Phase Four of PEru!

Let me tell you a story. Philip Ryburn is from Austrailia. He likes to pretend he is from New Zealand too. Thats a different story. In peru they call him Felipe. Oh phil. Or sometimes I would throw in Philip. No I never did. Basically he is an incredible volunteer and spent three months in Peru and did a number of brilliant (I may have stole that word from him) things. But I know he will read this entry and be embarrassed if I tell you all the things he did. One thing he did was take Jana, Megan and I on a jungle trip. We got on a bus and rode 5 hours throughout the night. A man sitting across from Phil and I tried to buy my blue pillow. To read more about this pillow and its meaning to me once you click scroll down to my comments. click here to follow a link to Brookes blog where I had to defend my pillow.

Then we arrived in La Merced and got in a moto taxi. Oh did I say got in? I meant SHOVED ourselves in there. Where Megan was falling out of the front seat, which really wasnt a front seat. And..we all had bags and this moto taxi is basically a motorcycle with a backseat and a fancy cover over it. I may attach a pic. It was probably like 2 in the morning. We walked down the streets of La Merced trying to find a hostel. All full. So we turned and followed our trusty guide...whom was Phil whom had been once before. Then we found a hostel. Four twin beds in one small lovely room. With a shower. It was okay. What kind of description did I just give you? It was okay? Ha. It was an experience. And there was a rooster.

The next morning we found our jungle tour and experienced the jungle. Here is Phil describing the aftermath of the jungle. I know he loved me taking videos of him endlessly. So did Jana and Megan. For reals. Jana and Megan are just the most wonderful pair ever. They got me through my orphanage experience. Dont worry I went to Peru for a reason, and the orphans are coming. Probably Phase 5. Sorry to distract. Here is Phil.


Our living quarters. Notice my blue pillow. Notice Megan.
ONce we got locked out of our hostel. The key wouldnt work. So the man helping us said something in Spanish and then left. Phil assumed he said, oh lets climb over. So PHil climbed into our room like this. I assisted. Later the man clarified he was going to get something to reach over and unlock the door. Why? WE have Phil. Duh. He can climb into hostels. I felt super safe leaving my passport there during the day after this. Passport..not stolen. Phil...not hurt. All wonderful news.
We are set out to begin our trip. Lions and Tigers and Bears. Be afraid.
we were so afraaaaaaaaaaiiiddd!
in peru, we swim in big rivers. with tires as tubes. not inflated tires, but just rubber tires.
a river of love in the jungle
climb so you can see the most wonderful waterfall Brittany, climb.
our guide struck a pose before he did...........look below
this! before he assisted me into climbing this!
while i was climbing i instructed phil to take pictures. He decided it would be a good idea to put a hundred pictures of his face on my camera. Phil be glad I chose this one over the nose hole shot. If you click on this picture you can also see braids in his hair, in which I did. In random places. It was to make him look...rugged?
if cold had a bigger and better word to describe it. .. . i would write that word.
swimming in this garbage waterfall water. lots of visitors apparently. not clean water.
once i thought we would be done climbing it just happened all over again..and again.
after the jungle experience we got back to la merced and didnt really have a lot to do, after Phil said the word busker (a word I love a lot) and it means to perform on the street for money, I decided we needed to do something so we didnt have to busk. So we raced down a normal street powerwalking. Phil won of course because he is really good at dorky powerwalking, maybe its all the hours we sat and watched the olympics of powerwalking in peru. Then after that since Jana was the loser we made her drink some cheese. Thats right. Cheese. Megan was sleeping. With a plan to wake. She never woke. Well she did..but not till morn. So next adventure..we decided or PHil decided we would buy water and straight arm drink it..apparently they do this with beer, considering my circumstances...I didnt want beer, so we chose water. And got really wet. I dont think Jana wanted beer all over her either, Phil didnt mind im sure.
SO Janas punishment was drinking this cheese, then Phil and Jana decided I had to as well...it tasted like a liquid version of the mac and cheese packs of powder cheese, except they threw in a cow salt licking block for flavor. SALTY.
Jana attempted at capturing the cramminess of the moto taxi on the way to the bus station when it was all over.
i captured this sneak preview of the mototaxi. And phil.
This was the food I ate the morn we left. French fries, basically.
I tried to just you know stick my arm out in the mototaxi and take a pic..this is what we got. Have? This is what we have. Whatever.
We arrived at this butterfly/rescue zoo and Phil let this little creature crawl on him. The creature kept making squeeking noises. Like a baby.
Jana and Phil just loved the little thing, me and Megan chose to abstain from the creature. (notice Megans face in the background her mind is thinking, "oh my Heck (come on she doesnt say heck, only I say heck) Jana are you really? is that really touching you? Are you really my friend? Did we really come to Peru? Oh I feel sick")
Just to prove we really did see butterflies in the rescue zoo, and PHil really did try to translate. The girl would talk for three mintues and Phil would translate it all into one sentence. Thanks PHil. You are awesome.