NO ENGLISH! NO ENGLISH!

So, the real fun started on Thursday night. Marilu had a party for her university at a place called Sargento Pimienta (Sargent Pepper). It was insane, but I met an amazing girl named Tatiana who is one of Marilu's really good friends. Who knew I could make such a great friend in another country! This girl is so great, love her to death. All of us were dancing when all of a sudden some creepers came up behind us wanting to dance with us. Of course, they didn't understand English so all we had was "NO! NO NO NO NO!! ADIOS! NO!" They got the clue after a while, but boy were they annoying. A little while later while dancing, I spot the back of some guy's head who happens to be sandy blonde. Amanda and I look at each other and at the exact same time say; "He's from the US." So, we make our way towards him and I shout out.. "Hey! Are you from around here?" His response was, "maybe." With that response, obviously he wasn't, so I called his bluff and turns out he's from San Francisco and was here with two friends, just back packin' around Peru. His name was Peter, and he was with his friends Matt and Russ. Oddly enough, Russ's girlfriend is from Michigan, but she's from the U.P. So, Amanda and I automatically felt a little at ease not being the ONLY people from the U.S. in this place! Peter hung out with us for the rest of the night, danced the night away with us. He and I quickly became "BFF's" as Peter would say. He was quite the trip. The night ended too soon when 4 am hit and Rodrigo and I had to leave because we had a road trip at 7 am the next morning! What a car ride this would be... We woke up at 7, got in the car, and to sleep we went. Our road trip was going to take us to a place near the high lands called Oxapampa. To get there it took a good 4 or 5 hours through the curvy Andes mountains. For being someone who doesn't appreciate the outdoors as much as she should, this was amazing. I have never seen anything like this and what a once in a lifetime experience this was! Who can say they've just been in the Andes mountains? And had their car break down while at it, too! Yeah, let's talk about that. So, we're driving up these mountains, we're probably a good two hours into the mountains when the car starts to smoke. Alberto (my host dad) stopped the car to let it cool off. I'm half asleep at this point so I'm chill with everything that's going on when normally I wouldn't be. The car gets cool again and so we're off! Not thinking anything of it, we have to stop again about an hour later. Alberto has some freeze stuff to cool the car off, pours it into the engine or something, and the car starts smoking.. like it busted out like a fountain.. it was insane! The car finally cools down again and we're driving for quite some time when all of a sudden, we're driving up a mountain, when the car just shuts off! Like, WHAT IS GOING ON?! The car had just died. FANTASTIC. We are in the Andes mountains, 4 hours from Lima, and a half hour down the mountain from our destination and it dies. What luck I have. We have to push the car to get it out of the road, oh what a disaster this was. We finally get a jump, turn around, and coast back down the mountains, for 3 hours. We get to this little town, when the car finally decided that we weren't going to coast anymore, and it was just going to die and leave us hanging out. Annie and I weren't just gonna hang out, so we took a 45 minute ride back to Lima safe and sound. No Oxapampa for us!

Because we didn't adventure off to Oxapampa for the weekend, Rodrigo and I met up with Amanda and Marilu for lunch. We went our for Chifa (so good) and then Rodrigo and I went to Jockey Plaza to get me some tennis shoes! Girl found out she's going to Matchu Pitchu and is by no means wearing the shoes she brought! After buying shoes, we had some down time, and then out we went! We met Amanda, Marilu, and Marilu's boyfriend Diego (who is probably the funniest person I have ever met, reminded me of my brother Jarrod) at a place called Rustico for a birthday party! Oh the fun we had here. Rodrigo and I got there before they did, but sadly, we didn't know the name of the girl's whose birthday it was, but Marilu got us on the VIP list, so not good! Finally we got the name and got in to have some fun! I met a few of Marilu's friends, one specifically named Francisco. While meeting him, the first thing he says to me is.. "I don't speak uh- spanish, no english, ONLY FRENCH!" Oh man, got a laugh out of me. Although his name was Francisco, this is not what we called him. People who have that name, have the nick name Pancho, but Amanda and I, nope, not what we called him. All night we called him Plancha as a joke. (Just to let everyone know.. plancha in Espanol, is to iron, so he got a kick out of it.)

On Monday at 3 am, Amanda, Marilu, and I left for a mini girls vacation to a city called Ica, 5 hours away by bus. Seriously, the fun we had on this trip. We arrived to our hotel around 9 am, went to sleep until noon, and to downtown we went! We got there, dressed in shorts, and looking completely foreign. I just love walking down the street and having people look at me like I'm crazy. Because Amanda is blonde, that completely blew our cover, even one security guy looked at us while walking by and said "hello!" Being in the area we were, these people didn't know English, so we got a kick out of it. We said "hola" back, he looked surprised and started talking to us REALLY fast in Spanish.. and we both looked at each other and laughed and said "No hablo Espanol, lo siento!" Oh man, it was the funniest thing ever. We got back to our hotel, hung out by the pool for a bit, and then off to the sand dunes!! I don't even know how to explain this experience. We were in a Dunbuggy type thing, with 8 other people, the driver took us into these sand dunes and literally that's all you saw for miles upon miles. It was gorgeous but, kind of scary seeing as OUR BUGGY BROKE!!! We're enjoying our little joy ride, when something pops in the buggy and we stop, have to get out and hang out in the damn dessert for 15 minutes! Luckily, another dunebuggy came by and picked us up, thank the Lord! The guy who picked us up, holy smokes, he was a trip. His name was Rolando and he was crazy. He was a triiiip. I sat in the front seat next to him and he would take us over these dunes and you couldn't see what was on the other side, and being someone who is afraid of heights, imagine the fun this was. I would look at him and be like you are crazy! what are you doing?! and he'd respond with "NO ENGLISH CHICA! NO ENGLISH!" and would laugh hysterically. We also went sand boarding! Sand boarding is just like snow boarding, but on sand! People are crazy who try to stand up and do it.. they just end up falling on their ass and get hurt, so I was smart and went on my stomach, still so fun! We got to watch the sunset from the dunes and what a view this was. This was one of the prettiest things I've ever seen, it was like out a movie! On our way back to the hotel in our SECOND dune buggy, the tire pops and we have to stop! We are literally 100 feet from the hotel and we get a flat tire. Dunebuggy numero tres, vamos! So funny. We finally got back to the hotel safe and sound, took showers, and all three of us passed out. Ica was really fun and I had so much fun experiencing everything, God forbid something go right with me involved!