Today is my last day in Peru and we have to wait in the airport for 12 hours. The last few days have been some of the best. We spent two days in Lima shopping and eating. We ate at the buffet at the Marriott which cost about 100 soles or $30. It was totally worth the money because the food was delicious and it was everyone else's last day. After Lima we took a plane to Cusco and explored the city until our bus left. Cusco was very cool I wish we had spent more time there. We then took the train to Machu Picchu pueblo and spent the night there. We woke up really early in the morning and hiked up to Machu Picchu. I really enjoyed the hike and we got some awesome pictures. We then went back to cusco and struggled to find a hostel. After only a couple hours of sleep we got on a plane back to Lima and now we are in the airport. I am really glad we decided to go to Machu Picchu on our own because the highlands were very pretty and a big contrast the Nasca. I am now very excited to go home and get a shower and sleep in my own bed.

Today was our last day of lab work! Honestly everyone is a little glad to be do e the last couple of days in the lab have been a little rough. We will clean our rooms tomorrow and then they have a exercise for us in the evening and then we are free to do whatever. We will take the bus back to Lima after that which will be a pretty long ride but I'm sure we will all relax. I am almost ready to go home but one more week until I'm back in the States. I hope to post some more pictures soon!

After we closed out my unit they moved me to unit 3 because one of the other girls was not feeling well. We got to 188 cm down into the joke before we ht the base of a huarango post and had to finish excavations because of safety hazards. We mapped that unit today and then took final pictures of the unit. We are officially done and tomorrow is the last day in the field. Today we back filled all of the units. The operation of hints that included both of the units I worked in took the longest to fill in. Backfilling is definitely not my favorite thing to do. It was a lot of work and some people could not handle the load which meant more work for the rest of us. On the bright side I got a good workout and even worked up a good sweat. Alison and I have been running everyday so I have been sleeping very well and been very hungry. The food at the restaurant we eat at every night The Huarango is very good and I generally finish the whole plate. Dinner is a little bit late because we get up at 5 in the morning but that is the culture here. Dinner is not until at least 7 but usually it is worth the wait. I am kind of missing Mexican food though. Tomorrow we will do surface collections and it will be our final day in the field. After that we will have one week left in Nasca where we will try and finish up lab work and then we will be headed back to Lima. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures soon. Until next time.

We had to stop excavating in our unit today which was very sad. The walls would not hold up which is the difficulty of dealing with loose sand. By the end of the day we just had two walls that made a perfect v in the middle kind of like and inside out triangle. The worst part is we had finally gotten down low enough to where we could make walls but the sand from the top kept falling inside. We had just come down on a surface that kind of looked like a floor but it doesn't seem to carry into the other units so we may never know. Tomorrow is kind of up in the air because they also had to close out unit 2. That means that some people will have to stay home and work in the lab tomorrow or they may send some people to do surface collections. I hope I get to continue excavations on unit 3 because I would really like to find something soon. I will post some pictures of the unit when I get back to the US there is limited wifi and it is often very slow.

This week we started excavations in the field. We are about 80 cm into our unit. We are working with Dr. Walen and we haven't found much if anything yet. Most of what is in our unit is just sand. Unit 3, which is right next to our unit, they found two perfectly intact pots with a whole perfectly preserved gourd underneath it. That was extremely exciting because we had to remove the pots from the wall before the wall collapsed because the sand does not hold it's shape. I do enjoy excavating but I do not really like pulling buckets which is the consensus for most of the group. The dinners at El Huarango is very good. This week we had a dish called milanesa which is fried chicken breast with rice and avocado which most of us really enjoyed and I don't really care for meat. This week we should be switching and working with the graves which will be more exciting. The internet is hard to come by but I will post pictures of excavations when I get a chance.

This week we started field work in Nasca. The first day was good because we just surveyed the site and did a short mapping activity. The rest of the week we worked on contrasting 2m by 2m units and mapping the units. Honestly by Friday we were all tired of mapping but it does take a lt of practice to get it right. Yesterday we did transects and collected a lot of bones. The site is very pretty. It is located in Las Trancas valley and the site itself is a sand dune. The valley below is very green and we have to drive through a large farm to et to the site.

Saturday is lab day. The first thing I did this morning was clean pottery. After lunch I went to help Stevie analyze bones. I liked that much better. We had to look at the bones and identify what bones they were. The site has been looted extensively so context from a historical context is not as important. The sand is a challenge but after we stopped mapping I started enjoying myself much more. This week we will start excavations 

Recently we spent two days in Ica. The hotel we stayed at was very nice. The first day we just decompressed and hung out. The second day we went to the museum. They had very cool displays especially the bioanthro displays.

This is a picture from outside the museum. I did not care for Ica as much as Lima even though there were less people in Ica. They don't see very many tourists in Ica so it is not exactly as safe as Lima. The second day we went to Huacachina which is an oasis in the middle of large sand dunes it looks super cool. 

It was fun to look at and you could paddle boat or ride down on the sand dunes of a surf board. The next day we took a bus ride to Nasca. Nasca is a smaller town and the people are super nice. Our house is really nice and clean. Each of us has our own bathrooms in the rooms and we are paired in groups of two. This had been an pleasant experience so far and tomorrow we are going into the field. I will add more photos when I get a chance the internet is in and out.

Here are two pictures from the roof of the group house in Nasca. The view of the mountains around the town are amazing.

Today was not as good as the other days. A few of us are feeling sick with cramps and diarrhea. I think it was the sushi restaurant that we are at last night but the fish was completely cooked. Either way it has not been a good expience. However, today we did get to see some really cool things. We went to the catacombs at the Convento de San Francisco. There were tons of bones that had been rearranged by archaeologists into neat patterns. There were also impressive works of art and the cathedral was full of items imported from South and Central America. Outside of the church there was a large number of birds that would fly in a circle and then land back where they were.

We also went to the Plaza de Armas which was very pretty in the city center. There were a lot of Spanish colonial buildings and a lot of them were being restored or were already restored. We even got to see part of the changing of the guards outside of the palace where the president lives. The castle was huge and very beautiful and there were men with big guns outside. It was an interesting experience. Tomorrow we are taking a bus to Ica and I am not sure when I will be able to update this blog but until next time.

Today we went to the archaeology and anthropology museum which was pretty cool. We ate lunch at a restaurant for 8 soles which is under 4 USD. It included two courses and a drink and was very tasty. I had the fried cheese appetizer and chicken with a tomatoe sauce and rice as the main dish. The drink was called refresco and was a seet fruit juice that was also really good. After lunch we went to an archaeological site the is typically only open hits day through Sunday. We got our own private tour. Nuestra guía solamente hablaba en español y era bien interesante para mí porque quiero aprender más español. Dr Kellner translated and added more information to what the guide said which made it very interesting. It was cool to visit our first official site in Peru. It was also interesting because throughout the years people built around the site and people were even still living there. It was also interesting because they preserved even the parts of the history that were destructive like an auto shop from the 70's. Today was one of my favorite days so far. Until next time.

The first picture is the view of Lima from the top of pyramid A, the second and third pictures are of the view from the enterence of Mateo Solado, the final picture is a picture of Lima at night from our hotel room.

This morning we went on a tour of the city. We went the El Parque Kennedy which is where we went to dinner last night. Then we went from miraglores which is the financial district to Barance which is the art district. There we a lot of cool colonial style buildings that were really pretty.

The first two pictures are from Baranco and the third is from Mira Flores. Tomorrow we will go on a bus your to the museum. We rode the bus today on the way back and it was an interesting experience. It it was different than the busses in the US and there were a lot of people on the bus. They stopped where we asked which was nice. Until next time.

Tha plane was the best experience ever! It was super nice and we even got dinner and a snack. They showed us the flight plan throughout the trip and there were 200 movies to choose from and games as well.

It took a long time to get through customs and get out of the airport. They even checked my bag for fruit. Who would bring perishables in their bag that would not end well. At first I was struggling because my phone was not working but I finally got the SIM card unlocked so I can talk to people again. We are staying at the Loki Hostel it is pretty nice but the water in our room had not been working. They said we can shower on the second floor today. Everyone else joined us today but before they got here we went exploring and the ocean is gorgeous with lots of different people and a nice park.

More adventures tomorrow. Until next time.

After waking up at 4 in the morning, we are finally in Houston for our layover. The flight from Phoenix was very pleasant and relatively short but now we have the long six hour flight to Lima. Stevie and I actually met two other girls in the field school on our flight which is good because Dr. Kellner is coming to pick is up at the airport at 10:20 but after disembarking the plane and going through customs it will be much later than that. I am very excited to get to Lima but I have never gone through customs nor been out of the country. This is a first for me and also the plane is the biggest plane I have ever been on. Hopefully the rest of the trip goes well. Until next time!

Hello there. So I am one week away from going to Peru and I have almost everything all packed up. I had to use travel space bags to get all of my clothes to fit but I finally got everything into one suitcase and one backpack. I have everything I need for the six week trip and the extra three day trip Stevie and I are taking to Machu Picchu. I am getting very excited but I am also worried my baggage will exceed the 50 pound limit.

We will fly out of Phoenix next Saturday morning and drive down the night before. When we arrive Dr. Kellner will pick us up straight from the airport. We will be a day early so we will get to explore Lima before the class starts. I will try my best to update this blog with tons of pictures of our adventures and what goes one with the class.