My Birthday In The Jungle

 

People always say that a picture is worth a thousand words then this blog is worth 1300 alone through photos. I sat and wondered how to talk about my 25^th birthday experience in the jungle and had difficulties with where to begin and which topics to talk about. Therefore most of this blog will be a photo journal with a description.  

This birthday has by far been one of the most amazing birthdays and most amazing visits of all time. I can say however, that my family and friends were missed a lot. A shout out to my best bud Ryan! Dude a birthday without you in it sucks, jungle would have been way cooler hahahaha.

We finally escaped the weather of Urubamba and entered the hot and humid temperatures of the jungle. This was a great reason to swim and enjoy the heat. Wow did this make my feel like home. However, I found out later it was hotter in the Niagara Region.

The jungle with my friends that I did go with though was an absolutely perfect experience and they really made me feel loved during my birthday. Right down to a birthday cake at a gorgeous restaurant overlooking the Rio de Madre de Dios. One noticeable change when leaving the mountains and entering the jungle was a change in music preference.

The people of Puerto Maldonado were so friendly. This is my birthday cake which was a free gift from the resturant which we ate at. The owners we sitting in the table beside us with guests. We all shared the chocolate mocha cake. This meal was tasty and large. My friends and I ate more than needed. This was the perfect time for all of us to lay around in our hostel hammocks and enjoy a rest.

There is nothing better than a hammock.

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The three stooges

At this moment we were waiting to meet a guide to determine whether or not we will choose to him or our hostels tour. We met the man who was recommended by Lonely Planet. He was an older man who knew the jungle well. However, some of the members of the group preferred to take a tour with someone who spoke more english. We also felt that he lacked a plan. We decided to take the tour option with the hostel tour. They were young and connected with our group very well and spoke a large amount of english. This is great during a tour especially when you are entering an atmosphere that is so new and so complex.

Returning to the city after holding a boa. I was included in a comedy act in the Plaza de Armas of Puerto Maldonado. Although my espanol es mas o menos, I still was able to participate and it made for a great story for the birthday boy.

Spending some time swinging and climbing vines was one of my favourite activities in the jungle. If i lived there I would honestly do this everyday. A great workout and much fun. It also grabs the attention of monkeys!!!

Canopy walk just after zip-lining. A great photo of Ronny in the distance. I was challenged here to exercise my fear of heights. I made it without being too scared! hahaha

A great group of friends!

Monkey see....Monkey do

I hope everyone enjoyed this picture blog of my time in the jungle. The first weekend trip in Peru and not the last. After this I look forward to my other excursions and expiriences to take in.

Hast Luego!

I Fell In Love

After a week of staying here I can actually say that I have fell in love with the Peru's culture and landscape. The people here are very friendly. I find spanish a little difficult at the moment but in time I am hoping that will change. Spanish lessons have started and I am hoping in a month I will be able to have fluid spanish  conversations in full.

I also went to present money towards the NeVo Social Fund to the school named here IES. Tecnico Agropedcuario Urubamba as a representative for the Welland Rotary Club. This was a very great experience and the school expressed great gratitude for the donation towards the 2 place winner.

Ronny and I have also spent a good amount of time in seperate meetings with different stakeholders in the community for our current projects. These are the building blocks for the implementation for our contributions to the NeVo projects.


Thursday night the NeVo house had its culture night. Thursday we went to a ceramic makers house. We met a man who makes pottery for local markets. He told us his story and we met his children. We also learnt and experience the difficulty of his craft. This was a very new expierence and I think I have found a new hobbie when I return home. His daughter began telling me all about the Quechua festivals with all the different types of clothing. Little did I know that I would get to view this type of festival so soon.

This weekend I was supposed to join NeVo group for a trip to Cuzco, However, do to illness, I could not attend and spent the day sleeping......this sucked! Sunday I felt much better and decided to climb a
small mountain with Ronny and a new volunteer Ryan. Just prior to climbing we came across a very cool festival. After the festival, we purchased banana fingers and then climbed a small mountain. For a first climb, it was a hard one hahaha. The view at the top was just amazing. We spent some time enjoying the views and later went down, took a moto to a very fancy resturante named Tunupa and ate our fill. A new food this week was Alpaca meat......yum.

Hasta Luego!


A new tongue twister:
CONFUSO CONFABULABA UNA CONFUSA
CONFABULACION,
CONFUNDIDO NO CONFIABA EN LA CONFUNDIDA CONFABULACION,
QUE ACABABA DE CONFABULAR

Beware of Dogs!!!

I took the plane to Lima where I joined Ronny and our driver. We then went to a hostel in Lima at roughly 2 am. We were both very very excited to be here and tried a local beer before bed. The next day....."good morning Peru" We ate breakfast and waited for our next taxi to the airport to fly to Cuzco.


We arrived to Cuzco where we met Audrey and Edwardo our driver. We drove for one hour through the mountains to Urubamba. Wow, is Peru different. Especially this area. The urubamba area was far more rural than I originally expected. As we were driving Audrey noted that there was an abundance of dogs.....we will come back to this later.

The first few days Ronny and I climatized and met the volunteers at the NeVo house and built great friendships from that start. We also started meeting the locals right away. Our first local we met was Senor Daniel who was the owner of the hostel we are staying at for the first month called "The Palace" named after one of the volunteers. Senor Daniel is a great man who really does all he can to make you feel comfortable living there. He was also a great first person to practice our new language, Spanish.

Ronny and I started our first day in a meeting in regards to a project we will be working on called Media Luna where we discussing different aspects of the project and the development of the Media Luna's capacity with a local mirco finance institution. We were also working in Villa Marcelo where we aided in some very extremely difficult labour picking into the ground, shoveling stone, and lifting boulders. A long days work. The next day Ronny who has superior computer capabilities than I went to Media Luna to set up computers and I went back to Villa Marcelo to do more labour and meet Hector the Director of the school. This day Ronny and I started finding our fit in NeVo. We will be actively involved with Media Luna and all its aspects, and the oversight of the Villa Marcelo funds and implementation of activities from this point on. We started spending more time meeting key contacts and discussing future plans. Now, doing all this requires language abilities. Therefore, Ronny and I have started spanish classes and all I can say is "wow my brain hurts". We will learn alot very shortly.

This paragraph goes to new experiences. During our stay here we have made a strong effort to  try everything that comes infront of us. Bargaining in a market, taking the combi and moto, drinking sugar cain juice, and yes for all of you who heard about my desire to try Cuy it was done!!!!! The final expierence that was not expected was quickly discovered during our first walk home. There is an abundance of wild dogs that run the streets. During the day, they are tranquil and friendly. At night, they gather is packs and become alive which turns out to be a little aggresive to humans walking home in pitch black streets. What a scary expierence!!

Hasta Luego!!