Julio 8, 2009

Another packed and interesting day!

I spent the day with IQuiero, the online store at Peru.com(or Peru-Punto-Com) 

IQuiero allows Peruvians living outside of Peru to send gifts to their families and friends living in Lima and other major regions in Peru.

The store literally has anything you would need to send to someone!

Beyond the most popular items of cakes and flowers, you can send refrigerators, washing machines, flat screen TV's you name it.

One of my favorite items was an order where you send a traditional Mariachi band to play in your receiver's front yard. I thought that was truly unique to this site, and that is not something you will find on a big site like Ebay.

I first met with Manuel, who is the head of the IQuiero delivery department. I also met Vicky, Elias, Javier and Mauro who are all involved in delivery/inventory. 

I took a quick tour of the delivery office and inventory room, which is filled with objects ready to be delivered.

Adter the tour, I set off with Mauro to make some deliveries around Lima. 

While driving around in the delivery van with Mauro we made our way through the neighborhoods of Miraflores, San Isidro, San Martin, Los Olivos, Magdalena Del Mar, Pueblo Libre, and San Miguel!

In just a few hours, I was able to experience all of these neighborhoods in a way that even most natives will never be able to. It was definitely a very unique tour and view of Lima. Mauro was great and told me about all the neighborhoods we visited and how to find locations that he was not familiar with, although he amazed me in his ability to name almost any street we drove on. 

I accompanied Mauro throughout all his deliveries and one in particular in which Mauro took a picture of the receiver with their gift. (This is a confirmation service than can be requested by the sender.)

This was a great experience and I felt as if this delivery trip was an added bonus to an internship that had already introduce me to the world of travel agencies and press conferences. I'm sure more awesome experiences await me over the next week as I continue my internship at Peru.com.

Chau

Julio 7, 2009

Back At the Office!

Today, I began my return to Peru.com with Kike, the editor of the website. 

At the beginning of and throughout each day Kike's inbox is filled with articles of journalist's hoping that there piece of news will make the current events or even frontpage!

Kike showed me how selects these articles and how he makes a post/headline on the homepage of Peru.com. 

The main headlines of today seemed to be the funeral of Micheal Jackson and the recent decisions of current Peruvian President Alan Garcia.

After my lesson with Kike, I headed up to the deportes/futbol section (Sports and soccer) that would provide experiences over the next couple days that I would never forget.

One of my goals going into this internship was to be involved in the sports section of the site, because I am a huge sports fanatic.

I had barley settled down in this new section of the office when I learned that I would be accompanying a soccer journalist to a press conference with the Heads of the Peruvian Soccer Players Organization. 

I was thrilled to hear this, and even more excited to learn that I would be responsible for taking pictures of the heads.

So, we left the office at about noon and after a short taxi ride arrived to a plain, white apartment building that had no press signs or anything on it's exterior. Not exactly what I had imagined where a press conference would be held, but it makes sense that they want to keep it low key for security reasons.

After reaching the room of the conference, it was much smaller than I had imagined and was packed from wall to wall with journalists, photographers, cameramen and TV reporters. 

I found out that press conferences involve a lot of waiting around and build up for an event that last just under ten minutes. 

Once the conference got under way, all the press members were suddenly entranced by the head's every word and move.

I found myself pressed against other journalists in a mad rush to get the possible shot. 

After the conference had ended, I was thrilled about the experience and satisfied that I had gotten a good shot. 

We returned to the office and I later saw that my picture had been put along with the article on Peru.com! (sports section, the link is in the sidebar)

After today, I could not believe how fortunate I was to have attended an event I thought I would only ever see on TV!

Chau!

Sacred Valley Journey Julio 6, 2009

Hola,

Today we made our journey back to Lima with a day flight out of Cusco.

Before leaving for the airport, we did some last minute shopping/photo-taking, never wanting to forget this amazing place.

Although I must admit I was happy to get back to sea level and be able to move around without panting every few seconds!

I am looking forward to continuing my internship at Peru.com tommorow!

Chau

Sacred Valley Journey Julio 5, 2009 (Parte 2)

Hola,

So, after passing through several towns, we reached the bustling town of Pisac. 

After it's ruins, Pisac is most famous for it's market, which is flowing with local vendors, customers and tourists totally lost because of the size of the market. The market is almost like a little town in itself, with a central square where most of the food products are sold and bartered for. We spent a while cruising though the stalls and stopping at whatever caught our eye, which can be almost any native Andean handicraft or piece of clothing. 

We even stopped by a local restaurant in the market that has a guinea pig farm!

Guinea Pig is a common and traditional food for the people of the Sacred Valley, and the farm was there so that customers could handpick their Guinea Pig. A little shocked by this after thinking that Guinea Pig's were only pets, we quickly passed on the opportunity to try one. 

After leaving the market, we headed for the ruins of Pisac at the top of the mountain, but we were interrupted by an animal native to the area. 

There Standing in the middle of the road was a white llama that looked pretty lost. We got out and took some pictures of it, but something must have set it off because after a couple of minutes it started frantically running around and charging at people!

So, not wanting to mess with the llama, we headed for the ruins.

It gets dark in Peru very early, at about just before six.

So by the time we got to the ruins moonlight was our only source to see the trail ahead of us. Although our tour guide first viewed this as a problem; the time of dat turned out to be an advantage, with no tourists and an authentic feeling of what it must've been like for the Incas at night. As we quickly made our way though the ruins the silence and peace of the ancient terraces, temples and houses was astounding. With wind rushing though the cracks of the ancient walls and a night sky blazing with stars that seemed so close you could almost reach out and touch them; this night was truly an experience.

Tired after all that we had learned in our packed day, we headed back to Cusco, preparing to leave the sacred Valley.

Chau

Sacred Valley Journey Julio 5, 2009 (Parte 1)

Hola,

We had a packed day today!

As we prepared to leave the Sacred Valley, I knew our time had flied by and we were going to miss the place the Incans called "Heaven on Earth." 

On our way back to Cusco, we stopped at the ruins of Ollantaytambo and Pisac. 

Our first destination was in the middle of a small town and the ruins were surrounded by a market and vendors desperate to sell their products; a sign of tourism invading this once quiet country. There was an amazing view of the valley from the top of the ruins, and we learned how important shadows were in Inca society and how they helped them determine tools like the sundial. They also were smart enough to develop a calendar out of one of the mountains in the valley. Wherever the sun rose in relation to the mountain, that determined what month it was.

So if you wanted to know what day it was, you had to wake up pretty early or just be a morning person!

After leaving Ollantaytambo, we drove into the small town called Yucay.

On this sunday afternoon, most of the kids, anywhere from 5 to 20 where playing in a soccer field next to the local church. This is one of the few towns that uses it's valuable space in the valley for huge, local fields for the public to enjoy. 

We stopped at a local restaurant across from these fields filled with soccer,volleyball and people just hanging out and enjoying the weather.

The restaurant was called AlpaManka, and was an outdoor oasis buffet hidden by Spanish rancho walls.  

The buffet was filled with Andean and Peruvian foods including Alpaca, Urubamba salmon and much more.

Some of the Andean/Peruvian food that my family and our tour guide enjoyed included:

-Lisas Uchu: (Stew of Andean Tuber)

-Alpaca a la Pimineta con Arroz (Alpaca in Pepper with rice)

-Pescada a la vasca:(Spanish style trout)

-Arroz con leche: (Rice Pudding)

After leaving the wonderful little restaurant, we passed through more little towns as we winded our way through the valley.

The "bamba" on the end of town's names comes from the original language here called Quechua, and means flat area for a town or layover or rest stop for traveling. 

Statues were all along the main road we were traveling on, and we stopped at one statue of a Puma in Calca and another of a corn farmer in Huyllabamba. 

This is a super-long post so i'll do part 2 in another post!

Sacred Valley Journey Julio 4, 2009

Hola,

Happy 4th of July!

Our day today was a little more relaxed and laid back.

We began the day with a rafting trip down the Urubamba river, which winds it's way through some of the highest mountains in the Andes.

I had never been rafting before, and had no idea what to expect.

Our guide was an easygoing and enthusiastic native peruvian named Sergio, who seemed like a natural at rafting. 

With the combo of a wetsuit, helmet and life vest on I looked pretty ridiculous but I was just happy to have the experience. I actually looked more like I was going to Jump out of a plane than raft, but whatever haha.

We went on Class 3 Rapids, which I guess is average level, but I'm not an expert. It was very fun though and I learned a lot as we passed through ancient ruins and sleepy little towns. It was one of the most peaceful places I have ever been. Despite the thousands of tourists that frantically cram into this valley en route to one of the seven modern wonders of the world; the river is completely quiet, with the only sounds being the cool breeze and a distant rooster announcing the morning. 

At the end of our river journey, we were treated to a Peruvian lunch with fruit and sweet cakes, it was delicious. 

We ate in an open field in the Ollantaytambo village filled with tents of backpackers, one of which was from San Francisco we found out after washing ashore. 

It's a small world, there we were on the Urubamba River and and we stumbled into someone not far from close to where we are originally from. 

After our rafting adventure, we drove back to our hotel and enjoyed a beautiful day. 

On the drive back, we passed by a bull fighting ring, which in this part of Peru is a rare event reserved only for special occasions. 

We topped off the day by seeing an astronomy show and seeing all the stars of the Peruvian Sky

Chau

Sacred Valley Journey Julio 3, 2009

Hola,

Today our trip took us to Machu Picchu.

We woke up way early at like 5:45 to catch a train to Aguas Calientes, the small village at the base of Machu Picchu.

The train ride was through the Urubamaba valley, winding through the huge mountains of the Andes.

Aguas Calientes' name was put on the map after tourists began to visit Machu Picchu in the 1950's. After meeting our guide Johnny, we took bus up the "Hiram Bingham highway" named after the man who discovered Machu Picchu. It's really just a bunch of winding dirt roads leading to the top of the mountain, so I don't know why it's called a highway.

Anyway, after reaching the top we were greeted with amazing views all around.

For the Incas who created this village it must have been no big deal, but 500,000 people come form all over the world to see this magnificent site.

I was surprised to learn that only 700 people lived in Machu Picchu, I thought there would be thousands of people;but I guess it's tough to fit that many people on one mountaintop! Despite all the tourists, the summit has a sense of freedom about it. A cool breeze sweeps through ruins that have been there for 500 years, llamas roam around, not bothered by all the people; and the surrounding mountains peacefully watch over the valley. We walked all over the ruins, and visited the sun and condor temples and the Inca's sundial.

After a day of exploring the majestic mountain range, we returned to Aguas Calientes on what I thought would be a normal train ride.

However, the employees of the train held a "fashion show" where they showed off the newest in Andean/Peruvian fashion, including alot of Alpacka sweaters. 

The train car we were in was filled with an Indian tour group, who were the perfect audience, clapping and dancing in the aisles to the techno music that seemed to be coming from nowhere. 

So, my day ended with a Peruvian fashion show and a Floridian tour Group disco in a train ride through the Andes, what a day.