Samantha Bangayan

What to Do in and Around Huancayo: The Ultimate List

April 30, 2022
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In Huancayo

Torre Torre – natural clay formations
Fería de Coto Coto where farm animals are sold (by the Estadio de Coto Coto; most events are on weekends)
Fería de Yauris where there are llamas (weekends)
Fería Dominical/Sunday Fair all along Avenida Huancavelica in the Huancayo from Jirón Cusco towards Chilca
Main Huancayo Markets behind Real Plaza Mall
Parque de la Identidad Huanca – an outdoor park with sculptures of famous people from the region

Near Huancayo

Cochas – including the Parque de los Mates Burilados/Carved Gourds Park – 20 mins away
Bosque Dorado – 40 mins away
La Cruz de la Paz where you can hike/walk up the stairs to the cross (behind here is farmland with a view of the Mantaro Valley) – 25 mins away
León De Los Girasoles (Miraflores) – traditional lunch spot with family-friendly activities (go karting, playground, carousel, zip line, etc.) – 30 mins away
Lechon at the Saturday Fair (Chupaca) where there’s a whole street of lechon (roasted pig) – get there before 8am – 40 mins away

A Bit Further from Huancayo

Trout Farms in Ingenio – 1h away
Complejo Turistico Piedra Parada (Concepción) where you hike/walk up the stairs to the status of the Virgin Mary – 1h away
La Casa del Chef (Concepción) – traditional lunch spot with family-friendly activities (billiards table, ping pong, etc.) – 1h away
Arwaturo Archeological Site where you can find Huancaino ruins – 1h away
Fresh Ice Cream at Bonanza (Apata) – the area is known for its cattle and fresh milk – 1h away
Laguna de Paca (Jauja) – 1.5h away
Huaytapallana – the only snow-peaked mountain in the valley – 1.5h away

Even Further from Huancayo (Weekend Trip)

Bosque de Piedras/Stone Forest (Huallay) at even higher altitude where you can hike to identify stone figures – 4h away
La Merced – the closest Andean rainforest town to Huancayo – 4h away
Oxapampa – rainforest town known for its German settlement – 6.5h away

Updated June 18th, 2022

Post-Protest Peru: Try Not to Get Choked Up with the New President

November 17, 2020
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Third time’s a charm, they say. And we may have actually found a winner with the third Peruvian president within a week – Francisco Sagasti Hochhauser.

COVID-19 in Peru: When Isolation Isn’t Isolating

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“Our original guiding stars are struggle and hope. But there is no such thing as a lone struggle, no such thing as a lone hope. In every human being are combined the most distant epochs, passivity, mistakes, sufferings, the pressing urgencies of our own time, the pace of history.” – Pablo Neruda in his Nobel Lecture

Why Do Hearts Break?

August 27, 2019
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“…not till we are completely lost, or turned round – for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost – do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature. Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as be awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

What Aloneness Looks Like: Solo Winter Car Camping by Campbell River

December 15, 2018
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“Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.” – John Muir

How I Cured My Eczema in Peru: Part 3 – Eczema-Free in Huancayo

October 16, 2018
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This past year has been a journey of connection for me – just as every cell in the body is separate and simultaneously part of a whole, so too are we as human beings individuals that are intimately interconnected. It’s what I come back to when I feel lost, and I believe it’s what underlies healing: the realization that everything we do (eat, breathe, say, etc.) and experience affects the whole, then harnessing this knowledge for growth in any area.

How I Cured My Eczema in Peru: Part 2 – An Andean Eczema Treatment Plan

March 25, 2018
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There has always been a certain magic about the Andes – it’s a world where the Incans achieved the impossible with their architecture, where tourists are moved speechless by the energy of Machu Picchu, where tradition, dreams, and rituals are revered, where sacred shamans and commoners alike communicate with spirits, and where people from all over the world come to be transformed by ancient healing drugs.

How I Cured My Eczema in Peru: Part 1 – The Birth of FrankenSam

February 12, 2018
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“There is a story within every illness and something to be learned from listening to it…Much of our pain is rooted in our deafness to spirit. We remain in an ongoing struggle to break free from the illusions of who we think we’re supposed to be so that we may live the life we are called to live and become the person we were born to be.” – Life Is Your Best Medicine, Dr. Tieraona Low Dog

Feeling at Home in Dusty Davao City: Parallels to Living in Peru

July 23, 2013
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Jeepneys de las Filipinas Como Viviendo en Peru

It’s been 6 years, maybe 7, since I’ve been to the Philippines. The last time I arrived in Davao City, we used a staircase to exit the aircraft, suffocating in the dust and heat as we walked ourselves to the terminal, which was really just a simple box-like building. I would never have guessed that this time, I would walk into a renovated airport through the jet bridge that I’m used to and into maze-like hallways pristine in white that I associate with larger airports to ease our transition to a new world.

Living with an Open Heart of Learning

May 28, 2013
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“It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.” — Walter Lippmann

Talented Canucks expert and Communications Director of Football BC, Daniel Fung, comments on how he lives out wisdom he received from a university professor. The heart of learning he describes is so relevant not only to my own career but to life as a whole.