Markahuasi

Hello all,

This keyboard is pretty awful, so I´ll keep it pretty short. This weekend I got three days off instead of the usual one because July 28th is Peru´s Independence Day. I didn´t really get to see much of the celebration that accompanies it, although nearly everybody flies the flag and/or wears a special ribbon in the flag´s colors. Also, coming back today we saw tons of people at the prevalent local clubs, which are kind of like a hybrid summer camp and country club. They were cooking out, swimming, and playing outdoor games which reminds me of how most of us spend July 4th. Also, many go camping, which is what I did.
Where I went was the sacred mountain of Markahuasi. It is 12,000 feet tall, which was a pretty crazy ascent, especially with the thinner air. It took us (my host brother Juan Carlos, my pretty much host cousin and fellow volunteer Patti, and I) 4 hours to do it, although to be fair Patti probably could have done it a lot quicker. Juan Carlos and I have pretty similar physiques and are almost the same height, which provokes a lot of family resemblance jokes, although he is quite a bit older- 35. After we arrived we rested for a few minutes and then climbed some rock formations to view the sunset, which was pretty awesome. We bedded down about 9 to get an early start.
Markahausi is a table-top mountain with rock formations all around and some chulpas, or pre-Incan burial chambers. There is also a pretty spectacular lagoon and rocks shaped like all kinds of things. We saw all of this this morning, bright and early. Juan Carlos and I slept out in the open, which was freezing but worth it because of the stars. I woke up a half hour before everyone else, at 4 a.m. and just stared at the stars until they started moving. This hemisphere has a whole different set of stars than up north, and it was beautiful. After that we broke camp and saw the sights before descending, a lot quicker. I´ll have some pics up soon enough, as well as those from my trip up north to Cahamarca. Well, I had better run because I´m being called...