Sacred Valley

           Sacred Valley is such a completely different place than Lima and Cuzco. It's more of a remote area than the city nearby and even still the nearby village cities are remote themselves. A lot slower than the bigger cities and more of a natural way of life in Peru. The people are just as nice as in Lima as they are in Sacred Valley, except that the people are more to themselves unless engaged and interacting by someone. The lifestyle and pace of the people and area is a lot slower than Cuzco and Lima. Yet they are more in tuned with the land and mother nature has to tell them. The more traditional way of Peruvian life than the international and Spanish influence way of the international cities of Lima and I say a bit of Cuzco. Most of the area is mountainous and plateaus with streams through the valleys filled with farmland and country native to the geography of Peru. The people live off of the land and the houses made of mud brick. Farther away from the cities is what most outside people think of Peru to be, but it is nicely developed in certain places within the country itself it is just a matter of looking. A majority of the country even the developed areas are still captured in the time that Peru was initially just a few industrial touches to make it inhabitable for some others and to keep up with current times from other countries. The Sacred Valley and the country side surrounding it is the more honest and true sensation of/ what Peru is like. In the the Sacred Valley there is less in counters of people who are also visiting and the same thing goes for Peruvian merchants who walk around the streets trying to sell what they can for a profit to live. The Peruvian merchants are like a swarm of insects that one can not really get rid of because once one is done with one of them not even 5 feet ahead and another one comes. The peace of the countryside and living among the village is true great. One is more connected with the land and the natural spirit of what the people of lived.

LIMA

Lima! What a city. I gotta say from my short experience thus far in the city of Lima it is an endless tide of chaos in motion. Car after car, taxi after taxi, bus after bus rolling around town. The traffic rolls continuously even with stop lights and car don't yield to people so gotta watch out. Besides the automobiles even the people move in crowds or waves crossing the streets and moving about. I've noticed that not only the people do their daily lifestyle activities, but even the animals are wondering around the streets doing as they please for the most part. When I say animals I mean cats and dogs. A majority of the cats and dogs are house pets owned by the people in Lima, but there is the fair share of cats and dogs that aren't house pets and that wonder. Whether they are house pets or wondering cats and dogs they live with a sense of freely living about the city. Despite  the fact that back home we would  consider the wondering cats and dogs, stray animals, in LIMA and soon other parts of Peru it is very common and customary. These animals that live on the street are very well mannered and coherent with the people's lifestyle. So when cars are moving the animals wait then go and they don't bother people unless people engage them. (continued....)

PERU

Study Abroad VCUarts Photography

June 9th to July 5th