was actually camping, so let me talk about that:

• I was assigned to work in two different sites over the week, E3 and E5.
•  E3 is somewhat of a mystery. There's a hearth [an area of the floor that is heavily darkened by the presence of charcoal and carbon (**carbon is important because you can actually get an exact date from when it formed using science. Don't ask me how, Google it or something idk)].
• E5 is thought to be a workshop of sorts. A lot of things have been found to indicate this. Multiple hearths and ceramic fragments specifically. I'm not super sure about the details of why that's the case, but it is, so deal with it.
• Ceramics were found at both sites, of all shapes and sizes and mostly just black and orange color. It's surprisingly hard in a multitude of cases to tell the difference between really dirty pottery and really dirty rocks. Especially if they're both flat and kind of curved. But I found my fair share and each time got far too excited. The circular things with the hole in them are called "spindlewhirls" which is super fun to say and even more interesting to find! They were used in the production of thread. Kind of like an ancient spools. Neat, right??
• On my last day of working at E5, I was assigned to excavate animal bones that had been found. They were probably the bones of a cuy, or *you know* a GD Guinea pig. My closest friends and family know that I am terrible allergic to these tiny fat rodents. But I wasn't exactly thrilled yesterday when my new friend Mackenzie ordered one for lunch. As for the bones I found, they were almost entirely tiny tiny shards. The only way I could identify pieces was by looking for the tiniest hint of pure white in the dirt. It was simultaneously fun and extremely tedious.
• I was still kinda sick the whole time lol 
• I have never had so much dirt under my nails. EVEN THOUGH I had a pair of gloves, they aren't very right around my wrists and dirt finds its way in.
• I forgot the baby wipes I had bought and its really hard to focus on eating when you can see the different layers of dirt on your fingers.

Immediately upon returning from the wilderness (Thursday night), I took a freezing shower. It probably didn't help much, but I slept well and felt clean. 

On Friday, we had a quick little easy hike to a site called Marcajirca. Let me show you where it is: 

 

Yes very easy and I looked cute the whole time. Except in real life I threw up at the top and didn't feel well enough to drag myself over to the chulpas (essentially, communal tombs) we had hiked all the way up to see. SHOUTOUT TO ANNE AND TOBI FOR MAKING SURE I DIDNT FALL OFF THE MOUNTAIN/KEEPING ME COMPANY ON MY SLOWER THAN A WORM TREK UP. That was a bummer and my legs still feel like jelly, but I got some great photos on my camera, which you'll see eventually.

Back in Huari, we got a lecture from Anne about the guy and baby that had been delivered to her in a box last week (just their bones, not entire people being stuffed in a box). Turns out that dude had a lot going on. He had broken his humerus (upper arm), multiple ribs, his clavicle (collar bone), and both scapulae (shoulder blades). He had weird cut marks on his sacrum (essentially, butt bone) and some other vertebrae (back bones). His face also suffered a couple blows here and there, before he died, and had healed nasal and occipital fractures (eye bone).  My favorite thing about him was that he had a sixth toe on one foot. 

I don't quite remember what I said exactly regarding posting photos of human remains, but I've decided against it. If you ever want to see the really awesome photos I have, hit me up in person and I'll show you!!

Yesterday (Saturday) we visited a site called Chavin, which lucky for me required minimal walking/hiking. It was huge and had some awesome examples of early architecture. Again, I didn't really take any photos on my phone, which was dumb of me, but eventually once I'm back in Chicago, I'll get around to making a google folder with all my photos.

Today, I made pasta sauce and I blogged and now I'm going to make pasta. It's been a beat week for sure.

Til next time,

Julia Rose 

Altitude Shmaltitude!

It's currently Friday my friends! Which means I've (almost) been in Peru for a whole week! What an accomplishment! Especially considering the week's events.

The first few days here in Huari were relatively uneventful. We had a couple lectures, got to know each other better, and made frequent trips for snacks to the center of town. I thought I was adjusting pretty well. Our group anxiously prepared to leave for our first week of camping on Tuesday, June 28. Well, maybe I was the only anxious one. But that's because I have the most stuff to carry and the least camping experience (despite who my dad is and what our family business sells). 

We embark on the hour and a half long drive up the mountain. The view was great, but I didn't want to kill my phone battery or get car sick, so I don't have any pictures from that drive. 

We arrive at the campsite, which is actually a school yard, surrounded by a brick wall. The walk up for me was pretty difficult, but I really attribute that to the air at 14,000 feet. It feels like nothing. Like three deep breathes aren't enough to help you catch yours. I was already struggling.

As the last one into camp, I fully expected to have the last pick of sleeping tents, which was fine with me. But for that night, it was decided that all the girls would sleep in one of the school houses. So we all set up our sleeping pads and sleeping bags side by side in the middle of the room. In theory, the more people huddled together, the warmer it was going to be for us.

The group then embarked on the walk to the actual dig site, where our leaders would perform a ritual to honor the spirits of the Inca we would be studying. That walk was even harder than the one before it. I watched as the whole group trickled out of site, and I was wheezing and puffing to take twenty more steps. In the back of the line I was accompanied by Bebel (our main teacher/guy who runs the site)'s wife Margurite and her younger boy (she has two). She made me feel a lot better about my much slower pace, and said there's no way to know who is going to struggle with the altitude and who isn't. She also told me to let her or Bebel know right away if I started to feel sick.

We arrived at the actual site, it looks kind of like a house layout where the boarders are made of rocks. I thought it was pretty basic looking until someone pointed out to me the exact places where they found bodies, then I started to feel the excitement.

The ceremony began, and I don't remember too much of it. It involved candy and liquor and cigarettes and animal crackers and coca leaves. During most of it, I was thinking about how crappy I felt, and how it was slowly getting worse. I figured I was just hungry, and was excited when Bebel invited all of us to enjoy the treats he had laid out (literally everything I just listed before). I grabbed an animal cracker and bit into it, and man, my stomach just dropped. I pretty much knew at that point something wasn't quite right, but I didn't even have the chance to say something to anyone because Margurite came up to me and told me I looked really pale. She suggested I drink lots of water and she gave me these mineral pills for under my tongue. 

The walk back didn't feel as brutal as the walk up, and I even had the thought to snap this pretty picture of the setting sun over the mountains: 

 You can kind of make out where the tents are and the wall of the school. I'll hopefully remember to take a better picture of the layout once I'm back up there.

Anyway, I get back to the school and immediately go lie down. I didn't get all the way into my sleeping bag, because I knew once I did there was no getting out. But it was so damn cold. I don't think I'd been that cold since the time I didn't bring a winter jacket to Poland in early March (which I never blogged about, sorry Dad. Do you still want me to?). I somehow had the will power to change from one pair of pants to two pairs of leggings. I literally did nothing during this period of time except keep my eyes closed and shiver, I was not feeling well. I don't really know what everyone else was doing at that point, but eventually someone came and told me it was time for dinner. 

Luckily part of dinner that night was just plain rice, but even that didn't sit too well with me. Margurite gave me more of those mineral pills, and also mentioned that if I continued to feel bad from the altitude, she, Bebel and their kids would be heading back down the mountain the following afternoon. I wasn't happy at that idea, but also I felt like such crap I knew I couldn't rule it out. 

A bonfire was built and I stayed up for a little bit, I even thought I was starting to feel somewhat better. And then I went to bed.

Despite all my layers and extra liners and even taking two melatonin, I could not fall asleep. It was impossible. I tossed and I turned and I pretty much kept my eyes closed the whole time, but sleep eludes me. I got up in the morning feeling just as bad as before. 

I tried to eat a little bit of bread for breakfast, and watched most of my new friends climb up that hill to the campsite.

A few of us were chosen to study bones at the school with Oscar. The collection was great, but not great enough to stop me from running to a corner and getting sick once. I just wanted to sleep. I decided in that moment I wanted to go back down the mountain. 

A few hours passed, I had a few more mineral pills, and I packed up all the camping gear I had brought for the five days I expected to stay. Before I knew it, I was hopping into the car with Bebel and his family and finally heading back down. 

 

The view as I went back down the mountain

 As soon as I got back to the house, I just passed out in my lil bed. Margurite brought me a potatoe with salt and black tea to have once I felt ready, but after that nap I knew it was definitely the altitude that had affected me so. 

Let's just talk about how I likely would've cried this whole time if it weren't for Margurite. No matter how old you are, when you're sick you probably wish your mom was there. Well since my mom couldn't be here, I was sure lucky to have Margurite as a secondary mom to step in and take great care of me.

In the days since coming back down to 10,000 feet, I've felt a lot better and still been able to do lots of field school things. I've been helping Anne, a cool physical anthropologist, with a collection of bones that have already been excavated located here at the house. While it's mostly femurs and other long bones, it's really helping me familiarize myself again with the bones of the human body. I'll hopefully post some pictures soon. 

In the end, everything worked out really well and I still will be going camping on Monday. Til next time!

Julia Rosd