the big adventure: I can think of 25 ways I would prefer to spend these next 25 hours.

We got back to Puno on Tuesday evening, and from there took a bus to Lima...are you ready for this one? A 25 hour bus ride. What, what. If you can imagine the grossest bus ride through the middle of no where, it would probably be half as gnarly as our trip. I think the bus ride actually enhanced our experience though (seriously.) For one, it was mind-blowing to see the kind of poverty that people live in. The majority of the bus ride that I was awake for was through the desert, with literally nothing but sand for miles. Then all of a sudden there would be a collection of pueblos that were all dusty and dirty, but people still lived there. And there was nothing. I am so thankful for my house back home, and hot showers, and just water in general. You don’t realize how lucky we have it until everything is taken away. In reality, not much was even taken away from me, because I could still afford to buy clean water and at least try to find hot showers (which were more or less non existent).

You can only imagine how excited life was when we got off that bus. Anywhere would have been better then inside it, but things were so much more awesome because we were in Lima, the capital of Peru which is on its coast. When we were in Cuzco we met an Aussie who gave us good vibes and recommended a hostel in Lima, so we headed over to it…and I am 100% sure this guy was a God-send. For the first time we were in Peru, we were at a place that was clean and had running, hot water. Basically, this hostel was the shit. It had really good food, super cool people working there, bomb drink specials. We were in heaven.

Nothing went down Wednesday night because we were all strangely tired after the bus ride. After dinner, we treated ourselves to ice cream, and ended on the open porch of the hostel, attempting to play drinking games, but failing miserably for lack of motivation.

Thursday we walked around the city and just relaxed. I was basically just thrilled to be clean. It was an easy-going day, the highlights were basically just eating. Low point.

On Friday, things were still pretty slow. Jackie, Anna, Austin and I went paragliding which is basically the calmest adventure sport I have ever done, especially after all the hardcore activities we have been up to these past few weeks. You are connected to this huge kite-type contraption with a guide who navigates the wind; it’s a wonderful way to check out the city and look over the ocean and I would definitely recommend it to all types of people. Even if you have heart conditions. It’s that calm.

Afterwards, we went down to the beach and dipped in the water…which was pretty dirty. Haha, there were pieces of trash, and probably hair…body parts, I don’t know, but we survived and crawled out only to lie on the rocks and nap under the sun. As we headed back to the hostel to hang out for a little bit, we ate sushi and I tried ceviche for the first time. Ceviche is a dish of I think just raw fish, as dangerous as you may think the dish was delicious, and no one got sick of it. A little more shopping, then back to the hostel to pick up our bags and then we were off to the airport. Our plane back to Santiago late Friday night and I was SUPER bummed to leave. Peru was such the adventure of a lifetime <3

on the beach in lima..