Baños del Inca, Cajamarca Perú!

So this past weekend I went to Cajamarca Perú with my host family. While the trip fell within my first three months in site, I was granted special permission to go on this trip with my host family because it is considered part of my immersion. I'm very grateful to have been granted this permission and it was a wonderful trip! On the first day, we went to this place called the Baños de Inca. This roughly translates to the Incan Bathes so I assumed that we were going to some natural hot springs! I later found out that there were natural hot springs which bathed the Inca King Atahualpa. Upon seeing the springs, I was slightly scared...(view photos below) but then I realized we would not actually be using these hot springs but individualized mini hot tubs! It was a wonderfully relaxing experience.

Walking into the Baños

The Baños look beautiful, right?!

A close up view of the hot springs...

The "algae" growing in the hot springs and the reason I got scared

More algae!

The reality of what we were doing there

My host siblings and I

My host grandma, host siblings and I

My host sister? and host grandma. My host family took like 20 pictures touching things that explicitly state "Do not Touch."

My host family kept joking that this was Hector's uncle... I didn't get the joke