what's the altitude

Jordan has bad altitude sickness so it's a perfect time to work on my tan (check) and blog!

we're in Huaraz, northern Peru, my favorite place in the whole entire world. I have never been anywhere so overwhelmingly beautiful. Our inn is about a 45 minute drive up crazy winding roads that are practically impassable from the town of Huaraz, it's a sprawling property with views of snow-capped mountains, farmland and the cordillera blanca mountain range. It's also the coolest place I've ever stayed with the nicest people. The owner's name is Dianna and she's from Canada but she's lived here for like 10 years. The goal of the inn is to be completely ecologically friendly, zero waste (dry composting in the bathrooms, more on that later) and to promote sustainable development withing the community. The entire compound (main house with guestrooms, horse stables, greenhouse, private cabins) was built entirely by hand by local contractors. It's called the Lazy Dog Inn because there are about 6 dogs just hanging around, sleeping in the sun and bothering the hummingbirds. It's literally like heaven. We have a balcony overlooking the most amazing scenery I have ever seen.

Anyways that's not even the best part, the best part is that it's very much off the beaten trail, all the people staying in the inn are very interesting, conscientious and active as opposed to annoying tourists you often encounter in hostels. We've made a tone of friends and it feels liek a home away from home, with people hanging out in the livingroom by the fire reading, lunch outside and communal dinner.

We arrived at 7 am after an 11 hour bus ride (also more on the COOLEST bus EVER later) and got here in time for breakfast where we met everyone and then decided to join one of the girls (actually from Ottawa) who has been living here for 5 months volunteering at the local schools. It was a 20 minute extremely steep descent past fields of wheat (sigh) full of workers and women in colorful skirts and funny hats (I didn't know they actually wore that stuff). when we came to the school all the kids ran out to give us hugs and welcome us and everybody along the road was waving and saying "buenas dias". We were with the littlest kids (who are freaking TINY) I'm not sure how old I think as young as four. Many of them can't speak and don't understand very well bu tare still really happy to see us. A lot of them only speak Ankash. We took them to a grassy area (after yet another steep decline) on a cliff, where I had several heart attacks as the four-year olds proceeded to hobble headfirst into ditches and teeter on the brink of the cliff, but the teacher did not seem to mind. I kept picking them up because they were making me too nervous, barely able to walk and tottering blindly headfirst down a rocky hill. I wish I could have taken pictures of them, especially my little friend Nestlea but it would have scared them off and we were there as teachers, not toursist.

The climb back up was HELL and we realized we probably should have taken more time to acclimatise since Jordan basically can't breathe and I was just boiling hot, exhausted and getting bitten by mosquitos. For the rest of the afternoon we hung out around the inn reading/tanning and now Jordan is napping. I'm gonna try and upload some of these pictures because this place is indescribeable. Also based on the pictures it looks like I was not even here because Jordan is a horrible photographer. When he feels better we're gonna walk around and take a million pictures, go horseback riding and do a trek in the cordilleras, most beuatiful mountains ever.