So the photo album called, "My life in Peru" is a random collection of photos that I have taken in the past two months since I last blogged about Machu Picchu. I have been going to school here in Lima and going to different events throughout the city. The people in my program awesome, and so is my host family. I am entering my last week of classes, I can't believe it! Everything is flying by which is why I haven't been great at blogging.
It is winter here so this month has been really cloudy and dreary which I didn't think was possible in South America but it is really similar to home. There have been some protests here in the capital of Lima because the Peruvian government has violated many rights of the native population, which is a very large population of Peru. In other news in Peru many people in the north of Peru are dying from the cold because the people don't have the resources to survive in this weather. My school has been having a huge fundraiser to raise money for clothes. All in all Peru is one of the more stable countries in South America right now, despite it's problems.
The last trip we went on was to Nazca. The Nazca lines are geometric line clearings in the Peruvian desert. They were made by the Nazca people, who were around between 200 BC. The Nazca lines are a great mystery/wonder of Peru. Their creation took hundreds of years and required a large number of people to be created. Nobody knows exactly their purpose, many think they were sacrifices to the gods because the Nazca people didn't have water in the desert. Other scientists think it was a way to show off creativity and many say that the lines can be linked to astronomy!
We went up in a little airplane and even though everyone felt sick to their stomach it was amazing to see these lines, though the pictures don't give them justice. We also went sandboarding with our program and took a boat tour where we saw wild sea lions, dolphins, and different types of birds. The trip to Nazca was a great experience and now we are getting ready for the Amazon Jungle, aka the Iquitos, on this Thursday. My time here is flying and I'm trying to get in everything I can before heading back to visit friends in Chile for a week. Anyways hope all is well with everyone, see you in the end of July! My next blog will have pictures from the Amazon so make sure to check it out!
Besos, Nicole
