Jankers

Last Saturday, Alicia and I hiked up to a nearby hill where the city built a huge cross. A Peruvian friend of ours showed us how to get there. Unfortunately, Gustavo and I were the only oneŽs crazy enough to go to the top during rain and thunder. Alicia stopped about halfway up the 300 or so steps to the top. I figured we were safe since any lightening would hit the tower and not us, right?

Here is a picture of the Ladrillera – the area we wrote about in our last post. (Ladrilla is the spanish for brick). You probably canŽt tell but the picture shows both their houses and their kilns for baking the bricks. None of the houses have water or sewer and only a few have any electricity.

On Friday we had some success working with the kids to paint the wooden puzzles. We had the few oldest paint the puzzles and the rest painted rocks. The other gringo in the picture is a new volunteer, Ashley, who arrived last week from Belgium.

This past saturday, we treked up to a glacier on a huge nearby mountain. (not visible from Huancayo) The area is called Huatapallana. Instead of hiring a tour service, we paid our friend Marco to show us the way. Marco works as a guide in Cusco but spends a lot of time in Huancayo where his family lives. The trip involved a 2 hour drive from the town center to the a ridge where the hike started. 95 percent of the trip was on very rough gravel road in the two small taxiŽs Marco arranged for us. The hike was very difficult but the sights were amazing!

The original plan was to hike across a section of the glacier but the conditions were not that great so we just stood on the glacier to prove we were really there! (The other gringos are other volunteers. L-R: Alicia, taxi driver, Hari, Myles, Ashley, Marco)

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 27th, 2005 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Huancayo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.