Last Day In Peru

On Wednesday we finished our Service Project with the Piscacucho elementary school (Primeria). We were able to finish painting all the walls, built all the bookshelves, painted them, built all the tables, painted them with fun designs, and took a final picture in front of our favorite wall mural. The room looks beautiful and Graham, the project coordinator, said it would be a "much loved room."

After we finished work we had a traditional Pachamanca "earth oven" celebration with all of our families and the workers on the project. The men of the families spent all day building a rock earth oven, put in meat, potatoes, and beans, and then collapsed the oven on top of itself to cook everything for a half hour. After checking a potato to make sure it was done, they served the community out of their home-made pit barbecue, and we all had too much meat to eat.

Thursday we said goodbye to our families as the sun rose and headed on the train from Piscacucho to Macchu Picchu. Piscacucho is also where most people begin the Incan Trail (kilometer 82), so we saw several groups of hikers heading off to Macchu Picchu on foot. They will get there in four days- it took us about 1 hour in the nice traincar with a dome roof so we could see views of the mountains and Urubamba river all around. We spent much of the day with a tour guide from Macchu Picchu and then hiked all the way to the sun gate (the entrance to Macchu Picchu from the Incan Trail). That was hard but the views were well worth it. The "lost city" is still architecturally beautiful, and unbelievable. We'll post pictures when we get back to the states.

Jason and Adela treated us to dinner at a local adobe-oven pizza place, Pachamama's, in Ollantaytambo last night. Very fun and delicious, but we were also very tired from sightseeing, walking, and hiking all day. But it was a good kind of tired.

Today we are finishing our Leadership Curriculum where students will try to come up with their own ideas for future projects and enhancements we can give to the city of Piscacucho. Then we'll head to Cusco to meet Ensworth's partner school, the Santa Rosa Collegio. We have heard this is the nicest school in the entire Sacred Valley so we are anxious to see the differences between this school and the Primeria where we worked for two weeks. We'll have a little time this afternoon to see some ruins in Cusco and shop for souvenirs before our final group dinner. Early tomorrow morning, we'll be headed back to the states.

Everyone says hello and misses their families but all of your students have kept their spirits so high and taken advantage of every opportunity on this trip! Thanks for sending them to spend their time here.

See you Saturday,
Anna