Sacred Valley

Just finished a week in the "Sacred Valley" of the Andes. We stayed in a beautiful little compund with round huts made out of adobe. They sound primative but they were really cool and had hot running water. It was pretty relaxing, classes for half the day then studying, visiting the plaza or doing homework for the other half of the day. There are a lot of Inca ruins in the valley so a couple of days we went to see them.

The valley is a huge contrast between extreem poverty where people live in houses with their animals and have litte acess to clean water, but right up the street is a restort with spas, restaurants, and gardens filled with waterfalls.It seems to be like that in all the Sacred Valley towns.  It was kinda hard to see. The name of the resort was Casa Andina and we would often go there for internet acess. I have to admit that it was a beautiful place to visit, but the contrast was unsettling. At the end of the week I asked someone who lived next to our school how Casa Andina treated the community. She said they had to work 12 hour days and the pay was really bad, she felt that they exploited the town and the only people who made money of it were the onwers...oh dear....I didn´t tell her that I had just come from using their internet! I guess she used to work there, but she quit and she wouldn´t let her daughter work there. Disappointing.


Tonight we are off to Lake Titicaca. We are going to take an overnight bus and spend the weekend there before Lindsey goes back home. Hopefully, afterward I will be on my way to Boilivia, but they are having some trouble right now with protests along the border and I might have to go by water (which would cost about 70 dollars as opposed to about 20). A taxi driver told me that he thought the protests would be resolved by monday, so I will have to wait and see. Maybe I will be in Peru for a couple extra days.

Love and miss you all. Pray for saftey for traveling for both me and Lindsey.

PS I love getting emails!