Day 4: Pachamanca

Today we said good bye to our Sandy oasis and headed the 4 hrs back north to Lima. This time we got to see the scenery in the daylight and learned of the land [turf] wars. Apparently evert Peruvian, under the law, is entitled to own a piece of property.  So once you've lived on that property for 2 yrs, you would receive a title. The problem comes when more than 1 person makes a claim on the same piece of property. We actually saw a couple disputes along the way.
But our highlight of our day was the Pachamanca. Back in March, we had a tour director named Sally. Well, she is from the Highlands but happened to be in Lima this weekend as well and her whole family invited all of us to lunch at her family home. The meal they prepared for us is the Pachamanca,  which is basically like a luau where you bury your food in the ground with hot stones and let it cook for hours. We arrived just as they were taking it out and saw all the corn husks/tamales, pork, chicken,  and oodles of potatoes. The smell made all our stomachs rumble with hunger. What a special treat for me & my students to be invited into a Peruvian home and experience such a cultural tradition. It was amazing!!
We arrived back to the apartment and plotted out our Sports Camp Days. We are staying at another apartment that Voices4Peru rents, with 3 bedrooms,  3 bath townhouse,  kitchen,  etc...it's nice to have a home base that feels a bit like home. We have this whole routine going with timing of showers, to cleaning up breakfast, etc... It's good!!
So our next 3 days we are hosting a Sports Camp up in Las Lomas in Ventanilla.  So, I had the kids pick games, figure our what supplies we had and what we needed, and what the prizes were going to be that day. They did an awesome job getting organized & creating a plan!
We ordered pizza and watched some Olympics!
All in all, a successful day!