Sandboarding

The wind was whipping my face as I sped down the hill, no, mountain of sand.  As I neared the path, I knew I was going too fast to stop, and that’s when the ground hit me.

Last night we signed up for “sandboarding.”  Sandboarding is basically riding down a steep mountain of sand on snowboards.  When we arrived at 4:00, our guide started telling everyone (two other kids and lots of 20-30 year-olds) to head over to the vans.  The vans brought us into the Death Valley.  The Death Valley looked, as our guide said, kind of like the surface of Mars, with lots of sand and clay mountains around the road.  The road was very bumpy because it was mostly washed away by rain.  As we came around one last rocky corner, the giant sand dunes rose up over the horizon.

The sand dune was maybe 300 feet tall.  We all got out of the van and gazed up while our two guides unloaded the snowboards.  Once they were all set on the ground, we started picking them out and bringing them up the dune.  This was by far the most tiring and hardest part of the tour.  Each trip up took 10 minutes more or less.  But when you’re thinking about what’s to come next, it seems easy. 

When we arrived at the very narrow top of the sand dune, we started strapping ourselves in.  After that our guide gave us a few instructions and sent us down!  After I saw four people go down, I thought, “Oh this doesn’t seem too bad.”  So then I went down.  The first couple of times, I went slowly and thought to myself the whole time, “I’M GOING TOO FAST!!” But the third time, I started to go a bit faster, and a bit faster and then I started zipping down the dune.  Luckily, I stopped right before the bottom. 

The next time, it went a bit differently.  I started out fast and I liked it.  When I started getting close to the bottom, I stopped, or at least tried to stop.  When I hit the flat part, I completely wiped out hitting the ground and rolling down the hill for a couple of feet.  If anything, it felt super fun and I rushed up to go again!

Here's the video of my run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzB7GFOGDZs

Cholita Wrestling

Last Sunday in La Paz, Bolivia, we all went to an event called "Cholita Wrestling."  Cholitas are indigenous ladies who wear big skirts, petticoats and bowler hats. Cholita Wrestling takes place in El Alto.  El Alto is almost like a separate city on the outskirts of La Paz.  All the rich people live in the bottom of La Paz and all the poorer people live in El Alto.  El Alto is up in the hills of La Paz, two to three thousand feet higher.  It's only been there for 28 years and about one million people live there.  Cholita Wrestling takes place in a run down gym with seats set up around the ring.  About 50% of the audience consists of 20-29 year-old gringos.  The feeling of the place is crazy, dirty and hectic.

If you know what WWF is, it's kind of the same thing, just in Spanish and a lot less realistic.  In case you don't know what the WWF is,  it's kind of like wrestling, except it's all staged and half the time, all they do is trash talk and talk about fighting...  Anyway, Cholita Wrestling is pretty much the same thing, just super super super entertaining and exciting.

The "show" started with "Angela de la Florista" vs. "El Mercenario."  The commentators would introduce each fighter as s/he came in.  They would do some trash talking and then the match would begin.  Angela, the hero, and El Mercenario, the villain would start off equally.  Then the referee would side with the bad guy and start kicking Angela.  After they tossed each other around in the ring, they would take people out of the audience to help with the match.  Angela took two guys and made them take off their shirts.  They then proceeded to beat up El Mercenario.  While Angela ran away to the other side of the ring, El Mercenario grabbed a chair and threatened the two audience members with it.  While this was happening, Angela made a dash back to the other side and poured some liquid on his pant leg and threw a match.  It went up in flames.  This caused El Mercenario to run from the ring screaming.  In other words, Angela de la Florista won.  In about ten minutes,  El Mercenario returned and gave a speech about how he would beat her up next week.  And with that, the next match began.  

Cusco

Today marks the beginning of our second week in Cusco.  So far, I think we all like it.  Our house is two blocks away from the main street, so there’s never any short of cars honking, people yelling, and dogs barking.  Every day, when we go outside on our way to Spanish school, we line up on the extremely narrow sidewalk and try not to get hit by the side view mirrors of the many passing vans and the occasional bus.  When we return at the end of the day, we line up again, until Dad unlocks the two doors leading into our house.  Our house is about five long blocks from the Plaza de Armas, the main square in Cusco.  From there, you can go to the many restaurants, including KFC and Starbucks, my favorites, and admire the view of the surrounding mountains.  Sadly, I haven’t been to either one of those restaurants.  Instead, we are going to all these Peruvian places. 

Even though Cusco is very pleasant, there are some gross things about it.  Many stray dogs live in the city of Cusco.  Some are just scraping by.  One day, when my mom and I were walking home from school, a dog stopped right in front of our house and took a huge dump.  It was so gross.   Something even grosser happened on our way back from school in a taxi.  I didn’t see the sight for myself and I’m glad I didn’t.  From what I heard, someone was crapping right in the middle of the road.  :P