Don't Drink the Water: Molly's Adventures Around the Globe: May 2012

NO MORE MAXIMO! This is a bittersweet exclamation because I will genuinely miss my coworkers and students, but I will not miss that split schedule one bit! Free, free at last! The despedida was a blast. A good amount of my students did come and I was pretty flattered. Telling my students that I wouldn't be their teacher in May was actually kind of weird. I was flattered and a little bummed out by how upset some of them got. I definitely had a good thing going with most of my classes and would have loved to have seen them progress even more than they already have since I started in January. That being said, I was ecstatic to not have to wake up at 6am and work until 9. The few days that I had to putz around Cusco and do what I wanted to do were phenomenal. I ate at my favorite places, visited some Incan ruins and salt flats, and went to the Machu Picchu museum (may have been a waste of time, but at least I did something educational), and best of all I SLEPT.

The best part about my post-maximo week in Cusco was the trip to Puerto Maldonado, an awesome jungle town east of Cusco. Actually, I'll go ahead and say that aside from Machu Picchu, it was my favorite part of my experience in Peru.

UPDATED POST: After going through my blog, I re-read quite a few of my posts from Peru and was rather disappointed in myself for glorifying all the drinking and partying I did. Especially in the post about the jungle, I feel like the details I included took away from what I really wanted to get across in my blog: that South America is an amazing, awe-inspiring place that has something to offer around every corner. Sure, there's fun to be had. It's easy to fall into the lifestyle of drinking and staying out until daylight. And while that certainly played a part in my time in South America, that is NOT what I took away from the experience as a whole. My best memories are those in which I stepped outside my comfort zone and did or saw something new and amazing.

The post about the jungle portrayed those 5 spectacular days as a drink-fest. And while we did indulge a bit, that is not how I want to remember that trip, nor is it how I want others to see it. I want to inspire people to travel and see the things I've seen! Those days truly were some of the best I had in South America, and not in the least because we partied. We played with baby monkeys that had been rescued from poachers, ate Thai food cooked by a sweet Thai woman who owned the "resort", kayaked the Amazon river, fished tarantulas out of their holes in broad daylight, went zip-lining through the Amazon rain forest, had a mud/clay bath on an island only inhabited by monkeys, climbed trees and swung from branches like Tarzan. It was an adventure. It was once-in-a-lifetime (though I have vowed to go back again). It was honestly mind-blowing and I loved every second of it, including the 9 hour bus rides there and back because many a memory is made on a long bus ride with two of your closest friends.

I won't be going back and changing any of my other posts, but as this one was the last one from Peru I just couldn't leave it be. Obviously I've matured and grown a bit even since returning from South America, which to me is a testament to how much travelling can change a person. I cherish every memory I made in South America. The friendships I made will last a lifetime, regardless of where any of us end up in the world. Drinking and dancing the night away may have been fun, but only because of the people I was with. I much prefer the days we spent together hiking to Cristo Blanco or Temple of the Moon or having "family dinner" and cooking a feast together.

Viva El Peru <3 South America, see you soon!