Happy Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

More pictures from the Puno trip. This first one is the last from the ruins in Sillustani-you can see just about how big the chullpas can be (Kevin and I are the tiny things standing in front of it). There was a guided tour next to us and I´m pretty sure we heard this one was 15ish meters, so it´s pretty big.


The rest of these pictures are from Las Islas de los Uros or as they are also known as the floating reed islands of Lake Titicaca. I didn´t know much about them before we arrived and so I was really amazed at what we learned and saw. First off they make the islands (which last about thirty years) and everything else on it out of reeds, their boats, their houses, their beds- they even eat the bottom portion of the reed (which you can see in the next picture they let us sample along with a type of bread they make). It was really different-you peel it like a banana and the flavor is really mild, something like celery with out the strings or crunch. I guess it´s has some good stuff in it though because they people don´t brush their teeth, they eat the reed instead and they all had really nice, healthy, white teeth.


The people are not Spanish speakers but the kids learn Spanish in one of the three schools they have throughout the islands. They people speak Aymara between themselves but they spoke to our group in Spanish. In total there are about forty some islands with a little more than twenty being dependent on tourism and the rest are further out and a bit more isolated. The island that we visited had five families living on it-the kids go to grade school/high school on other islands and then to University in Puno. This is a cute picture of two little girls that were playing around. Their clothes are amazing...beautiful with bright colors, and layered skirts. Nobody was wearing shoes- they all were walking bearfoot atop the squishy reed floor. The other picture is of their tiny stove that they use to cook on. Pretty different from the kind we have at home ¿no?.

This last picture is of one of the houses and a solar panal that was given to them by ex Prez Fujimori. Fujimori was not the best of presidents but the people of the islands like him because he came and stayed with them one night and gave them these so they could have light to work by during the night-it was probably one of the nicer things he did during his term.


Las Islas Flotantes were the first stop on our journey to three different islands. Those pictures will come later but it was a really fun trip. Met some cool people from Europe-made some good friends with five germans that are living in Lima all year working at a school for kids with disabilities that I´ll go visit. Got to stay with a family overnight on the island of Amantaní which is an island without cars or machines, it was pretty crazy. More on that later though.

This week for me I don´t have many classes and so this morning I just went to dance which I haven´t gone to in a while. I was pretty off cause they started a bunch of new dances but it was fun nonetheless - I didn´t realize it but I actually missed dance class a lot, it puts you in a good mood and you feel really good after...it´s weird.
Tonight I´m going to go out with Lucia and Marita. Hahaha I´m going as a tourist-it should be hilarious, I have a jumbo cardboard camera, sunblock, giant map, tourist hat, etc. I´ll make sure to post pictures later.

Hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween-eat lots of sweets for me!! :) :) Besitos-Court

Sillustani

Hey everyone, hope all is well. These are some pics from Sillustani which is about fifteen minutes from Puno. Here there are Inca ruins called Chullpas which are tombs where they put their dead. They are normally only used for the nobility and the really nice ones like I´ll post a picture of in a sec was probably used for the an Inka. It´s incredible the stuff they built w/out the use of modern tech., they didn´t have the wheel, they didn´t use cement, nothing - and everything is so perfect. It´s pretty awesome to see. One of my favorite parts here was just sitting down amidst the ruins, with the gorgeous blue lake in the background and I just sat and thought in the silence. How amazing it would be to be able to see what life was like back in those days, that an inca might have sat on the same rock, walked by here, what they would have been doing/thinking-it was pretty cool. Anyhoo the first picture is probably one of my favorites, this guy had his heard of alpaca cruisin around and this one was big, fat and really fluffy so I had to take its pic. Haha I thought it was really cute. Pic number two is me looking up at a chullpa, it´s about 45 ft tall. They´re buried sitting in the fetal position with other possessions with them to take to the afterlife. All of the Chullpas have small doors on the bottom that they close up after and all are facing the sun to the east-haha we know they are small cause we went in one of them that had been emptied out. It was pretty cool, I have a video of us inside. The third one is me trying to to walk on the island in the background but my pants are just a little to much on the snug side and I was about to tip over with the backpack.
Another pic of some of the ruins from off in the distance.
My friends aunt told me they used these rock circles for ceremonies and that they were strategically placed to be in line with the sun or the moon, etc. They had several of them and this is me reaching up to the heavens.

K, all for the moment. Miss and love you all! Take care! Besitos-Court

Whew...finally!

Apologies once again...it has been forever since I last posted but I am determined to keep this thing going. A lot has happened since my last blog and so it is going to take several posts to fill you all in.

First off I want to say thank you to my grandma and to Staud cause yesterday as I arrived home late from school my mom said "Ah, Cournay (jaja Courtney) tienes cartas." And for all you non Spanish speakers (the majority) she told me that I had received some letters. It was so nice to get some mail, so thanks again Gram and Staud-love you both lots! Haha that can be a hint to everyone else too-if you are ever bored or have some free time feel free to write :) I enjoy getting mail very much. My address just in case:

Courtney Kelleher
La familia de Benavente
Lazo Urb. Universitaria F-6
Arequipa, Arequipa Perú

Let´s see-this week has been good so far. Monday I went over to Steph´s (Australia) with some other friends and we chatted and then made this one German dessert which is basically deep fried battered apples with cinnamon and sugar. They are called Apfelküchle and besides knowing that they were clogging my arteries, were quite tasty. I also snagged her recipe for Queso Helado which is a type of ice cream typical of Arequipa. For those of you who know queso means cheese, no the ice cream does not taste like cheese or have cheese in it-it´s sweet and kind of coconutty. Promise I´ll be making lots of it when I get back, it´s really easy. Yesterday was good too. Went and spent some time after my classes in a coffee shop owned by the family of one of my favorite girls here (Anika from Holland) and we chatted for a bit. Both of us are worried we´re not learning Spanish fast enough and so we decided we are only going to talk to each other in Spanish-it´s quite fun and I´m sure fun for other people to listen to "Don´t tell me, I swear I know the word". After that, I went to the mass for my abuelito (grandpa-they have masses for the deceased on their bdays) with my mom at a gorgeous church with beautiful paintings on the ceiling, etc. and then went home and prepared for my presentation that I made tonight for all the Rotarians. Tonight my presentation went pretty well, talked about home, my family, friends, good ol´Yakivegas, life in WA and the US, showed some pics and maps. Jaja the only thing was (sorry Kim) but I was explaining that my sister was coming down to backpack around SA and that she would be coming to Arequipa too and I used the word "mochilando" which means backpacking but here I guess, like I´ve learned with a lot of words, it has a bit of a different meaning. It still means traveling but it´s more of begging your way for rides, really scummy and so everyone was like "what?" but hey, it wasn´t that horrible and now I know (thanks to my mom for telling me...after). So now I´m really happy to be over and done with that but now I get to start on college applications...yay....not. They shouldn´t be to bad though.

Qué más? Well the week before last I went on my first trip. It was a blast-I absolutely love traveling and I am determined to see as much of Peru/SA as I can. I´ll write about the trip later and post pictures (I have a ton) but it´s getting late and I need to get up early and go work out tomorrow. I do have a few quick fun pics of some food though.
This first pic is Chupe de Camarones. Camarones are shrimp and Chupe is soup. The shrimp here come from the river, not the ocean and they are huge...like mini lobsters and the soup is delicious...really hard to eat though cause they shrimp come whole. It´s entertaining, time consuming and it´s pretty messy. It´s a definite must try if you are ever in Perú. This second photo is of chancho (pork) cooked really yummy (yes shocked mom and dad, I´m a carnivore here-lots of meat twice a day), the red thing is Rocoto Relleno (typical Peruvian food) which is a spicy pepper stuffed with meat, raisins, and some other veggies (prob one of my favorite foods) and rocoto is always accompanied with Pastel de Papas which is potatoes with milk and cheese (it has a different flavor but the closet thing I would think of is scalloped potatoes. I have to warn the animal lovers and vegetarians of this next image, it´s a bit graphic (Tocaya I´m sorry you had to see this lol). This is a picture of Cuy or as you all know it as Guinea pig. Back home a pet and here a delicacy-it comes out whole, served with feet, nails, teeth and everything. This was actually my moms dish, I haven´t had the urge to order it yet but I did have the nerve to try it and it is actually not bad at all, kind of good when you don´t think about what your ingesting. So here in Peru they grow the fruit big and the people small. This enormous thing to the left is a papaya, well half of one and the thing to the right of it is a good sized pineapple. The papaya is huuuge, when I first saw it I was like what is that thing? It´s so good though. Mmm I love all the fruit here, especially mangos, they are my new favorite :). And last but not least this thing below-I´ll have to ask my mom again what it is called but it´s a type of veggie that looks to my like corn husks. This is a picture of only half of it and it looks pretty disgusting but it´s actually really very good. It like rocoto relleno is stuff with meat and pasas (raisins) and veggies and stuff. Like most everything else here it is served with rice like you see below. I dunno what Juana does (our housekeeper) but she makes the best rice-it sounds funny but it has an amazing flavor-I´ll have to learn and then cook for you guys. I have some other food pics but they are still on my camera so they will have to wait till another day. Hope you all enjoyed your lesson in Peruvian cuisine-the food is delicious in this country if you ever get the chance to try it. Miss you all tons and I´m going to try and update more often. Lots to catch up on. Besitos-Court.