A Traves y A Dentro 1

Sometimes it's easy to become distracted by the bad things about being in Peace Corps Peru.  I'm far away from my most important people, I'm cold all the time, my clothes and body are never really clean, there are very lonely times, dogs chase me, projects are slow to start, etc. etc. forever.

Thankfully, I have many more moments where I'm in awe of where I am and how lucky I am to have this opportunity.  Peace Corps in Peru!  That's awesome!  Who gets to do that??  These times make me want to work harder and have more experiences.  I'm here anyway and there is a ceiling on acceptable moping.

This weekend was a big reminder of how wonderful this experience is.  First, it hailed like the dickens on Friday.  I was walking to work and could hear it raining behind me.  Then the storm hit with marble-sized hail.   I made it to the muni without too many brain bruises.  It kept hailing for a half hour or so and by the end, it looked like it had snowed.  It melted down after a while and looked a little like my beloved Montana.

On Saturday morning, I went to Huayre, the next town over of the giant maca, to help with a recycling buy.  It was successful and we bought a lot of stuff that would otherwise be in the dump.
Afterwards, I took the several car journey to Nicole's town of San Pedro de Cajas to help with her buy.  I got to the cruce in the highway and decided to walk the 10k to town.  One of the nice things about being a volunteer is that you can often take your time if you want to walk.  It was beautiful and my first major hike across the pampa.  Clouds kept rolling around and I got rained on a few times.  There were also tons of vicunas running around.  Do you remember in Land Before Time after everything went to hell and the long-necks were wandering looking for the Great Valley?  That's what it was like.

It was so beautiful and an incredible feeling to not see so few signs of humanity with a vista so broad.  It took me almost two hours to get there with my big pack on.  It felt good to move my body like that again and it's a small step towards training for all the epic Andes mountaineering in my near future.
The Land Before Time analogy continues when you reach San Pedro.  Walking through a lot of nothing, you crest a small hill and stumble on this deep green valley complete with trees, people, and neat ruined corrals.

I skipped the switchbacks and skidded along the hill down into the base of the valley, startling sheep on my way.  Nicole's recycling buy went well, but it's execution cost more than we made, so we have some sustainability issues to work out.  We didn't worry about it too much because it was time to go camping in one of the biggest caves in Peru.
But first, a traffic jam.