A Novelty

I absolutely love Peru! The Peruvians are amazing people. Just soo friendly and nice! Walking down the street in Pucallpa with four other American girls is quite a sight and the Peruvian men make sure we know it’s a wonderful sight for them to behold. The constant cat calls, whistles, and stares makes it all but impossible to blend in. We had an experience the other day which was quite amusing.

On Sunday, the group of us, which now consists of a guy as well, Brent from Andrews, took a trip to the Pucallpa Zoo. It was really great to see some of the beautiful animals that the Amazon has to offer, yet it was quite sad to see so many of them in really small cages. Many of the animals looked quite sad and scared, walking back and forth quite swiftly in kind of a nervous manner. The spotted jaguars had the most beautiful green eyes and I just wanted to cuddle up and pet them (though, at least on earth that wouldn’t be such a grand idea). The black panther also had some beautifully peersingly yellow eyes against his velvety black coat of fur. They are such beautiful creatures!! The monkeys were definitely the main attraction. Watching the spider monkeys crawl up and around the walls and ropes was so entertaining. While watching the monkeys “fly” around, the girl who had come along with us “gringos” to translate and show us around the area, told us that some of the local Peruvian girls at the zoo wanted to take a picture with all of us. Needless to say, we were all quite taken aback and amused by this idea. But not knowing what else to say, we went along and posed for quite a few pictures, as more and more Peruvians wanted to have their picture taken with us. None of us had taken a shower that morning because we had all been in a rush. With the humidity and walking around everywhere, we definitely didn’t look our best. So being the celebrities at a zoo was quite hilarious to us. Afterwards, we decided we should start charging money for each picture!! For the rest of the time there, we had quite an entourage of Peruvians, mostly children, following us and attempting to converse, though it was quite slow.

While, still at the zoo, we were interviewed on some TV show for Pucallpa about what we thought of the park and Pucallpa, so maybe I’ll be able to get a copy and post it! So the trip to the zoo was quite memorable for us!