The Maple Crew visits Peru

The Maple crew is currently in Peru, embarking on some land travel while Maple sits out the hurricane season in the Rio Dulce Guatemala.  After a long hiatus from posting, we’re kicking thigs off with some thoughts from Ella (11 year old, Grade 7) about Peru.



Q:  Where are you right now?
A: Right now I am in Arequipa, Peru.  Peru is in South America.d

Q:  What was your first impression of Peru?
A; When we first arrived in Peru it didn’t feel very different from any other country that we’d been in. I think that because we travel to so many different places, nothing seems too weird, every city feels pretty normal.  We had arrived in a city so it looked and smelled like a city.

Q:  What kinds of things have you seen so far in Peru?
A: So far we have seen a catacomb that was underneath a church in Lima, we didn’t have an English tour guide so we didn’t learn all the details. We also went on a small 6 seater plane and got to look a the Nazca lines. The Nazca lines are pictures in the sand that were made by the Nazca people between 500 B.C and 500 C.E. To make the Nazca lines the Nazca people would scrape the red sand and rock off of the surface to expose the gray rocks and clay underneath. The Nazca lines can only be seen from the sky so you couldn’t take a car to see them. Today we went to a museum about the Incan people and we learned about the sacrifices and how they only sacrificed children because they were innocent and pure.

On the Flight Line

Monkey

Spider

Tree

Q:  What was the most interesting to you?  Why was it the most interesting?
A: The most interesting thing that we have done so far was going to the Incan museum because I learned that to the Incans being sacrificed was an honor since they believed that you would be living with the gods. I also learned that to sacrifice them they would climb to the top of their sacred mountain and give the children and alcoholic drink that would make them sleepy, then the would club them on the head so that the skull would break and that is what killed them.  The first child that they found was a 12-14 years old. They decided to name her Juanita after the archeologist that found her. We got to see her skeleton and it wasn’t what I expected.  She was as big as a 5 year old even though she was fourteen. Two other children were found on the same mountain and all of them had gifts around them.

Library - Monastery of St. Francis of Assisi

Catacombs - Monastery of St. Francis of Assisi

Q:  What do you have planned for the rest of your trip?
A: For the rest of our trip we plan on going to Machu Picchu to see the ruins at the top. We are also going to see Lake Titicaca which has floating reed islands on it.

Q:  What are you most looking forward to and why?
A: I am really looking forward to going to Machu Picchu because there are some ruins of a city at the top which were only discovered in 1911.

So far the crew from Maple are holding up well, and enjoying the sights, smells, sounds and history of our first South American stop.