ChachachachachaPOYAS and Early IST

The ban has been lifted and Perú 17 is allowed to start taking VACATIONS! The first vacation time to roll around for us was Thanksgiving. A group of us decided to go to a place called Chachapoyas for a few days. The capital region of Chachapoyas is the Amazonas. Chachapoyas is considered "the eyebrow"of the jungle. 

The group of us took an overnight bus from Chiclayo to Chachapoyas- about 8 hours. It wasn't the greatest ride because there were a ton of swerves. We barely got ANY sleep. We got into Chachapoyas around 6am and decided to grab some breakfast and head out on a tour to Kuelap. Kuelap is like a mini Macchu Picchu. Itis an ancient fortress-city from the Chachapoya people, which is an Inca word that means "Warriors of the Clouds."  This fortress was built pre-Inca domination, and was eventually taken over and abandoned by the Incas.  It was massive, containing a multi-tiered city inside, complete with water management, burial grounds, and defense mechanisms.  


(All the pictures on this blog were taken by Lucas with his awesome camera)


Kuelap

The Chachapoyas Group :)

 I also took some small videos of us at Kuelap: 

The next day the group of us took a tour to Gocta, the third largest waterfall in the world. We took a van up to the small town of Maria where we began our 2 1/2 hour hike. We had a tiny little tour guide that basically ran up the mountain the whole time while some of us (not me of course) were huffing and puffing up the mountain. It was amazing to hike through some jungly looking areas- the pictures we took of the views will NEVER compare to what it actually looked like. The waterfall is made up of 2 separate falls, which you can see in the photos below, so we went to two "look-out points". We were able to jump into the water below the water fall. It was amazing. The water was SO COLD and pretty dark, but since we had all just done a pretty ridiculous hike to go all the way up there we had to jump in. It is a moment I will never, ever forget. We celebrated Thanksgiving all together at a small pizza place right off the plaza in Chachapoyas. It was a bitter sweet Thanksgiving. I had a great time experiencing this amazing places, but I missed my family back home. 

But here are some AMAZING pictures of Gocta!

                               

The ride up to the town.

   

    What we hiked through :)

Gocta!

    

Where we all jumped in

Peace Corps Volunteers do Gocta!

The few days in Gocta seemed to go fast and it was time for Peru 17 Youth Development's Early IST (In Service Training). It was a week of presenting our communtiy diagnostics and going over what projects to start in site and what to do during the summer months. The school year is wrapping up here and Peru and will not start again til the first week of March. This means us Youth Development volunteers are going to have to start getting creative during the summer months. The week fell on World Aids Day on December 1st and for our practicum we were split into 3 groups and had to do skits for a ton of people in the Olmos, Lambayeque plaza. 

A great photo of Kyle and I practicing our ABC's of prevention. Our skit was about-"A" for Abstinence.
Abstinence all the way baby. QUE RICA! :)



It was a great week reuniting with everyone and hearing about everyone's sad. The week went quickly and it was time to return back to sites. Once I returned back to Piura I noticed how much HOTTER it has gotten. I'm nervous for summer to start here.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving back home. Christmas is quickly approaching and I plan on staying in site with my host family. It will be interesting to see how my family celebrates this . I miss everyone back home! 

"Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as you ever can." - John Wesley


Until Next time,
BRIELLE