Happy Birthday with Birds

This past Wednesday was my 21st birthday. I have been waiting for a long time to be able to say that I have celebrated two birthdays abroad. Technically, I celebrated my birthday three times this week. The first was on the bus ride home from my exchange group's Paracas trip (but more on that later). The other times I celebrated were on Wednesday. Throughout the day I received wonderful birthday messages from family and friends in the States and Spain as well as from everyone in my exchange group. That evening, I went out for dinner at a gourmet sushi restaurant that featured a lot of Japanese inspired food with a Peruvian twist. After my small group of friends and I had stuffed ourselves with rice and fish topped off with a celebratory pisco sour (a typical Peruvian drink), my friends surprised me by pulling out a birthday candle and sticking it into a sushi roll. When I returned home that night my host parents and aunt surprised me with a banana bread cake and yet another round of "Happy Birthday".

Thank you to all of the well-wishers that helped make my day even brighter.

Now I'll go back about two weeks and talk about the day-long excursions my exchange program planned for us. The first was to Lomas de Lucumo which is a gorgeous nature preserve outside the city near the Pachacamac district. We took a hike to the top of the mountains which took only a few hours. The views were wonderful, and the sun even came out for us.

(group photos provided by: Getaway Lima)

That afternoon we went into Pachacamac to visit their museum which not only contains artifacts from past civilizations, but also preserves ruins from those civilizations.

(Additional photos provided by: Getaway Lima)

Last weekend we went on an even longer excursion, a day-long tour of Paracas. We started out the day by meeting at 4:30 in the morning to head out on a bus. When we actually got to Paracas it was about 9:00 and we got on a boat to take a tour of the islands inhabited by birds and to get up close to the sea lions that sunbathe on the rocky island shores.

Every single one of those dots on the rocks are birds. There were so many. The noise and smell was outstanding. And after seeing all of those sea lions basking on those rocks I have decided that being transformed into a sea lion for whatever reason would be a pretty good deal.

When we returned to the mainland we had lunch then set out for the sand dunes. The desert dunes in Paracas are known for being ideal dune buggying and sand boarding locations. As we headed out towards the dunes on a buggy, it was drawing near sunset. Racing over the dunes was a lot like a theme park ride, and we all treated it like one. We also got to try our hand at sand boarding, which is very similar to snowboarding, except the particles of sand to not melt which means you have to shake out all of your clothes at the end of it. By the end my pockets were filled with sand, and I'm sure I had a small beach in my shoes.

On the bus ride back, Nina came up with a fantastic idea to celebrate Fiona, Sami, and my birthdays since our birthdays were all in September, and this would be the last time this month that we would all be in the same place at once. We each got a small cake with a candle that we got to blow out, then we all passed around the cakes to share.

At the end of it all, we finally returned to the city completely exhausted at 12:30 that night. It was an incredibly long day, but well worth it.