Day 12 - 14: La Merced jungle trip!

Hi all!!

since I am so extremely far behind with updating, I´ve decided to just go forward with present update and worry about Day 8-12 sometime laterz! (prob gonna do a photo diary thing to summarize those 4days).

Anyway! For the weekend we went to La Merced, a city surrounded by jungles! It was a long 5hr bus ride to get there, we left at 5pm so I didnt get a chance to work at INABIF. I was really upset in the day.. because.... STUPID KODAK SHOP SCREWED UP MY SD CARD!! I had 325++ photos in the SD card and wanted to burn them on a CD-rom before the jungle trip, so in the afternoon I went to a KODAK photo shop. But guess what?? Cuz I couldnt speak Spanish I couldnt get them to show me my photos on the spot, and when I checked my CD-rom at a internet cafe, there were only 36 photos.... I was so upset and pissed! Right now I am at a internet cafe, trying to use my friend´s camera + USB to see if there´s anwyay to save my photos...booo.... I am so upset now because the camera couldnt read my SD card at all.... my photos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that was a bad start to the trip. Thankfully the weekend turned out fantastically and the weather was BEAUTIFUL!! We left Huancayo at 5pm, and it was full-moon on Fri night so we saw the most magnificent moon!! Over the skyline and mountain silhoutte, the full moon was incredibly bright and lit up the road. We could see rock formations and chance in vegetation even without the lights of our bus, since the moon was so bright!! It was amazinging beautiful and thanks to the weather, I found the SOUTHERN CROSS!!! The stars are a little apart from each other, but the cross shape is definitely identifiable. En route, we came across the old capital of Peru (gotta find the name). The streets were a lot narrower but the city was well-kept, with most of its buildings refurnished/painted. We stopped for el baño (bathroom) and I found out an interesting fact, the city plazas are always built next to a cathedral! The next city we went to was a small city, nicknamed ¨Pearl of the valley¨ because it is situated right in the middle of mountains, completed surrounded!! Finally, we arrived at La Merced and found our hostel. I stayed in a double room with Kerrie, and the biggest room had 6 rooms!! Anyhow, we headed out for dinner near the plaza and Elizabeth (my spanish teacher who has been to La Merced before) found the restaurant they wanted to bring us too. It was closing and re-opened for us!! The metal shutters were already closed, and we were led through a tiny door on the gate. We had pollo y papa fritas (fried chicken & fries) and some ppl ordered beer. Dinner was great! Elizabeth has been talking about going to a club for the entire bus ride, which was apparently ¨the most beautful club in the jungle¨, so obviously I was very interested in going!! But everyone got tired and refused to go.... in the end, I convinced Siew Jin & Amanda so 4 of us went!

Earlier on at the plaza, there had been a fiesta & fireworks. Its a celebration for a Saint, and in La Merced the celebration lasts for the entire month of May (Some city huh?)! So when we went to the club, there was very little people. The club was magnificent! It´s built like a jungle hut, 2floors high with the entire 1st floor as a dance arena. It was closed for the night due to the lack of the people, but it would have looked amazing if it was filled!! The club is called ¨Kamar de Cafe Rocka¨ and had funky Greek stone angel decors. The 2nd floor was sort of like a balcony-patio, surrounding the exterior of the 1st floor dance arena overlooking the crowd. The 2nd floor was indoor, with glass seperating the bar/sitting area to balconies. We stayed till around 2am, had fun dancing but left early because we needed to wake up by 7:30am Sat morning!!

On Sat, we had breakfast at La Merced. Kerrie & I found an awesome restuarant-cafe, and we had Tortilla de carne & Bistek (Friend egg & beef stew with rice), with AWESOME coffee!! Then we headed out to the JUNGLE HOUSE. Basically a big house/hostel in the middle of the jungle!! It is 1.5hr away from La Merced, we dropped off our backpacks and changed into our bathing suits since we were heading to waterfalls!! First, we went to Pampamichi, a traditional tribal village. We got to wear their costume + hats/accessories and I really blended in cuz of my black hair!! The chief spoke first in the dialect, followed by Espanñol. I swear they looked Asian and the local dialect sounded a lot like Japanese! We did a tribal dance thing with them and I bought 2 bracelets hehe.

After Pampamichi, we set out towards Kimo (see even the name sounds jap!). Kimo is in the midst of jungle and we needed to hike to 2 waterfalls. To get to Kimo, we needed to cross the river! Guess how that worked? We had to take a cable-car like cart dangling on top of the river, which is MANUALLY PULLED ACROSS!! its hard to describe, but basically a metal card with 2 pulleys on either side, and our guide gets in the cart to pull us over by using the pulleys! It was really cool and I cant believe our guide manually tranports ppl over to Kimo daily!! Anyhow, we arrived at the other end and walked up a hill to get to our meeting point. After 15min, I was AMAZED by wat we see. It was a resort in the midst of the jungle!! With small hut/houses with colorful hammocks hanging outside (only USD$15 per night!) and a mini lake in front of the houses, with a small island with a MONKEY on it!! It was awesome!! We dropped our bags off and started 30min hike into the jungle. It was pretty easy, but I am definitely not as fit as I was back in Gr8 when we hiked in ChiangMai, Thailand!! The waterfall was beautiful, we swam and took lotta photos. Cuz of the rain ealier in the morning, the trail to the 2nd waterfull is muddy and challenging. I didnt go but about 15of us went. It took them 2hrs to get up and down!! And some `people got injured cuz the trail was slippery =( Nothing big tho. I headed back to the resort place with Neha, where we decided to swim across the lake to greet the monkey Juan. We arrived and sat down, calling Juan over, and it actually came and curled up on my lap!!! We didnt bring a camera, other wise it would have been an AMAZING photo. Once in a life time experience to have a monkey sitting on ur lap!! But it bit me twice too, little scratch which didnt break the skin.... i was trying to hold it up because it appeared as if it was falling. Then it bit me!! So we left the island and left Juan alone.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, tanning & chilling at the resort. I got on the hammock and it was sooooooooo niiiiiiiice. The wind blowing, warm sun, beautiful mountain, lake, palm trees... sigh. I didnt wanna leave!! But then we had to get going for the jungle house. We left at 5pm, had dinner at a restaurant near the house. Fried Yuka fruit (taste like potato)+banana+chicken+rice, i feel so healthy here with the fruits!! The restaurant owner was so happy to see a group of gringos (white ppl) that she took photos of us & we all signed the guest book! It was great. At night, we had a cool bonfire at the house!! Most ppl were exahusted and slept at 11pm, but I loved the bonfire!! First melted mashmellow! Mashmellows actually taste kinda weird grilled, but we had it sandwiched with chocolate cookies, called S´mores (cuz u always want Some´more!), apparently they are made during bonfires in the US. I stayed up till 3am watching the fire... the jungle was so serene with beetle sounds, and there were fireflies too. The moon was shining over us and the tranquility was soothing. That was a great night =)

On Sunday, Kerrie & I missed breakfst on puporse so we can sleep in! Bad choice. We shld have woken up early to get the good seats since its a long ride home on sunday. I ended up getting the worst seat at the back of the bus, with all the bag piled up and no leg room.. ouch. Anyhow, we went to Yunaki (see! Japanese-like name again!!) waterfall and it was MAGNIFICENT! Huge waterfall over 15m high, we swam and tanned for 2hrs, there was a really cool cave behind the waterfall too!! It was funny bcuz everyone was bitching abt seeing another waterfall, but when we got there, everyone LOVED it. There were millions of butterflies and it was an amazing sight!!

Ok!! gotta run for dinner!! update more latteerz!!!