Results tagged “Food”

Along with the other Hands-On Explorer Challenge winners during our expedition to South America, I experienced some of the most beautiful, most amazing wonders of the breathtaking country of Peru. But, four days into the trip, something happened to me that took me away from the planned expedition itinerary and the team, and lead me to a unique adventure of a very different kind. My explorations took me to the grand cities of Lima and Cusco, the beautiful landscapes and countrysides of Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, and the wondrous and lush Amazon rain forest--but I also had the unexpected and vivid opportunity to experience first-hand what it is like to be a patient in a Peruvian hospital.

Hola, everyone! My name is Sharon Andrews, and I am one of the teachers who went on the National Geographic Hands-On Explorer trip to Peru. Wow! What a fantastic trip it was! All of our days and evenings were filled with new sights, sounds, flavors, and adventures! The Peruvians were very happy that we were visiting and were anxious to show us their country. We had so many exciting adventures on our trip that I could write volumes, but I will summarize the trip according to Peru's three geographic areas: the dry coast, the highlands, and rain forest.

Allillanchu! That is Quechua for hello. Quechua is the native language of the Incas before the Spaniards arrived in 1532.

We had a nice breakfast at the Libertador Hotel. I had watermelon with sugar and prickly pear cactus root. It tasted like the white part of watermelon, but it was red and had tons of seeds. We have been trying many different foods that you don't eat in America. For example, they served alpaca, llama, and guinea pig. (I didn't try the guinea pig because they are pets in America.) Another thing that was quite interesting was that Lijah let me try a little calamari (or octopus). It tasted like fish and was purple with tentacles.

After breakfast we boarded the bus and we drove through the Andes making a few stops along the way. We took pictures and stopped at the marketplace in a small village. The market was filled with people in colorful costumes who were there for a weaving contest. I bought a woven camera strap and an alpaca breeder mask. The mask is part of a costume that people wear in the dance to get the season off to a good start. Most of the masks are white with a cross and a stripe on the forehead. But there are many different types of these masks. They have cool colors, horns, beards, and faces. If you look at one from far away they look like a ski mask or socks with many colors.

Hi! I'm Cady. Cusco is amazing! Yesterday afternoon, we saw some of the marvelous creations of the Inca. They built terraces on the mountain side to experiment on how plants grew in different humidity. The terraces were circular and they had steps going up the side. The Inca brought stones from the river to build the terraces, which have lots of layers. A man that the Inca called a priest had a house on the terraces where he and others could take care of the plants. When you stood on the edge and looked down to take a picture, you could see the amazing structures that the Inca built long ago. If you looked hard enough, you could almost see the Incas working. A research group had just finished restoring it and looking for clues to how the Inca lived and farmed. They used aqueducts to irrigate the terraces. Although they were also used for farming, the terraces were also a temple, a place to worship the gods. Just looking at the terraces, you could tell how magnificent the Inca were.

Hi this is Dewey! Today, after breakfast we had a meeting on our itinerary for the next week. We also had a slideshow from Bruce and Amy about their job as photographers and different techniques they can give us to become better at photography! After that, we jumped onto our tour bus and headed to the Mamacona Country House, which has Peruvian horses.

Once we got there (after a 40 minute bus ride) we walked down a dirt rode and entered the gates to the horse ranch. Instantly a Peruvian folk band started playing for us and we spotted the most BEAUTIFUL horses ever. The host (owner of the ranch) directed us to a fancy backyard with a row of seats and seated us to watch a horse show and Peruvian dances!! The show was wonderful, we got to see some men direct the horses in a neat show with the horses practically jumping in the air!! As the horses and their riders showed off their moves some Peruvian dancers showed us some very difficult looking dances, they also wore very pretty dresses and outfits!

Hey, It's Grace T from Pennsylvania. My exciting expedition to Peru started out at 3: 30 am, at which point I started getting ready to leave for JFK airport. Driving to the airport we passed the New York Times building, the Hudson River Gap and crossed the George Washington Bridge into New York, before I knew it we were at the airport. It was now 7:30. At the airport there were many different languages spoken, even the airport workers were speaking Spanish. Once we had gone through the airport lines and gotten all our baggage checked, we met up with some of the National Geographic staff in the waiting lobby. We were surprised when we were boarding the plane that the airline was taking precautions against the swine flu. They passed out dust masks that we had to wear the whole flight into Ecuador; where we would take another flight to Lima.

Hi, it's Lijah. We have arrived in Lima and to my surprise I am actually not that tired. I usually cannot sleep on planes but this time I was sound asleep on both plane rides. We arrived at the Peruvian airport and we noticed everyone had medical masks on. We asked around and supposedly they were very big on keeping swine flu out. This was kind of scary to know that it was a possibility. We went to get our luggage; we got ours just fine, but Dewey and Tim were not having much luck. Finally after a while it came through. Then Dewey and Tim also got the random security check. They were not having much luck in the Peruvian airport! :)

From the airport we were bused to our hotels. The night life of Peru was amazing. There were a lot of casinos and bright tourist lights that lit the city. We also saw many wild dogs that roamed the parks and alleys. There were these two specific dogs that were running in circles around a big park statue. They were barking and rolling around. It was quite humorous!