Hey guys!

Yesterday we had a great hike a few hours from the training center. We drove into the high mountains using peace corps vehicles. It was pretty amazing, since the mountains go almost straight down. I forgot how much I miss seeing them. It give me a sense of adventure and inspiration. Anyway, we hiked for hours up this mountain to see the water source for a village near the base. Really, we hikes 4 hours up to this mountain spring, spent 10 minutes looking at it, and headed back down. Which is fine with me!, but I didnt really think we saw anything special. It was a really cool hike though. We had some low class technical scrambling in it. I was surprised they brought us up that far the mountain.

Some of the hike was not so fun, however. I forgot my raincoat. And it rained, of course. It must be some kind of curse from the AT, where it rained half the time I was hiking. I dont even know why I was surprised it rained. Probably because it never rains here in Chaclacayo. well, I was beat when I got back home. I crashed at 5 pm when I got home. I woke up around 6, with a splitting headache and a feeling of throwing up. I'm not sure, but I think I got altitude sickness. I dont know if you can feel the effects after climbing down the mountain though. So I took some advil (thank goodness for that), rolled around in my bed in pain, trying not to throw up, and slowly drifted back to sleep. I then woke up at 9 pm, realized I missed dinner and talking with my family, and went downstairs to see what they were doing (which is always watching tv after dinner). So I talked and watched tv with them until 11, then crashed again. Good thing I got that 4 hour nap in, because, for some reason, all the dogs in Huascaran were barking like crazy. They just would not shut up! I heard my mom get up in the middle of the night and yell at the dogs to shut up. But they kept going.

As for today, not much happened. We went to class today and talked about our feelings on the last two days. Pretty much everyone said the hike was awesome but we didn't really learn anything from it. So now, its really a laundry day and study day. Tonight, I'll probably go to a party for a while, but plans change all the time. Tomorrow, I am making home made pizza with Kate and Jess. That will be such fun!

Hope things are well!
Happy trails,
Teigan