Mas fotos

This is Carol and Mauricio my Peruvian brother and sister. This is in Mauricio's room
This is Christo Blanco, the giant Jesus statue that overlooks Cusco.
The incredible, beautiful, and very deep canyon of the Apurimac River. This is one of the safety boaters running the hardest rapid on this section and as you can see he's taking the beat down. I didn't run this rapid.
Group photo taken in Pisac which. There are some very cool ruins in Pisac as well as one of the best artisan markets around. Pisac is located up the valley from Ollantaytambo.
This is a foto taken in ollantaytambo, these are some very cool ruins, and this is about half of my group sticking their heads out of some windows in the ruins.
This photo is taken in pacca huaynacolcca which is an extremely small village that overlooks the sacred valley. We went here are first weekend and finished up a service project that the group from last semester had started. It was a very beautiful place.

Imaginar Este

This Is a self-portrait that I took while hiking along the Inca Trail
These are finally the pictures I promised ranging from just about every experience I have written about since down here in Peru and a couple from back home in North Carolina. Enjoy and have fun. This is me resting in front of Mach Picchu, this is one of my favorite pic's.

Que Bueno

Well alright then I have been quite busy lately on a side note, I just read my brothers blog, www.zacharyleschhuie.blogspot.com, and it has inspired me to as my peruvian mother would say in her strangled english, speak good. My bro's blog is truly amazing and even contains pictures, the things that I continue to promise I will some day put here in this blog.
Well as far as what has been happening in my life lately, a whole hell of a lot. I just got back from one of the best hikes and experiences in my life, the Inca Trail. This is four days of hiking and on the final day you arrive in machu pichu, one of the most spiritual beautiful and greatest places I have ever been, despite the massive amounts of gringos everywhere and tourists alike. This was an extremely hard hike composed of total ups and downs, up a mountain, down a mountain. The hike was made harder because all the ups and downs are composed of steps, some of which are original Incan steps. Hiking the Inca trail nowadays is estremely regulated and you have to have a guide and porters. In the past there was no regulations and the are and the trail was getting trashed so the government came in and created regulations, which I think is for the better. The porters are only allowed to carry a certain amount and only so many people are allowed to hike it each day and these type of things. Down there in the sacred valley which is where the hike begins is the urubamba river which at this time was extremely flooded and awesome, the normal class 4/5 section was absolutely burly and I got to see the whole thing riding in a train along side it. I am very excited about my friends coming here from the states in a few weeks and then I will begin my kayaking journeys in Peru and Chile. Good stuff.
Well my classes are winding down and I have began writing papers, which eventually are in Spanish. First I do all my research and then I write my papers in Spanish, after that I spend a lot of time converting the paper from english to spanish. I have already written one paper for my development class and it was about the type of ethics, ideas, and philosophies that people have about doing development work in what are usually poorer countries and also about if development work is truly ever helpful. I really enjoyed writing it and giving a presentation about it in class, a very good time.
Tomorrow will be our last day working in Mantay, the house for adolescent mothers, and today we had sort of a good bye party and celebration of our good work there. I really have enjoyed my time there. There is some type of phenomenon that exists here which is that whenever I go into the country or in less touristy type places, I am gawked at, laughed at, and generally have a good time with the locals. I ask them why they are laughing at me and usually present that they are probably laughing at me because I am a very tall gringo, which makes them laugh even more. I really like this dynamic. At mantay all the young mothers there do the same. They are very shy and if I joke with them or try to interact with them they always laugh and shy away, it's quite funny. Today during our little party I eventually built up the courage to dance with one of these girls, after dragging her across the floor and then her having to coax me as well we danced. This was very funny as all the other girls were laughing at us and just generally an embarrassingly good time. I think this new building that we have helped construct for these ladies will be quite helpful. Well I guess that is more or less my present life. I am feeling poopy again, literally, so on monday I am gonna go get a blood test to see if I got anything living in there because this has been going on for while.
Everyone in my program is a little sad because we are realizing how little time we have left I feel very fortunate to be down here traveling for another 2/3 months after my school ends. Well ya'll take it easy and enjoy yourselves.
Love, nate

Realizando el diferencias entre me estilo de vida

Yesterday I just had a realization that this is the first time I have truly lived with parental type figures since I was 16. That is had people that kept a very close eye over me and care about what I am doing at all times, it is kind of strange. I am very used to doing what I want when I want and I just realized that I have been basically doing that anyways wether my family likes it or not. I guess what I am trying to say is that I am realizing that I would like to in some portion take in their concerns and desires towards my happenings and activities. Knowing that I only have a couple weeks left living with my family I really want them to be ones of good solid communication where we are growing closer rather than apart. I do feel closer with my family now that any time before, that feels good. I really like it down here it is such a relxed culture, and I am so much more calm now than I was before. In the last couple months I have been very uptight and defensive towards the people around me, and resulting to anger quickly, but now I have found my place of peace here. Last night it felt real good because I was able to have a small dispute with a taxi driver and remain calm, I told him everything I knew, he reciprocated and that was that, although eventually I knew I was not gonna pay him anymore so I just got out and closed the door. It was just nice to be calm and able to construct pretty solid thoughts in Spanish, because usually when I get made here I start going off in English which does no help for me and certainly no help for the other person because neither of us can understand eachother. Been having lots of dreams about the states and my friends there I am onviously thinking about it a lot. We are getting right into the rainy season now and it basically rains every day at least for an hour, it is also getting very hot. Well alright then.
Hablamos pronto.
-nate

Descansa, pero mas cosas hacere'

Well Lately has been pretty relaxing. I am basically recovered from my career as a modern artist in the form of fecal matters, which is nice. All of my friends from the states except for one have returned home and the one left is just traveling around and seeing the country. I ended up buying a kayak from one of my American friends so I have a kayak to take with me to Chile, which I hope to sell in Chile when I am done kayaking and make my money back. I have been talking alot with my other friends from the states that are going to come down here in December, we have got a pretty good plan of assault for kayaking the rivers of Peru, Chile, and Argentina.
School is in its final stretches and I will be wrting papers for 3 out of 4 of my classes, all of which will be in Spanish and around 5-10 pages, wow. I am really starting to realize how much I like it here and how much I am going to miss my current lifestyle and the people here. I have been going to a lot of birthday parties lately both of people in my school and the Peruvian sisters of other students in the program. It is cool to see the difference in traditions between such ritualistic activities as gift giving and celebrations. I really enjoy different traditions and will incorporate new traditions into my lifestyle.
Last weekend I went on an incredible hike and I got to see some cool looking creeks. The hike started in the last original incan town, that has a big name I cannot pronounce, and headed up a beautiful valley. No one really visits these ruins so it was a really unique quiet and original experience. It was one of my favorite activities thus far and I really enjoyed being up there on this mountain looking eye level at the clouds. There was a little family and a bunch of little kids up there and they kept laughing at me. We had surplus food so I made each of the six kids sandwichs and I kept joking around with them. After I gave them sandwichs I went up into the ruins to check them out, then all the little peruvian kids came up into the ruins and I spent ten minutes chasing them around and laughing and having fun. I love having these experiences with the locals, priceless stuff. Well I guess that's it for now, I am going to hike the Inca Trail this week and am really looking forward to that, it will be a four day hike. Everyone have fun and love life, I love it here but I also miss those familiar places, faces, and friends. Everyone take care
Love, nate