With the ruins of Peru's Machu Picchu behind them, Wrangell Girl Scouts Jing O'Brien, Laura Helgeson and Sophie O'Brien hold up a sign informing middle school teacher Bob Davis they'd made it. In his classroom Mr. Davis keeps a poster of the site, counted among the world's great wonders of antiquity.
A group of Wrangell and Girl Scouts experienced the summer trip of a lifetime last month, heading southward to Peru for a nine-day tour.
Three girls and two chaperones made the 5,686-mile journey from Wrangell to Lima, Peru's capital city. To get there, the scouts had to raise around $14,000, which did not include the cost of the parents. The fundraising process took more than a year, with the girls earning money both as a group and individually to meet their goal.
Sisters Jing and Sophie O'Brien sold cookies and origami pieces at the monthly community market, while Laura Helgeson sold scones. Together the group gardened, helped local churches, and worked for a grant through First Bank.
Along with mothers Diane O'Brien and Kara Helgeson, the group set south on June 25, meeting up with a Girl Scout group which in all totaled 34 people. This included girls, parents and relatives from other Southeast Alaska communities, Arizona and Seattle.
Laura explained Lima had been her favorite part of the trip.
"It was so exciting being there for the first time," she said.
Formally founded in 1535 by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, the coastal capital has in the intervening centuries become the second most-populous city in the Americas. Laura explained after getting acquainted with Lima, the group set out for the ancient city of Cusco. Situated high in the Andes at just over 11,000 feet about sea level, in pre-Columbian days Cusco had served as the capital of the Inca Empire, which had covered much of South America's western seaboard.
Jing explained the stop had been the group's first taste of real elevation, and the transition from the coast had left them feeling easily tired.
"It didn't hit you at first," she said.
Jing explained their walk to Cusco's cathedral was the first time she noticed altitude sickness, a condition brought on by the effects of low oxygen pressure.
"There was this super steep set of stairs," Laura recalled.
To help cope, Diane said the group turned to a local palliative, in the form of coca-based teas and candies.
The bigger issue of the trip had been hydration, as the public water available outside of Lima was inadvisable for visitors to drink. "You couldn't even brush your teeth with it," said Laura. The group had to keep plenty of bottles on hand throughout its journey, keeping a close inventory of the supply as it moved from place to place.
While in Cusco, the Girl Scout group conducted service work in the nearby Urubamba Valley, at the town of Ollantaytambo. There they partnered with the non-governmental organization Awamaki to help local families move sand, repair plumbing and paint rooms. In exchange, their hosts prepared them a local stew of vegetables and potatoes. The girls played a game of soccer with their Peruvian counterparts, and the next day a group of local women demonstrated how they weave with alpaca wool.
"That was a real highlight of the Girl Scout trip," Diane commented.
After Cusco the group traveled by train to the small town of Aguas Calientes, from which they were able to head up to Machu Picchu, perhaps the country's best-known historical site. High up above the Sacred Valley Urubamba, the Incan citadel had been abandoned nearly a century before the arrival of the Spanish, and had gone largely unnoticed by the modern world until 1911.
For Jing, the site was her favorite part of the trip.
"I really liked Machu Picchu," she said. "It was really beautiful and breathtaking."
Early on in the morning, the group was guided up a two-mile climb to the site's Sun Gate, an overlook from which they watched the sun rise from between two mountains. The guide surprised the travelers by having them blindfolded on the hike up, only revealing the grand scene once they were at the top.
After Machu Picchu, the group returned to Cusco, where they visited a local orphanage. The facility was home to around 30 girls of varying ages, many of whom Laura explained had been placed into custody there to escape abusive homes. The visiting scouts pitched in to help buy some toiletries, food and essential supplies the orphanage needed.
After the return to Cusco, the group departed the Andes for a trip into Peru's section of the Amazon rainforest in the southeast. The Girl Scout group traveled in a pair of boats for about four and a half hours. While traveling, it got dark on the river during the trip in, so they had the opportunity to spotlight for caiman, a small species of alligator indigenous to the area.
Laura said the other of their two groups had at one point been surprised to spot a jaguar in a tree above them, a sight their guide had pointed out was extremely rare. In the jungle, the girls lodged in thatched cabins. The following day they took a walk through the rain forest, spotting a number of novel species of birds and monkeys. Jing recalled quite a number of spiders as well, some being as big as a person's hand and some even poisonous.
"It was terrifying," she joked.
Diane said her favorite part of the trip had been the boat ride out to a nearby island, the site of a clay lick which attracted a number of colorful parrots and macaws. A birder herself, she said the experience had really stood out.
The girls agreed the whole trip had been a pleasant experience, with the people they met quite friendly and the sights all unforgettable. They had learned quite a bit as well; Jing found a course on Spanish she had taken was not of much help in the country, where the Quechuan language was spoken by a large minority of Peruvians. The trip had been Laura's first outside of the United States, an experience she would definitely like to have again.
Wrangell's travelers returned stateside on July 5, wrapping up nine days of travel abroad.
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