Having explored nearly every region of Peru - the jungle, the desert and the mountains - I decided to spend my last weekend here discovering the northern coast. On the last of my many excursions around this beautiful country, my friends and I visited the pre-Columbian ruins of Chan Chan and Las Huacas del Sol y de la Luna (Temples of the Sun and Moon), while also finding enough time to relax at the beachside village of Huanchaco.

As my time in Peru is dwindling down, I have decided that I could not return to the United States without giving back to my faithful blog followers. Therefore, I have decided to create a short survey to receive feedback and reward you for reading my blogs these past four months.
Suerte.

P.S. Prizes!!!

I am dearly sorry for the uncreative and cliche title. I had no other option.

Two weekends ago, my friends and I were planning on flying into Iquitos, a city in the Peruvian Amazon and our launching point for our adventure into the jungle. Unfortunately, heavy fog cancelled the flight and we were docked in Lima until the next weekend. Returning to Lima's airport for what seemed like the hundredth time, we successfully boarded the plane and made sure to pretend to have terrible coughs to scare off anyone that displayed their irrational fear of the swine flu by wearing those ridiculous masks. Upon arriving into Iquitos, the largest city in the world inaccessible by road, the humidity frizzed up my curly hair and I had already accumulated a substantial amount of sweat.

Needless to say, it was a packed weekend. Even though I am writing this blog a tad late, as these events transpired a little over a week and a half ago, I am sure you will still be on the edge of your seat to figure out how all of these things could ever have been seen and experienced in just one short weekend. I have the answers.

Holding my "Senor y Senora Schwitz" sign at Lima's Jorge Chavez International Airport, I was quickly spotted by the two gringos I was waiting for. Welcomed with hugs, kisses, and exclamations of "You look like you have grown!", my cover had been blown to the entire airport community. Mom and Dad had finally arrived for their long anticipated trip to Peru! Our adventurous trio would soon be headed off for a fun-filled weekend to Arequipa, Peru's second-largest city, and Colca Canyon, the deepest canyon in the world. Directly upon their arrival, I made sure to remind Mom and Dad that they should avoid drinking any tap-water in Peru. Duly noted. Just before we nodded off to sleep, I figured it would not be a bad idea to remind them again. It was already too late, as they had both already taken down a couple glasses of agua just minutes before. With this ominous beginning, it looked like we were in for a long weekend touring the restroom facilities of Peru.

Since class began at two in the afternoon today, a few of us decided to head to the coast, rent some surfboards and wetsuits, and see if we could ride some waves. Though we had tons of fun, all we could muster was a few seconds standing up on the boards. I am pretty sure that the water from the Pacific is not potable, but I definitely took in gallons at a time as the waves crashed into me.

During our journeys, our group had the opportunity of being joined by our guide, Edi. All in all, Edi is kind of a big deal. Among other things, he has hiked the Inca Trail over 230 times, discovered mummies and learned over five languages, including the indigenous lanaguage of Quechua. In some parts of Peru, very isolated in the mountains, some inhabitants still only speak Quechua and could not get by at all speaking Spanish. It is absolutely incredible to think about the differences among the regions of Peru, which are difficult to realize before witnessing them firsthand. Here is a picture of Edi forcing knowledge into our brains:

Before classes began in Peru, we headed off to the mountains to see the city of Cusco and many Incan ruins, most notably Machu Picchu. Since we have been living on the coast, flying into Cusco, at 11,000 feet above sea level, was definitely a slight shock to the system. We acclimated ourselves by taking back the very popular drink mate de coca. The coca leaf is widely used in many communities throughout the Andes, as it helps cure altitude sickness and quench thirst and hunger. However, this sacred plant has received strong criticism from outside Peruvian borders.

Just as I was getting settled down in Buenos Aires, I was off to Lima, the next stop on my study abroad adventure! As we disembarked the plane, we were welcomed with Incan handbags and Inca Cola, the most popular soda (not pop) in Peru. Inca Cola is the color of a lime but tastes exactly like Bubalicious gum. Needless to say, the drink is - in the words of James Lipton - scrumtrelescent.

After leaving Buenos Aires, I decided to write my last post wrapping up my experience by giving you my pros and cons of the city and all of Argentina. Without a doubt, the pros outweigh the cons, but I wanted to provide a complete recap of my time abroad so far, both the good and the bad. So let's get started...

And just like that, I have less than 24 hours until I depart from Buenos Aires, when I will be headed off to Lima, Peru. While a heartfelt reflection on my two months here will be in an upcoming blog, this entry will be devoted to my final adventure in Argentina: Iguazu Falls! A legend from an ancient tribe tells the story that a god's sought-after aborigine bride fled with her human lover. Out of rage, the god spliced the river, sending the two humans to eternal punishment while creating Iguazu Falls. You are probably thinking what I was thinking, that this is a rather unlikely tale. It seems like this god was pretty powerful, and could do some pretty cool things. But you are trying to tell me that he couldn't attract this girl, but he pretty easily created over 275 waterfalls, some as high as 270 feet, with no problem at all? If he really wanted to attract this girl, maybe he could have created a really nice restaurant with a great dessert menu. It would have been a rather nice evening. Instead, he chose to act very irrationally, and kind of dropped the ball. All in all, the story just has some holes in it and leaves many questions unanswered. In order to find out for myself, I needed to visit Iguazu and discover the true story.

No more llama sightings, but I did get the chance to go to my first futbol match! The game featured Arsenal de Sarandi against the extremely popular River Plate squad, who were playing at home. While the game was exciting, the true experience was being among the fanaticos in the stands. During the entire game, the crowd was constantly singing and jumping, and though NFL fans with huge beer bellies could not have stood the punishment, I am sure it was a similar scene to when my former kickball team took the championship a few weeks ago. There were some slight differences though, as the police tank and swat team outside the stadium welcomed us in.

First uploaded video in this entry!!!

I will assume you are one of the billions of subscribers to my blog, you have been fervently refreshing this page waiting for my next post and you have been obsessively tracking my every move for the past few months. If this is true, you may recall an article about all nine of the super-cool study abroad bloggers posted on Bucknell's website on Dec.3, 2008. When asked what would make a perfect study abroad experience, one of my responses was that "I need to take a picture with a llama at Machu Picchu". Mission accomplished? Well, sort of. I did take a picture with a llama, but I will have to replace "at Machu Picchu" with "outside of a random rest-stop in Patagonia."

(Did you really think I would put the picture in the introduction? Come on, the continue reading button is so close. Do it.)

Wooh!!! Spring Break '09!!! While most spring breakers often head off to tropical hot spots with Carson Daly to celebrate their break from class, I was headed to Argentine Patagonia, on the southern tip of South America. I know you are worried that I might have fallen off the bottom of the globe, but I managed. From Buenos Aires we flew into Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world (check that one off the to-do list)!

From there, we flew a bit north to our destination of El Calafate. Patagonia, a mecca for hikers and climbers, is a beautiful area filled with glaciers and jagged peaks of the Andes. More or less, it is like Alaska but without the imminent threat of Russia (thanks Mrs. Palin).

Giant floats, a parade lasting until three in the morning and dancers in scandalously clad costumes. No, this was not Mardi Gras, but rather Gualeguaychu, Argentina, the site of the country's annual Carnaval. Every weekend in January and February party-goers from across Argentina flock to Gualeguaychu to witness a truly incredible spectacle, as a seemingly never-ending parade travels through a stadium specifically created for the event.

I have always held the stereotype that those outside of the USA love American action movies with outlandish stunts and egregious acting. At a recent "intercambio" at a restaurant with Argentine students, this was more or less confirmed. At the intercambio, we had the opportunity to practice Spanish with local Argentine students while they had the chance to practice their English as we shared snacks and mate, the national drink of Argentina. Mate is a tea-like drink that is a mixture of hot water and dried leaves of the yerba mate plant. It is drank out of artfully crafted mugs with a metal straw, or bombilla. I am still undecided about the taste of mate but I have decided that it looks super cool, so I will continue to drink it.

I will eat anything. I will gladly eat food that falls on the floor or street and is picked up within the widely observed five-day rule. I frequently eat paper (the Mead 8.5" x 11" is highly recommended) and I gnaw on pens until the ink explodes in my mouth. With that being said, this past weekend I experienced the most frightening display of food any human being has ever encountered. On an otherwise festive 15-hour bus ride to Mendoza, the famous wine-making region of Argentina, I was handed a plate of food that made me consider whether it was more tasty and nutritious to just bite into my own flesh. Thankfully, I did not have to further consider this option, as the Dramomine kicked in and I woke up the next morning with a drool-drenched shirt, ready to kick back in Mendoza for the weekend.

No, this spinning does not refer to the tango, but rather to the spin class that you will find in any gym back in the states. Those of you that know me well should know that I spend most of my summers cycling in far off lands on bicycle tours. This summer I will be riding my bicycle with 12 extremely cool high school students from Seattle, Wash., to San Francisco, Calif. Since I will not have much time to put training miles on my bike after I get back from South America, I decided it was a great idea to join the local gym here. What is different between an Argentine and American gym, you ask? Not much actually. The guys are constantly checking themselves out in an unnecessarily large mirror, flexing their pecs and slyly looking at each other, wondering, "Does my gastrocnemius look that flabby too?" The women are as always on a never-ending supply of ellipticals, discussing stuff that I really can not understand in Spanish or English.

Hola chicos,

It's me, your faithful blogging companion!
I was finally on my way to Buenos Aires after a six-hour layover in Houston and I was sitting with my knees squished in the seat in front of me, a child furiously smashing the video screen in the seat behind me, all while perusing the latest Sky Mall (for those of you wondering, my birthday is May 28 and, yes, I could use fake plastic boulders that cover unsightly objects on my lawn). I was finally on my way to the land of the tango when a rather hefty man no fewer than 136 kilograms (even if he reads this blog I am sure he doesn't know how to use the metric system) informed me that I was sitting in his seat. This nice gentleman removed the unlit cigar he was chewing in a Rush Limbaugh-esque manner (yes, on the plane) and told me that even though my ticket was for the same seat as his, I would have to get up. I refused and offered to settle the dispute with a rocks-paper-scissors match, a NY Times Sunday crossword competition, or a race to the seat (already winning!). Thankfully there was another seat open and we both made the flight, although I remained spiteful because he was given a window seat. Anyway, enough of these senseless stories, because now you have some real fresh news to read because I have finally arrived to BUENOS AIRES (after three hours of taxiing on the ground)!!!

Welcome, devoted followers of Corey Schwitz's Study Abroad Blog! Tomorrow, I will be headed on a semester-long journey to Argentina and Peru! As one of the millions who will be weekly reading of my journeys abroad, I welcome you to join in history as I attempt to have the most visited Study Abroad Blog in Bucknell history! Although this is by no means a competition, please feel free to refresh this page at least three or four times while reading. Better yet, you can make my blog your homepage (Thanks Josh)!