Friday, May 2, 2014

Reuniting At Last

Today, we had a fun-filled day of traveling and a long awaited reunion with our friends from the economics group. We started our adventurous day at Sillustani. This is a Pre-Incan cementery. The name Sillustani means fingernails because the shape of the lake next to the peninsula is in the shape of a fingernail.


This pre-Incan site has over 62 tombs inside a Qolla, which is the building where they are buried. Normally there is more than one person in each Qolla because they are for entire families. The difference between the pre-Ican tombs and the Incan tomb is that the Incan tombs have a circular shape with white clay. Surrounding the tombs, rocks are arranged into circles to worship those who are dead, along with the sun and the moon. 


They, like the Incas, worshiped the universe rather than the just the Earth. Another interesting fact is that they used Intihuatana (sundial) which is similar to those at Machu Picchu.


Also during our bus ride to the airport in Juliaca, we stopped at a traditional house to see how the local people live and work. The first thing we did was take pictures with their guanaco! We were then led inside to see how they live. We saw one lady spin the alpaca fur into thread for rugs and scarfs. They are so soft! 


When we arrived at the airport we had to wait in line for a while but we made the most of it by harmless betting on how long we would be in line. No one won, not that there was anything to win. For lunch we had empanadas, and then we boarded the plane to Lima where we were finally reunited with the other group. The entire bus ride to the hotel was full of the exchanging of stories in between our new guide, Franz' Lima fun-facts.

Speaking of fun-facts, I will go over a few that I found to be fascinating! Our hotel was located in one of the 43 different districts, Miraflores. This district is built on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which was full of surfers as we drove by. This district also has one of the lowest crime rates of Lima. When we finally arrived at our hotel, El Tambo, we instantly felt the humidity caused by the ocean air. 

After, we ate dinner at La Lucha, a very popular sandwich and milkshake place. And yes, their sandwiches and milkshakes were heavenly 😄.

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