My first earthquake!

Last night I experienced my first earthquake. There’s been a one before in Lima but I didn’t feel it at all and it was during the day. However this time I felt it. Last night woke up around 2.30 am or so because my bed was shaking. I as pretty confused that what the hell is going on until I realize it must be earthquake. I didn’t know what to do??? I was listening if my roommates were getting up, but no one moved so I thought ok, maybe this is not a serious one. Also, I was not sure if there was another one coming. It hit me for the first time that there might be disadvantages sleeping naked, because I would need some time to put on my clothes, so just in case another would come I at least put on a top and underwear. Noticed that my laptop had moved on my little table too so I put it on the floor and I guess I should put it on the floor every night. In the end I was very tired and fell asleep again pretty fast. 

In the morning I asked my Spanish classmates if they felt it and some had. In case there would be another one and for sure there will be, I asked my Spanish teacher what I should do and when do I know it is a serious one? Apparently when it’s serious one you can’t even walk because it’s shaking so much and while it’s shaking you should not move out of the house just find a safe place, only after it’s over you should run out on the streets before the next one comes. And you should get far from the windows. Ou how nice I have my bed next to a window!!!But houses here are built for earthquakes…right…doesn’t really convince that much. She told us that they’re expecting a big one coming soon, pretty much at any time. She said that she always has a suitcase ready for evacuation if needed. Wondering if I should have one too? Maybe I should have a little bag with clothes, so that I can dress up on the streets if I need to run out naked. 

Yet, I hope I don’t need to experience the big one while I’m here!

Back in Lima…

I look outside of my window, still grey, still no sun. I take a deep breath and tell myself its ok. I open the window to get some fresh air, but the noise of the morning traffic fills the room and I close the window. I eat banana for breakfast and hurry out of the apartment, because I’m late from my Spanish class as usual. I walk down the stairs and unlock the door to get out of the gate. Traffic, noise and bad air hits me really hard and I burst into tears. I turn on my mp3 and try to close myself into another world, but it doesn’t work this morning. The contrast after being out in the nature for a week and now in Lima is too much for me to handle. Even if I have chosen a way to my school where I can cross one little park, streets that are smaller and nicer, still the whole way to my school tears are running down my cheeks. I greet my favorite security guy on the way and his familiar smile makes me feel little bit better. The security guy at the entrance of my school, smiles at me too and I wipe the tears before I enter my class. Many familiar faces greet me and some new ones too. During the class I get a message from Eva that there are no collegios today and Tuesday is a national holiday, so I should go to the office instead. I’m little bit disappointed because I thought seeing the children would make me feel better, but at least there is a holiday tomorrow. After the class it’s time to greet my Korean friends. I hug Lan (my very good Korean friend), chat briefly with Moi (Spanish teacher) drank coffee and run into a minibus to go to the office.

 

I take a minibus which is not full and I can choose a seat for myself, seat where I can fit my legs in. I turn the music louder and try to find a way to sit on seat, so that the piece of metal on the back of the seat is not hurting me that much. Few stops later a man enters the bus and sits next to me, even if there other seats available. I ignore him and simply stair out of the window and listen my music. I almost miss my stop, baja baja paradero! I shout when I realize where I am. Bus drives crazily (as usual) and I try to hold on tight while walking towards the door. Bus breaks so fast and hard that I almost fall on the floor. Bus drives off and a next challenge is to cross the street to the other side. Luckily lights turn red in the previous intersection and I can safely cross. I turn around from the next corner and see my favorite building at the end, Centro Español del Perú (or something like that). I start smiling when I see the familiar paintings on the wall. It’s beautiful (I’ll take a picture next time). I cross another street and turn around and stair at the building for a while. I love it! It makes me so happy every time I see it! A piece of art in this depressing surrounding and I can even see it from the toilet of our office. 

I rang the doorbell of La casa de Panchita and a smiling face comes out to open a gate for me. I feel better. I work the whole day at the office, preparing materials for the collegios, mainly math exercises. Not so many people at the office, I think many have taken a day off. I get my lunch take away from the vegetarian place nearby. I don’t like to eat in a restaurant when I’m alone, I prefer to eat at the office. I miss my lunch breaks with Adele. On the way to the lunch place I get comments from men rubia, rubia, linda etc. (which I didn’t hear in Cusco or elsewhere) also now I had forgotten my mp3, because mostly I don’t hear them in here either because I always listen my music. Around 5.30pm I start my journey back home. It’s almost a peak hour and traffic is a lot worse. Busses are full and journey takes forever. I’m really tired and half asleep. I wanted to go to Pilates, but when I finally enter my house, it’s too late and I’m tired anyways. I crawl into my bed, take my laptop and watch some Finnish TV-series. Tomorrow is holiday and I’ll go to yoga in the morning, I decide. I’m so tired that I fall asleep without my earplugs despite of the noise outside. Because the next day is holiday people go out and party, even if it’s Monday. Another day in Lima is over and I survived.

A dream that came true...on the way to a Machu Picchu (part 2)

Cusco

Next morning when I woke up the scenery was amazing, again somehow similar what I’ve seen before but different, I was so happy to see that scenery. I simply stared outside of the window and felt piece inside. I love mountains, I love hilly scenery.

We arrived in Cusco pretty much on time. Cusco is high above the sea around 3300m. We had taken the altitude medicine night before and I was feeling pretty ok. Only little bit light headed.

Also we had been given many advices how to get use to the altitude and not to feel sick.

 1) Do not eat a lot and do not eat anything heave, only soup if possible and drink a lot.

 2) Drink mate de coca (tea with coca leaves)

 3) Rest and sleep even if you don’t feel tired.

 4)Do not do a lot during the first day, just get use to the altitude 

In Cusco we’re staying with a German girl Magdalena, who we had met couple of weeks before and who kindly promised to accommodate us. House was about 10 minutes away from the city center by taxi. She had huge room with two beds just for herself and she was sharing a kitchen together with the family, who she was also working with. She like many others, were doing their volunteer in there. She just finished her studies (teacher too) in Germany and wanted to do something else before entering the compulsory teaching practice in Germany.  We had breakfast with her and of course Mate de Coca. After that we had nap as we’re told and in the evening went to have a dinner and just ate soup.

Second day we spend around center of Cusco, looking around and organizing the things for our hike. Cusco is very beautiful city compared to Lima, but nothing really special to me. I guess, the more I have travelled and more I have seen some things simply don’t feel as amazing to me, because I’ve seen other places, which have been more amazing in my opinion. But for sure after Lima, it was great to see blue sky and breath clean air and be in a small city, yes I would like to live there (once again I thought, living in Lima was a wrong choice for me, even I like my job very much).

As I had been sick before our travel and didn’t really have much energy to do a lot before, we had to spend quite a time simply looking for stuff. Luckily, some things were borrowed for me and I didn’t need to buy everything. We rented sleeping bags and I rented rain pants, I bought warm hat & mittens, fleece and a lot of other stuff (which we didn’t need in the end).

In the evening we had a meeting with our guide (who in the end was not our guide) to make sure we had everything and that we’re aware what would happen for the next few days and how our route will be.

Magdalena, waiting for our guide at the placa de armas

We packed until midnight and very late realized that mosquito repellent we had was not exactly what we would need, but everything was closed by then, I ran around every pharmacy but nothing! Luckily our fellow hikers helped us sharing their effective mosquito repellent, so we survived!

A dream that came true...on the way to a Machu Picchu (part 1)

A long time ago, I had a dream that one day I want to “clime” to Machu Picchu. Not just to go and see the Machu Picchu, but walk my way there, like Incas did in the past. Last week my dream came true.  

Once again I have to say that I’m very lucky person to be able to fulfill my dreams. As you have seen to fulfill my dreams is not just easy, but for sure it’s worth it. We all need to make “sacrifices” in life, because we can’t have all what we want, but most of us, the ones living in the western world, we have a choice. Most of the people here don’t have a choice, no matter how much they would like to study or travel, but they may never earn enough money to do so, even to be able to study, because they earn enough only to cover their basic needs.

I'm lucky because I was able to choose my education, to become teacher who could be able to teach almost anywhere in the world in order to live my life like this. Of course, I’ve been lucky to be borne in Finland to be able to make this choice, to have free education and even get money from the government while studying. Also I have been able to work as a teacher in Finland to earn and save money to do this trip and share my time to be able to help other people. But to be able to do this I do have a loan, I don’t have a home, I fit my life into few boxes and I don’t know when I will have another job, but it is my choice. Yet, life for me is not just easy, because for example living in Lima is very difficult for me, more difficult than I thought it would be. I don’t connect with this city and continuous grayness, lack of sun (after a long and dark winter in Finland) puts me down. Therefore to have a well-earned holiday to see the beauty of Peru was amazing for me and I feel very privileged and lucky to be able to have done it. 

Here is a map of Peru, so that you can follow my trip.

Lima-Ica-Nazca, Cusco and finally Machu Picchu.

 

I travelled together with Julia, a German girl, who did her internship in La casa de Panchita for two months. She wanted to see more than just Cusco and Machu Picchu and was not keen on travelling by herself so I decided to join her for the whole trip.

Ica & Huacachina

We started our journey by bus 6.30 am in the morning and not being able to sleep the night before I immediately passed out in the bus. When I woke up and looked out from the window I was not sure whether I was still dreaming, because we’re in the desert and for a second I thought I was in Egypt. 

First we travelled to Ica, which is well known to many travelers in due to its oasis that is situated between enormous sand dunes. It is about 4, 5 hours south from Lima. We didn’t actually stay in Ica, because we went directly to Huacachina, the oasis which attracts many tourists, also us, as well as Peru's rich families, due to the variety of adventurous sand activities that are available, such as sand-boarding and sand tours on special sand buggies. Julia had never been to desert before and I had never done sand-boarding or buggy tours so it was a win-win situation for both of us.

Amount of tourism (even if it’s not a high season) hit me, because you don’t see that many in Lima.  But it was so nice to have Sun and chill out by the pool, take walk around the oasis and then the buggy tour. Of course a immediately I started feeling bad when I sat in that vehicle, how much harm they actually cause for the environment, so that we can just come here and have some fun. Worse was to see how much garbage there was in the desert, plastic bottles etc. what is wrong with people??? We don’t through the stuff on the ground in our countries either, so why would you do it here? Are people waiting for someone to come and clean after themselves in the desert??? I was screaming in my mind and also said it out loud to Julia. Ok, calm down and once try to enjoy this I told myself. 

 

  Desert is huge, it continues about 65 kilometers according to our driver, who made sure we enjoyed our tour (among tens of other vehicles) but it is huge as I said, so we had space. We had our personal roller coaster in the desert,

Nazca

Next morning we headed our way to Nazca. They took us to the bus station very early in the morning and of course the bus was late 1, 5 hours so in the end we sat at the station for more than 2, 5 hours. Well at least we had time to write a diary. A way from Ica to Nazca was interesting. First it was desert and straight for a long time and then suddenly there was like an edge and we started going down and we’re surrounded by hills, it felt very unreal for me. I was like WHAT??? and had to wake up Julia, who was asleep. 

When we arrived to the bus station after 2, 5 hours we’re taken to a van, which took us straight to the airport. It was very small and interesting airport and when I saw the plain I thought, ok, well another first time in my life experience for me to be on a small airplane at the same time remembering the warnings of my Spanish teacher how dangerous it is to fly with those small planes and my classmates who agreed. I couldn’t admit them that I had already booked the flight. But you all know I’m writing this so I must be a live and nothing bad happened! 

The only thing no one told us is that you feel so SICK after the 30 minutes flight because in order to see the pictures the flight turns pretty much 180 degrees and then to another side! In the end I was just waiting to get back and I was not able to take any photos because I was feeling rather sick. It took us pretty much 3hours to recover from it and we’re not the only ones, everyone seemed to feel pretty bad after the flight. But it was worth it, Nazca lines are amazing piece of history, which still remains today. To know more you can have a look at this short documentary about it. Nazca lines

 

Nazca city itself is very small and we had nothing to do there, just waited our bus was to leave in the evening. We walk around, saw the market, we ate and had a nap in the park on the bench until police woke us up, because we’re not allowed to sleep in the park. Rest of the evening we hang around in the backyard of one hotel, which was very relaxing. 

We had overnight bus to Cusco in a VIP class. I have to say busses here are REALLY GOOD (I mean when you choose a long distance bus) better than airplanes, especially when you have VIP seat, you can sleep pretty well, you get something to eat, blanket, pillow, you have your personal TV, where you can watch films, play games, listen music etc. and you can even use internet (however it has never work when I’ve been in the bus). Yet, the only problem is going to the toilet. We had our seats upstairs and the bus was moving a lot to side to side and especially when you go on a mountain road going to the toilet was not easy. Second thing is that you’re not allowed to take a shit, liquids only it says in the toilet and they do tell us that from the start too. Our bus ride was around 15 hours, so I did manage without taking a shit, but I was wondering what would happen if a person for example has a diarrhea or simply needs to take a shit. What would they do you do??? Maybe I’ll ask next time.