Final Day in Colca/Arrival in Puno!

16 September 2017

I slept in since we didn’t have to do anything in the morning. After I got around, I had breakfast with Sabrina and Axelle. I returned back to my room, finished packing, and then left the room to go explore the river. I took some photos…

Random rock stacks!

Afterwards, I rolled my luggage up the hill and eventually boarded the bus. Sabrina and I listened to music, looked at photos, ate American and Peruvian junk food, and took photos. A little while into the bus ride, I realized I had left my jacket and hat in the hotel (except it wasn’t actually my jacket and hat, it was my host families). 

With nothing do, I spent my bus ride with Sabrina and the other exchange students. Once we arrived in Puno, to my relief, one of the Rotarians had grabbed my host sister’s jacket and hat. Now a bit less panicked, we all made our way through rainy Puno to our hotel. The hotel was a step down from the previous one (you couldn’t really Colca’s hotel). We all sat in the lobby, got our roomates, and then headed to our rooms.  I was rooming with Pia (Germany) and Axelle (Belgium) on the fourth floor. This meant we either had to drag all of our bags up four flights of stairs, or wait to take the sketchy elevator. We all opted to take the elevator (we weren’t going up those stairs), so we waited our turn and then crammed in like Sardines in a can. Once we got up to our room we all quickly got around and headed back to the lobby so we could walk to dinner.

Dinner was a blast, with decent food, great friends (I sat with Sabrina, Courtney, Macie Tiia), and some awesome traditional Peruvian music. We all danced in our seats, and learned one part of a song “Pacha Mama”. Pacha Mama is the name of the mountain on one of Lake Titicaca’s islands. The songs were all in Quechwa, a traditional language spoken in the mountain regions of Perú. After we listened, ate, drank, sang, and danced, we got to meet the director of the school we would be painting. We also got to meet some of the Rotarians of Puno’s Rotary (who we would be going to see later). 

After dinner we returned to the hotel, where we all went to bed and took showers. We all knew we would be waking early the next day and were all unsure of how we would be living for the next few days so we prepared ourselves and got ready. We packed all of our things into one backpack before hitting the sack.