un país diferente

hey guys,

so if you hadn´t memorized my schedule for the summer, i left ba on last saturday and went with beth thorne, alex clendennen, and abby wallace to perú. yesterday and today we went to machu picchu. we have one more day here in cuzco (the oldest city of the incan empire) and then we go to lima for a day and a half before heading back to the states.

perú is making us all realize how different ba is from the rest of south america. in argentina we could blend in (for the most part), but here, since the majority of the population has a lot of incan blood, we stand out like toursits with a capital T. this is making it an alltogether different experience, but a very enlightening one. perú is much poorer than ba, but the people here seem to be much friendlier and more open to talk about their culture. i suppose that´s becuase the spaniards pretty much wiped them out--according to our machu picchu guide, omar, the dominicans killed 90% of the incan population and attempted to destroy as much as they could of incan culture. what´s known now has been passed down in oral tradition and the ruins that somehow remain.

i can´t upload pictures now becuase there is no wifi in cuzco (i´m on a shared computer in a locutorio) but needless to say machu picchu was amazing. it´s beautiful and stunning and there are llamas that roam around and chew the grass!

i´ll be back in the states soon,
ellen