Saturday Hiking Excursion

My first hiking trip in Peru!!

It was nice to have a break from the Training Center for a few days. Saturday morning I slept in a bit (7:30am!) and played cards with Marbeli until 9:30. I taught her "Egyptian Rat Slap" and she calls it "Juego de Jotas" meaning the "game of Js" because the Jacks are the most important to have to win! We have lots of fun with that :) Afterwards I spent some time at Austin's house talking to his 8 year old sister and playing with his 8 month old sister, so cute! I bought a bracelet from the older one for 2 soles (~ $0.70).

Then Austin, Katie, Graham, Graham's sister, dog, and I ventured out on a hike over the foothills behind our community and into the next community, Yanacoto, where some more volunteers live. It started out awesome with clear trails, etc. At the highest point we saw a beautiful resort/ country club complete with multiple pools, a lake, horse arenas, tennis courts, and soccer fields! After a little over an hour of walking up and over our hills, we started up the next set of hills and realized there was a huge wall that stretched from the bottom to the top as far as we could see. Our idea was to walk to the wall and then follow it down to get around it.

After trekking through vegetation, a river, and realizing we were somewhere we shouldn't be, we ended up in front of a bungalow INSIDE the country club! We apologized to the renters, told them we got lost, and asked where the exit was. They were super nice and no one really seemed to suspect we didn't belong to the club! That is until the guards noticed we had a dog with us... She told us the dog couldn't be there so we apologized and said we had gotten lost and are looking for the exit. The guard escorted us to the exit and was soooo nice. She told us about all the club had to offer, how much it cost for a day, gave Graham's sister a pretzel: very nice treatment for trespassers!

Eventually we made it into Yanacoto and took refuge in Gillian's house to rest our legs and refill our waters. We also ran into Dale and Andrea. Their community is much larger than ours but similar in the way it looks. From there we asked for better directions and this time made it around the wall by following it all the way up until it ended at the top of the foothill. Getting up there was the hardest part so after that it was smooth sailing until we made it back home finally!

Our whole trip lasted from 10:15- 3:00pm, about five hours! It was really fun though, and my cold water shower never felt so good!