¡Adios Ecuador!

Today is my last day in Ecuador, my last day in South America. I fly out of Quito to Madrid this afternoon.
On the one hand I am super excited, of course, to see all my family and friends and to eat delicious home-cooked food (you´d be surprised how quickly you tire of restaurant food) and to sleep in my own bed and have a choice of what clothes to wear and so many other things.
But...at the same time I am really sad to be leaving too. This whole trip has been amazing. I´ve met some awesome people, done things that I´ve never done before, improved my Spanish A LOT, learnt how to salsa, lived in the jungle, taught in Spanish, travelled alone, learnt how to cook, and a whole bunch of other things. Of course, there were ups and downs, but I expected that, and all in all I think I´ve probably grown up a whole lot over the last 5 months.
¡So it´s bye for now South America and hola Inglaterra!

Shopping and Salsa!

Thankfully the strikes seemed to have disappeared by Friday and I managed to get to Otavalo by lunchtime. I checked into a pretty little hostal and then went to check out the town. Otavalo is known in Ecuador (and in South America) for being the place to buy handicrafts, especially woven ones. However, I promised myself that I couldn´t buy anythink until the next day (Saturday) which was proper market day. So that afternoon I went to El Parque Condor, a small park about 4km from town where a dutch couple rehabilitate birds of prey and owls. It was nice, except for the cages seemed kind of small. The most awesome thing was that just as I was about to leave I bumped into a very good friend of mine (Texas Megan) who I knew from the GVI project in Arequipa. It was amazing. She was travelling with a couple of friends and they were on their way up to Colombia but got stuck in Otavalo because of the strikes so had decided to stay a few days. It was so nice to finally get to talk to someone who actually knew me rather than having to introduce myself! I also got to hear all the gossip from Arequipa. On Saturday I spent pretty much the whole day shopping and on the Sunday I went back to Quito. I did have plans to go to Mindo, a small town about 2 hours north of Quito, but was worried the strikes would start up again and that I´d get stuck there.
On Monday I spent the day wandering around the old town, this time actually using my guidebook to know what things were. i watched the changing of the guard at the president´s residence on the Plaza Grande, it was extremely elaborate and pompous! I also went to this amazing cathedral which was built in the 20th century and instead of the traditional gargoyles, it has lizards and birds and other animals that are famous to Ecuador. I also got to climb up the bell tower and the clock tower. Climbing the bell tower was a slightly hairy experience, you had to walk along a narrow walkway over the inside roof of the cathedral and then climb up a few precarious feeling ladders to get to the top. It was worth it though, the view was awesome.
On Tuesday I began my salsa lessons, I squeezed 10 hours into 3 days. I had an amazing teacher, Luis, who spun me round and round until I was completely dizzy from not ´spotting´enough or completely out of breath from the lack of oxygen at this altitude! I am hooked though, salsa is so much fun. There are basically three steps that you do the whole time and you just follow the signals that your partner gives you for when you should spin or turn or move this way or that way. I miss it already and am definately going to have to look for a salsa club or class or something when I get home.
Last night, I met Pilar, a cousin of one of Dad´s friends who lives in Quito. She took me out around the city and then we met her sister and went for dinner in a little cafe that had amazing views of the city. It was really nice and we ate some amazing ecuatorian food.

Going it alone...

Unfortunately, all but two of us stayed on in the jungle for the next 5 weeks. This means that I am going it alone, a slightly daunting prospect to begin with but I am definately getting into it. After my slightly depressing alone time in Cusco two months ago I have decided that keeping busy is the most important thing to do. So after managing to shift my flights forward by ten days (3 and a half weeks of flying solo seemed like a little bit too much!) I am now cramming as much into ten days as possible.
I got back to Quito from Tena on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday I simply changed my flights and enjoyed some nice civilisation by going to see Iron Man 2 in the cinema...in Spanish. It´s not great...but it wasted a couple of hours!!
On Monday I wandered around the Old Town for a while after going up to a hill over the city on a cable car called the TeleferiQo. It was cool, in both the slang sense and the literal sense. Quito is huge. But it was to cold to stay up there for long so I came down pretty sharpish.
Tuesday morning I took a bus to Riobamba, from where the Devil´s Nose Train Ride goes from. The train is apparently a really cool ride which switch backs down a mountainside. Unfortunately, on arriving at the station I discovered that it was shut for repairs for 6 months (of course there was nothing on the internet to tell you this!) and so after being accosted by two, very charming, Ecuadorian guys who wanted to interview me in English for their class, I headed back to the bus station and sped off to Baños.
Baños is a pretty little town set right below an active volcano (I think it´s active anyway). It´s famous for it´s hot baths and good spas and is generally considered to be a good place to chill out. I booked into a hostel and then went out for an early dinner at hte pizzeria next door. Halfway through my meal a group of 4 gringos wandered in. I quickly recommended that they have the pizza (there was pasta on offer too!) and was invited to eat with them. They were all staying at the same hostal and were going to the baths that evening, they once again graciously invited me to join them...and I did. We had a good time warming up in the hot pool and then jumping into the cold one, although it did very strange things to my head! Afterwards we went and chilled out for a while at their hostal, they were all heading off the next day though so I couldn´t make any more plans with them.
Nevertheless, the following day I got up bright and early to hire a bike and ride 18km down a slightly sketchy road called the Route of the Waterfalls, unsurprisingly passing a lot of waterfalls on the way. Sadly, I was on a man´s bike, which caused serious pain to my butt, I think it might be bruised, and so ended up pushing it a bit of the way. When I got to the last waterfall, I then hopped on a ranchero (basically an opensided bus) which raced back Baños at petrifying speeds.
Today (Thursday) I decided to head up to Otavalo (North of Quito, Baños is South) where there is a great artisan market. I hopped on a bus and we made it about an hour of the way before we were stopped by the police. Apparently there is some huge strike on today by the indigenous peoples over water. Basically they blocked off the Panamericana which is the main artery from the South to Quito. So we turned round and went back to the nearest town, Ambato. I decided to wait a couple of hours and then tried again. This time we made it about an hour further before we were told "no hay paso" (you can´t get past) and had to turn back around. I jumped out at the little town of Latacunga and am spending the night here in the hope that the government will have come to some kind of deal by tomorrow which will open up the roads again.
Fingers crosssed!! (Actually, I tried that for Machu Picchu and it didn´t work...so uncross your fingers!!)

In the Rainforest it Rains

Hellllooooooooo!
I am out of the rainforest as you may or may not know and am currently in Quito.
I think it´s probably going to take a little while for me to put up all the things I did. So I thought I´d write a little piece just to let you know! Kind of pointless, but oh well.
I can give you some rainforest facts though!:
It rained on 42 out of the 45 days I was in the forest.
Butterflies are awesome and you can touch their wings and they won´t die!
Anti-malarial tablets do not agree with me one little bit.
Bird-watching can actually be interesting.
I do not like bugs at all.
Wellies are jungle cool as are socks and sandals.
While I was in the forest the Rio Napo experienced its worst flood in 50 years and the water rose where we were by 12 steps.
Chickpeas and lentils are actually pretty nice, as is porridge.
You can make almost anything taste good with ketchup.
I never ever want to be a vegitarian.
Cold showers are pretty nice when humidity is 80 to 90 percent and the average daily temperature is 25 to 30C.
Living without internet is harder than I thought it would be.
Monkeys are as cool as you expect them to be.
Catching and killing a chicken to eat is pretty hard work.
Big trees are awesome.
Biology lessons suddenly make sense in the jungle: "so that´s what competition is!"
Trekking in hot and humid conditions is blooming hard work!
I have come to love and respect the jungle, despite a wobbly start.

Jungle Highlights (weeks 1-2)

Squeezing five weeks of living in the jungle into a blog post that people will actually be bothered to read seems like a pretty tough job so I think I´m just going to try and cut it down into a short(ish) week by week recap and if anyone wants any more details they´ll just have to ask me in person!
Week 1
We arrived at camp after a night in the jungle town of Tena on Saturday afternoon. After walking up something like 200 odd steps with our packs on our backs we were all feeling pretty tired. But beds needed to be baggsied and mosquito nets put up, so we all set about it and end up dripping in sweat by the end of it. In the rainforest it´s between 80 and 90 percent humidity most days.
The next day we had an introductory walk in the forest which was interesting and exciting but unfortunately hunger ended up ruining it a little bit for me.
Monday was spent doing EFR training, which ended with ridiculous scenarios of piles of severely injured bodies that our fellow volunteers have to detangle and rescue! I am now, however, a qualified Emergency First Aid Responder.
The rest of the week was pretty much spent doing various training exercises. We were given 30 bird calls to learn and 43 different species of plants, birds, butterflies, frogs and lizards to be able to identify by sight. Miraculously I got 43 out of 43 on the test which I was super surprised about. We ended the week with a trip to Agua Santa market on the Saturday, where we indulged in treats like cold drinks and crisps, and a trip to the Yachana Lodge and Colegio across the river (GVI Amazon works with Yachana) where we played an extremely muddy game of football with a bunch of the local kids.
This week, the Rio Napo also experienced its worst flood in 50 years, loads of houses were washed away further up river and the water climbed 12 steps above it´s normal height at base camp. We saw whole trees and fridges and bits of house floating past, it was pretty bad.
Week 2
Sat Camp week. This means trekking for about 45 minutes to get to a little clearing where we set up jungle hammocks and stay for the night, ready to do some mist netting in the morning. We ate and slept well and stayed dry despite the heavy rain. Mist netting is effectively where you put up really fine nets that birds fly into and then you get them out, band them and take all their details, weight, length etc. It´s pretty cool to get so close to the birds.
However, all the fun sat camp and mist netting was ruined a bit for me by the dreaded anti malarials. I was on Lariam and had been fine for the first 3 weeks of taken them. Then after the 4th pill everything went very wrong very quickly. At the start of the week I noticed my mood changing dramatically, one minute I would be completely depressed and the next I would be back on top of the world again. Then on the hike back from sat camp, halfway up a hill I started to feel like I couldn´t get enough air into my lungs and started to hyperventilate and cry and had to be sat on a rock and talked to to calm down. This happened again on another walk the next day. That same night I also had a horrendous dream that bugs were crawling all over me and pushing me into the ground and woke up screaming "help me help me help me!" I cannot remember ever having a dream where I have woken up screaming. It was horrible, I really thought I was turning crazy. So I came off them, and after another week or so I felt pretty normal again.
That weekend as part of our Saturday Night Entertainment Me and one of the staff organised a Fright Night. This involved getting dressed up as scarily as possible with the limited resources we had (most outfits involved copious amounts of talc, mud or ash!) then telling scary stories and the night was rounded off with a walk from the road back to camp in groups of 4 with only one torch between you while everyone else jumped out and scared you. Needless to say I ended up in a ball on the floor with my eyes squeezed tight shut! And the story of the ghost of a little girl at the toilets made me petrified of going down there by myself in the dark for the rest of the phase!

So that´s a round up of the first two weeks...I need to check my diary to check what happened when the rest of the time!
PS. Might add some pictures when I have my camera with me.

A Big Fat Machu Picchu Failure!

Mine and Marrik´`s attempt at seeing Machu Picchu failed miserably. We had booked a train at 3:50 pm on Monday but when we arrived at the station we were told that there weren´t enough passengers for the train so we would have to wait 3 hours for a later service. So we waited and read, and sang and played stupid games until 6pm when we hopped on some buses to take us where the train was leaving from, about a half hour`s drive away. We finally got on the train and were on our way, to arrive in Agaus Calientes (or Machu Picchu Pueblo) at 9 pm with no idea where exactly we were and where to stay. We rushed around the streets until we found a relatively clean hostel. As we signed in we saw that the last guests to stay at this place had been in January. This was a town that had suffered.
The next morning we got up bright and early to go to the ticket office and see if MaPi (as it´s called by the locals!) was open. Obviously, it wasn´t. So then we decided that breakfast was needed. This town is probably the most tourist orientated places I´ve ever been to but nothing was open. In the end we ended up going to a local market and eating jam sandwiches elbow to elbow with the locals! The town apparently wasn´t going to get started up properly until the 1st April, when MaPi opened. Heartened, however by our breakfast we decided to tackle Putucusi, one of the huge tree covered rocky outcrops that towers over Machu Picchu, apparently with great views. We followed the train tracks out of the town until we found the path and began, a little apprehensively after reading in our Lonely Planet Guides about snakes and ladders (literally!), to climb the steep steps up the mountain. A humid half hour later we reached our first ladder which we climbed with trepidation, only to round the next corner and meet the sight of a huge muddy, branch-laden landslide. There was no way we were getting up that. So we turned around and headed back to town. Luckily we found a place willing to serve us lunch so we stocked up on soup, pasta and crepes before heading back to our hostel armed with wonderfully expensive western supplies of Pringles, ice tea and Twix bars! We spent the evening playing stupid guess-the-song games and stuffing our faces with trash!
The next morning our train was scheduled for 9:56 so we dutifully arrived at the station half and hour before, an hour and a half later we were stil waiting, having been told nothing. I angrily approached one of the crew and asked what was going on and was told that it would only be another ten minutes wait. About twenty minutes later we got onto the train and began to make our slow and noisy way back. About half an hour into the journey we met a train coming the other way. We have absolutely no idea what was going on but basically after some more waiting around we had to push the train back to a siding before continuing on our way. Theroute was beautiful though. The Sacred Valley is so green and fertile and we followed a terrifyingly strong river most of the way. However, the damage from the floods could be seen all too easily. On both banks of the river landslides were obvious, there were even places where you could see twisted train tracks trapped in the debris. It was pretty depressing.
Despite our failed attempt, it was still and adventure, and we tried the best we could!

I am now sitting in Lima airport waiting for my flight to Quito.
Tomorrow I make my way to the jungle for my five week long project there. That means no more internet for five whole weeks...I think it´s going to be harder than I think to live without this extremely useful communication tool!!
So...I´ll be writing more in a little over a month!
X

The Sacred Valley

Firstly, a mini apology for the overall slight depressing edge that my last post had to it! I was lonely and fed up but now I have a buddy and am in the Sacred Valley and so I´m back on top of the world again!
I met up with Mariko on Friday afternoon and we went and bought our train tickets to Machu Picchu, despite the fact that no one knows whether it´s going to be open or not! We decided that we absolutely had to try because coming to Peru and not seeing Machu Picchu would suck a bit, so at least this way we know we are doing our absolute best to get there.
Yesterday we got a bus to Pisac in the Sacred Valley and spent the afternoon scrambling about the ruins that are high above the town and getting thoroughly lost and a little bit sunburnt! The setting here is beautiful, there are lush green mountains on every side you look and the remains of Inca terracing can be seen climbing its way up almost all of the hills. Sadly though, the effects of the terrible rain and flooding in January and February can be seen clearly. Driving up to the ruins yesterday and on our way to Ollantaytambo today you could see where houses had been washed away, where cliffs had crumbled down onto the roads and where whole fields of corn had been ruined. It´s sad, and the economy in the Valley has suffered because of the reduced influx of tourists.
We are now in Ollantaytambo, tomorrow morning I´m going to go look at the ruins and in the afternoon we are catching our train to Machu Picchu Pueblo with the hope of seeing Machu Picchu itself on Tuesday. Fingers crossed folks!

Lost and a little bit lonely in Cusco

I arrived in Cusco at 6am Monday morning after a 8 hour bus ride with Mariko, another volunteer who happened to be going the same direction as me. We found the hostel that had been prebooked for her (she's doing a tour) and then after some breakfast we tried to find a niceish place for me that wasn't too expensive. This proved to be hard. In the end I allowed myself to be accosted and ended up in this horrible little hostel, by myself in a room for about 10 people!! I decided to give it a go for a night though! We then went out and about, just absorbing the city because we were both too tired to do any serious sightseeing. After a cheeky Mcdonalds (my first international chain meal in 2 and a half months...give me some slack!) we went our seperate ways for the next few days. I went back to the hostel and attempted to snooze but unfortunatly there was extremely loud regaton (peruvian hip hop type popular music) playing, this went on until about 11pm. After only a few hours of unsatisfying sleep the night before, this did not put me in a good mood. The next morning I was up and out of there by 8:30 am and I found myself another, slightly nicer hostel a bit closer to the centre of the city. I then spent the day getting lost and going to a couple of museums. The problem with being by yourself though is that museum visiting takes a very short time because you have no one to discuss stuff with. Anywho, I was back in my hostel by 6pm, I'm a little apprehensive to go out by myself, and spent the evening eating cheese sandwiches and watching rubbish TV. The next day, Wednesday, was pretty much the same story. As you can maybe imagine this meant that I was not feeling 100% on top of the world about all this backpacking malarky, mostly because I was fed up of my own company!
However, I am not really being fair to Cusco. It is a beautiful city. There is a huge Plaza de Armas with a great big cathedral and then in almost every direction you go in you end up on these tiny cobbled streets with whitewashed buildings on each side. Half of them are far too steep for cars to get up and all in all it's an extremely picturesque place.
Today I decided to get out of the city and to go see the four ruins closest to Cusco. After 3 days of perfect weather, when I woke up this morning, it was, of course, raining! Nevertheless, I got out of bed with a slight spring in my step and hailed a taxi to take to the top most site on the road, five miles away from Cusco. To be honest I can't even tell you what this first site was, Inca Baths maybe, it wasn't all that interesting to be honest! I then walked five minutes up the road to the deserted site of Puca Pucara, which is believed to have been a fort or outpost of some sort. My plan was then to continue walking to the next site, Quenqo. It took over an hour! It was a beautiful walk though, I was following the road down the mountainside and there was mist in the all the valleys and for some reason I felt a little bit like I was in Wales! This is possibly due to all the greenery and eternal drizzle, a novelty after living in Arequipa for 2 and a half months! Eventually I arrived at Quenqo, starving and really needing the toilet. It was a really cool ruin though. It looked as if a temple type structure of some kind had been carved out of this huge piece of rock. There was an underground table with a sacrificial table and thrones of some sort and apparently there was a flat altar on top of the rock too. It was pretty cool.
By the time I arrived at the final, and most impressive site, Saqsaywaman (said 'Sexy woman'!) I was too exhausted to really appreciate it properly (that shows how unfit I am!!). It was impressive though, there were three tiers of walls in a zig-zag shape made out of huge blocks of rock, apparently the heaviest of which weighs 7 tonnes! The whole site was massive and it's only 20% of what originally stood there, the Spaniards plundered most of it to build their own homes in the city.
So today was pretty good although I am now completely exhausted (I don't think I could ever live permenantly at altitude). Mariko also comes back off of her trek this evening so I will have a friend again tomorrow :)
Still not sure what the situation with Machu Picchu is though, just kind of hoping for the best! We'll see!

PS. I was going to put photos up but I left the lead at my hostel so I'll have to do it some other time!

Adios Arequipa!

Yesterday was a sad day: my last day at school. We did a despedida at school which is where all the kids make cards for you and then the classes stand in front of you and sing you songs. It was really sweet and funny and sad, I have to admit that I cried just a teeny bit! I was also presented with a really nice plaque saying thank you from the teachers which was really generous although it's going to be a lot of effort to lug around.
Then last night I had my final barbecue, as a leaving present I received a very cut llama (to add to my quite substantial collection of llama related objects!) I also had to start packing which is proving to be quite a feat, despite the fact that I am leaving some stuff behind. I will keep pushing though and hopefully it'll all squeeze in!
I've really really enjoyed my time here in Arequipa and I'm finding it strange that I'm not going home now because it feels like the end of a holiday when in fact I am only halfway through my entire trip! I'm going to miss knowing the city, my host family, the kids and the all the other volunteers. But it's okay...I'm moving on to other exciting experiences. I leave for Cusco tomorrow night where I'm going to stay for ten days and then I fly up to Quito in Ecuador where I'm meeting my next GVI project: the Amazon Rainforest Expedition. So far I am approaching it with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. The apprehension is mostly due to the fact that I know that it's going to be ridiculously humid, there will be a lot of bugs and I have a sneaky feeling the showers are going to be cold. It will definately be an experience though!
So it's a sad farewell to Arequipa...for now!

Final Fortnight

The last two weeks have been fairly uneventful but pretty hard work.
Last Tuesday I moved from 3rd Grade to 1st Grade because it seemed like they needed more help...which they do. There are six kids in total. For two of them it is the third time that they are doing 1st grade. Two don't know their alphabet and can hardly hold a pencil and two know what you hope a first grader would know. So the last two weeks have mostly been spent going over the alphabet and doing simple 3 plus 4 is 7 sums. This week tarea also started. This means that we have to stay at school until 4 instead of getting home at 2. This makes me super tired but that's mostly because I am a lazy person and need more relaxation time!
In my host family however there has been some drama!
I broke my bed but managed to fix it without my host mum finding out, I blew two lightbulbs and my host mum went into hospital for the weekend. Luckily she's out now and seems fine.
The weekend was super relaxing because 13 volunteers went to Colca Canyon which left about 8 of us here. So we mostly lazed around the garden at the Casa and generally chilled out.
Exciting news though:Machu Picchu should be open before I leave Peru! I found out on Saturday that it should be opening 2 days before it was expected to. This means that I can go. YAY!

23 hours in Chile

I arrived into San Pedro de Atacama on the Thursaday morning at about 10am on a mini tour bus that took people from the Bolivian migration post in the middle of the desert to the slightly more civilised (but incredibly touristy) town. I made it through customs although my sunglasses case did manage to get crushed in the process (the sunglasses survived though!)
San Pedro was small and jam packed with tourists. Thanks to my super useful South America Rough Guide book (thanks Grandpa if you're reading this!!) I found the bus station and managed to get the last ticket to Arica that night...at 8:45. This meant that I had about 9 hours to fill. I went for lunch in a deserted place where I don't think the waitress much liked me, probably because I hadn't had a shower for a good 3 days at this point! I then sat on a park bench for 3 hours solid. It was super boring and depressing. But eventually, after spending over an hour eating one pizza, it was time to board the bus. The bus was, incidentally, one of the nicest ones I've been on since being in South America and the trip was uneventful apart from the fact that I got breakfast. When we arrived in Arica it was about 6:30 am so some nice Americans adopted me and I sat with them on the bus station floor for a couple of hours until I thought the Peru-Chile border might be open.
I managed to get a colectivo taxi over the border and then decided that I would pay that little bit extra for a super nice bus up to Arequipa from Tacna. It cost me 38 soles...which is less than 10 pounds and it was AMAZING!! There was hardly anyone on the bus so I got to stretch out, I was fed and watered and got to watch a film or two. I think I may take a few more nicer buses in future!!
I arrived home at about 6pm extremely tired but quite contented.
Chile is not a place that I would choose to visit again however. The people were impossible to understand (they cut all their words in half and speak really fast) and it was crazily expensive (it cost me over 50 US dollars for one bus ticket and two meals...compared to Peru this is a lot!) But at least it's another country ticked off on the list!!

Buses, Bolivia and Salt Flats

I left Arequipa at 8:30 pm last Saturday night after a lazy day in the sun and boarded the now familiar 6 hour bus to Puno. This time however, I had the misfortune to be sitting next to the fattest man on the bus, this meant that my hopes of sleeping most of the way were dashed. We arrived to an empty bus station at 2 am and I realised that there was no bus to La Paz, Bolivia until 7:30. So I sat...and sat...and sat. It was chucking it down with rain outside and yet all the doors appeared to be open. It was freezing. Eventually however the time came and I boarded the rather plush tourist bus. I believe the route between Puno and Copacabana (where we had to stop to change buses) was supposed to be very pretty, unfortunately I was so tired by this point that I slept or at the very least snoozed the whole way! I got across the border without any hassle and then had to wait around for an hour or so in Copacabana to pick up the connecting bus. It was then a tedious 5 hour journey to La Paz, interrupted only by the excitement of having to disembark in order for the bus to be loaded on to a raft to cross a lake (we got into a small, alarmingly low to the water boat). Anyway, on this journey I met an Australian couple, Scott and Felicity, who, I discovered, were aiming to do the exact same thing as me: get to La Paz and immediately go on to the Salt Flats. We (or maybe just I) decided that it would be a good idea to travel together. So as soon as we arrived in La Paz we went round to all the ticket booths earnestly trying to procure three tickets to Uyuni. To no avail. Everywhere was booked up so the only option for us was to stay a night (and a day) in La Paz. We found a fairly gross hostel to stay in right in the centre of town and after a hefty steak dinner, we returned to bed.
The next day we split up, they wanted to go to look for warmer clothes for the Salt Flats and I wanted to explore the markets. I spent a happy few hours clambering up and down the cobbled streets in search of the best bargains. La Paz is an extremely cool city. It´s basically built in a huge valley which means that when you are in the centre you can look around on all sides and all you can see is red brick buildings staggered up the hills. The centre of the city is also extremely pretty, there are loads of delapitated colonial buildings and grand cathedrals.
We all met back up and headed off to the bus station for our 7:45 pm departure. It was to be a 12 hour journey and had cost us 80 Bolivianos each (that´s less than 10 pounds) we weren´t expecting it to be great. The journey got off to a brilliant start as in true South American style we were delayed by 45 minutes. But eventually we set off, only to stop off every 2 hours or so in order for the drivers to get out and clank about with something in the engine (or that´s what we guessed anyway!). At 7 am in the morning, however, we stopped for longer than usual. Tired of hanging around, we got off the bus to be met with an impressive sight. We were in a queue of about 5 or 6 buses and in front of these to the right hand side there was a bus stuck firmly in the mud and on the left hand side it was the same story, and between the two buses, where the road should have been, was a steep muddy bank. Rain had washed the road away and we were stuck. All the buses were apparently equipped with pick axes in shovels, and all the Bolivians were getting their hands dirty trying to dig out the buses or trying to rebuild the bank into something resembling a road that the buses wouldn´t sink into. After about 15 minutes one cocky bus driver in a big red bus decided that he would be able to get through, he built up his speed and headed for the other side, only to sink at an alarming angle up to his axles in deep mud!
Eventually, after about an hour of waiting the first bus made it through victoriously and the rest followed on in quick succession. We boarded the bus triumphantly...only to have to desembark again 15 minutes down the road in order to wade across a shallow river while the buses struggled up and down the banks. Then there was another river, this time, on a bank in the middle one bus was busy trying to tow another bus out of the sticky mud while other drivers tried to work out a better route to get across. Eventually, however, we did it! And then it was plain (if a little bumpy) sailing to get to Uyuni (the jump-off town for the Salt Flats).
We met another Australian couple, Rob and Lauren, and managed to persuade a tour company to let us start our 3 day tour that day. We bundled into a jeep, I as the only Spanish speaker sat with the driver/guide and acted as interpreter, bought some beers (I had a Fanta!!) and set off.
After an encounter with a giant llama made of salt, and lunch in a builiding built of the same substance we drove out onto the Flats. It was amazing. A vast whiteness went on forever, and because it was the rainy season the water covered surface reflected the sky beautifully. This, coupled with islands that appeared to be floating on air, made it feel like you were on a different planet.
After this we drove to 2 hours or so to a small hostel for the night (stopping off once to visit a train graveyard!)
The next morning we set off at the reasonable time of 8 am for a grand tour of the tens of lakes that are scattered on the barren plains between Bolivia and Chile. At times we were driving through the middle of red desert with soaring volcanos and mountains on either side of us and only vicuñas (cousins of the noble llama) to keep us company. It was awe-inspiring. We got to see stinking sulphuric lakes, and I got pretty close to some flamingoes too. We also saw a red lake (also with flamingoes) and had frequent stops for 'natural pipi'!
It would be safe to say that the Australians I was travelling with enjoyed an occasional alcoholic beverage, so our second night ended up being slightly more raucous than the first. We were staying in very basic accomodation again, but this time there were loads of other tour groups with us as well. Then it was discovered that it was the birthday of a Turkish man so, of course, we had to celebrate. Despite the fact that we were having to get up at 5am the next morning, the celebrations continued well into the night.
When the knock on the door came the next morning however, a few in the party were less than pleased! It was pitch black and there was no electricity, I was the only one who'd thought to bring a torch so we took it in turns to pack our stuff up and check if we were missing anything.
We left and drove in pitch darkness to the geysers. Noisy, smelly plumes of smoke shooting directly out of the earth. It was bizarre more than anything, and pretty impressive at the same time. From here we drove to a thermal bath to take breakfast. Unfortunately it was far too cold outside for any of us to consider stripping off and jumping in but all the same we enjoyed our breakfast of pancakes and yogurts. An hour later we set off once more for our final stop: an impressive green lake towered over by a gorgeous red volcano and surrounded by barren red and orange desert. After a quick stop for photos I was then transported to the Chilean border and dropped off. While my Australian buddies were to drive 7 hours back to Uyuni and then onto La Paz, I'd decided to not risk the bus journey again and to go back to Peru via Chile. I am glad of this choice, as I later learnt that it took 25 hours in a bus to get back to La Paz as they got bogged into the mud for 6 hours or so!
So I waited at the border for my bus to take me into Chile...

Wet, wet, wet!!

For three days in a row over the weekend I did not escape getting soaked.
Day 1. Friday
Today we were expecting to get wet. We were going to celebrate Carnival at school, and were duly greeted with mini fistfuls of paint powder to the face! I got it right in my mouth! We calmed the kids down, promised a major water fight during recreo and managed to hustle them all into the classroom to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the new one) on the laptop of one of the volunteers. We also handed out cones of popcorn and disgustingly sweet liquorish flavoured bonbons. While the film was going on we took it in turns to sneak outside to the taps and surreptitiously fill up water balloons. Recreo came and, after handing out the fruit, we ran to the bathroom where the bag of balloons had been hidden and began the carnage. No one escaped unscathed! Half an hour later we were soaking wet, covered in foam with pink, purple and blue faces from the paint powder. We went down to the playground to help dry everyone out before returning to the classroom for fruit salad and cake. It was a really fun day...little did we know that the fun had only just started!!
When we returned to the Casa (our HQ hostel) that afternoon more water awaited us. One of the cleaning maids ambushed us and a full on war started. The Casa is possible the best place ever for a water fight too because there are about four different levels from which you can throw water. Then we had to try and ambush the people who weren´t wet yet. Eventually it fizzled to a stop when we all got too cold to keep getting drenched. I went home to get showered and warmed up. You would not believe the amount of pink that flowed from my hair! (Two or three buckets of bright pink water got thrown over me!!)
Thankfully the barbecue that night passed without incident though!
Day 2. Saturday
Today 9 of us went white water rafting in the morning. Having been told to wear ´light clothing´and to ´expect to get wet´ we were a little surprised when we reached the river (about a 20 minute ride out of Arequipa) and were told to strip down to our swimsuits and to put on wetsuits. These were followed by comically large red waterproof style tops and bottoms, lifevests, wetshoes and helmets. We were all a little bit concerned about what we were in for!
We entered the water and realised that it was pretty cold, nevertheless as we started paddling we began to warm up and came to welcome the splashing that passing rival boats brought. I was at the front of the raft with one of the other volunteers, Yussef, and as we went over a rapids both leaning to the same side of the boat a particularly large bump knocked us both out into the water. After a second of confusion my head broke the surface and I grabbed onto the oar of the instructor and was hauled back into the raft. The rest of the trip passed without incident, thankfully, but we still all arrived back soaking wet.
Day 3. Sunday
Today was the last day of Carnival in Arequipa. This means that there is a free for all water fight on the streets of the city. No one is safe! Three of us decided to become part of the fun and went out on the streets armed with water balloons and buckets. We reached the Plaza de Armas and spotted a huge group of Peruvian adolescents, black and white paint all over them. We started to throw balloons at them until they put their arms up in defeat and beckoned us to join them. We all received some fetching black warpaint, and then moved on to prowl the streets.
It was like something from a film. We would reach the end of a street and look down it, only to see a bigger gang at the other end. After 30 seconds of sizing each other up and debating exactly how much water we had left in our buckets one or other of the groups would then pelt it down the street, the other gang in hot pursuit. Normally there would also be cowards on rooftops armed with water balloons and/or buckets of water who you also had to try and dodge. It was really really good fun. Eventually we grew tired though and went for lunch to dry out a little. On our way back home however, we were approached by a young man, I held up my hands screeching "¡no tenemos agua! ¡no tenemos agua!" ("we don´t have any water!") and he showed his hands were empty so we walked on thinking nothing of it. 2 minutes later and a stream of freezing cold water was poured down my back! That´s Carnival for you!!! And gringos are particularly susceptible!
So that was the third day in a row that I returned home freezing cold and soaking wet!
Thankfully, Carnival is now over (although there were some definate signs of water sight at the Casa today!) and that hopefully means that I won´t see another water balloon for a very long time!
X

Carnival, Puno and Lake Titicaca

After eating way too much at the barbecue on Friday night and after having just a few hours sleep 10 of us met up at Terminal Terrestre at 3.30 am on Saturday morning to catch bus to Puno, right in the East of Peru. 6 hours later, after passing through the rain damaged town of Juliaca we arrived. We took taxis to our very nice (but freezing cold) hotel and after turning down the crazily expensive tour that the hotel lady tried to sell us we made our way down to the dock. We had to barter a good price for the boat to take us out to see the Islas Uros which are famous floating islands that are built on reed beds. It was really interesting. There are about 50 of these islands and originally the inhabitants would sustain themselves by trading fish for other goods on the land. Now, however, they are super touristy and everything seems to revolve around providing for the tourists. This meant that I ended up with slightly mixed feelings about the whole thing. On the one hand I was fascinated by the culture etc but on the other hand I felt really guilty about the exploitation of the local population. Nevertheless I´m really glad to have seen it.

On our return we all flocked back to the hotel to sleep for a couple of hours (after stopping off to buy some amazing hats) and then at 7pm we all met up again to go out to enjoy carnival. It was the Festival de la virgen del Candelaria and in Puno it is particularly well celebrated (which is why we decided to go this weekend!) We could hear the music as we walked down the street to the Plaza de Armas and when we arrived there it was amazing. There were loads of brass bands that led processions of different groups of girls, boys, women, men who were all dancing and shaking wooden instrument things. All the colours and the clothes that they were wearing were amazing. I can´t even describe how cool it was! After an hour or so of watching these processions we made our way to a restaurant which some of us decided was far too expensive so four of us then upped and left again for some authentic street food. We had alpaca kebabs and cake and candyfloss (I was worried about the state of my stomach but it was all okay!). We then basically stayed out for much of the night soaking up the atmosphere and attracting attention with our strange western dancing! Two of us also ended up being accosted and had to dance in this huge circle of drunken guys for longer than was truly comfortable. Although that wasn´t as bad as the extremely drunk man in the gorilla costume who enjoyed having his photo taken with Olly a little too much! The processions seemed to go on all night and when we went out the next morning there were still more groups. We spent the whole morning wondering around, it seemed that whatever street we went down there were always processions coming up it. It was amazing and so Peruvian!!!
Finally we got a bus home at 3pm. It hadn´t rained at all in Puno (although we were told that without a doubt it would), in fact it had been bright sunshine and 32C!! Three hours into the bus ride however and it was snowing hard, 30 minutes later we had crazily can´t-see-five-metres-in-front-of-you fog (that was scary!) and then the rain hit us! The first proper rain in Arequipa since I´ve been here! It was great. I arrived home super tired but super happy. I can honestly say it was my best weekend yet in Peru!
PS. I would have uploaded more videos but it takes too long!

Salidos and Water Fights

Last Friday we did ´Birthdays´at school. This means that anyone whose birthday is in January gets to sit at the front while people sing happy birthday. Then the cake comes out and you get it in your face. Hilarious! Although I did get it everywhere, including up my nose which made breathing a little difficult for a while. It was all good honest fun though!
Then last weekend after the famous friday night barbecue I went out for the first time in the city. It was super fun. We went to a discoteca which had this balcony from which you could survey the floor below and work out the dynamics of the dancing couples! (Great for people-watchers like me!!) In Peru everyone appears to dance in lines with a partner so there ends up being about 8 lines in the club...we decided to shake things up a bit and dance the way we do at home...in a circle! This confused the poor Peruvians. Who were also found Olly´s (one of the volunteers) dancing skills fascinating! They were taking pictures of him as if he was a celebrity! Then us girls all got persuaded into dancing in the Peruvian way...which was weird but not terrible!!
We went out again on Saturday night (I feel that my brother would be proud of me!), which basically meant that my hopes for a quiet, sleep-filled weekend were dashed seeing as we didn´t get in until 3 in the morning both days!
Carnival also started last week. Here it´s basically a month long celebration in which people throw water balloons and pain at you in the street. I got hit on Friday and then today in school we decided that it was so hot that a big carnival water fight was in order. So, during recreo, Meghan (one of the volunteers) and I decided to fill balloons up with water and begin the carnage. We got soaked. There were 20 kids versus us 2. I ended up falling over and splitting my jeans (and my knee) open, but, like a trooper, I carried on. Soon there was no part of me that was dry, especially when some of the older kids climbed onto the second floor ledge and started pouring bottles full of water on our heads, oh, and the buckets came out too! It is now 6 hours later and my jeans still feel a little wet! It was so fun though. And tomorrow Meghan and have got some major strategies in place to ensure that A. no one gets away without being soaked and B. that we have a fighting chance of winning! I´m also going to avoid wearing jeans as these are the worst possible outfit choice for a water fight! It should be good!
Then Saturday I´m getting up at the crack of dawn to travel 6 hours Eastwards to Puno and Lake Titicaca where carnival is apparently extremely impressive. :)
I have also been having an extra week of Spanish lessons this week to try and grasp control of the subjunctive (possibly the most difficult part of the language!) and I feel that I might be getting somewhere!
The teaching in school has been somewhat erratic this week as well with two teacher for four kids most days in my class. But they should all apparently now know what an adjective is! Tomorrow we´ve decided that it´s going to be Fun Friday so other than the water fight, we´re also planning on making cookies in a solar powered oven. I know that this is unlikely to work, but we can try...and the great thing about cookies is that even if the don´t bake we can always just eat the dough! :)

Colca Canyon

Last Friday morning 6 of us got up at 3 am to get a bus 3.5 hours or so on a mostly potholed road to the little town of Chivay. After a bleary-eyed breakfast we then bundled back onto the bus for a 1.5 hour drive to Cañon de Colca, one of the deepest canyons in the world. At it´s deepest it´s over 3000m. We stopped of at Cruz de Condor apparently expecting to see condors (we did, but only in the distance so they didn´t appear to be that impressive!) Then we drove another 10 minutes down the road to the head of the trail: A 7 km hike switching back and forth down the hillside...a 7 km steep rubbly slide down the cliff-face is what it felt like in parts! I fell over once in the 3.5 hours it took for us to reach the Colca River, over 1000m below where we had started. After chilling out under the bridge for a bit to wait for the rest of our group (and a little wash of our feet in the river) we then crossed a suspension bridge over the fearsomely fast river and scrambled up over the rocky cliff on the other side. 20 minutes later we arrived at a little lodge that was to be our home for the night. It consisted of mud huts with mud floors and 0 electricity. It was good fun though and we all had an enjoyable evening although we dreaded how much we´d ache in the morning!
The next day we got up at 6.30 ready for the next part of our hike. After a filling breakfast of pancakes we set off in a fairly horizontal line this time (although there was a 20 minute hard, ´cling onto rocks so you don´t fall´ climb at one point). We passed by a couple of villages that are nestled in the canyon and then further down the road, all the villagers doing maintenance on the path (even the woman with a baby strapped to her front). We had another short break to pick and eat prickly pears (like in the Jungle Book!) and then finally arrived at was is called the Oasis after about 4.5 hours of walking. After a swim in the natural pool and lunch we then had to set off again to climb out of the canyon. This, we were told, would take us 3 hours, although our guide had done it in 1 hour and 8 minutes once...I have no idea how. It´s one of the most physically challenging things I´ve ever done. We felt that we would never reach the top. We had to wind our way along super narrow paths with sheer drops to the side (make sure you stand next to the cliff face when a mule comes past!) and up ridiculously steep natural steps. Plus we were going up which meant the higher we got the more effect altitude had. It took us 3.5 hours and for the entire last hour it was a case of: walk ten steps, break a minute. But eventually we made it (mostly with smiles on our faces!). 4 of us managed and 2 decided on taking the mule (a scarier option in my opinion!)
After a night in the little town of Cabanaconde, where the women wear fabulous richly embroidered clothes, we set off home the next day...tired and with really dirty hair but contented. We stopped off a couple of times to see the famed Inca style terraces that stretched for miles in a valley, a quick jump in some thermal pools (39 degrees centigrade), and to see llamas, alpacas, and the cutest of them all: vincuñas. We were meant to stop at the highest point on the road (4910m) but unfortunately we were driving through clouds so couldn´t see anything anyway!
We arrived back in Arequipa at 7.30 on the Sunday evening with extremely achy, tired bodies.
It was AMAZING!! I have never seen anything like it in my life. We walked 21km over the two days (it definately felt like more!) I would love to do it again one day.
X

Birthday Celebrations!

My lesson plan at school yesterday did not go to...erm...plan! I thought that writing stories would take up an hour and a half but it only took half an hour. So then I was stuck with no ideas as to what to do for the next hour. Shows me that I should be prepared!!! Thankfully the planned egg and flour throwing that is apparently a tradition here did not happen because someone forgot the eggs. But when we came back from school and I was happily sitting stuffing my face with Peruvian delights one of the other volunteers decided that it would be amusing to through two and a half litres of water over me! It was okay though because I dried off in the sun. Another volunteer bought me a gorgeous cake and then we all went out for crepes in the evening. It was great. My host family also got me some presents, although the day was slightly marred by my host uncle being knocked off his motorcycle and having to go to hospital.
Today there are bus strikes which are apparently turning a bit nasty so we're not going out to school, which is generally a good thing seeing as I was supposed to be teaching multiplication of fractions, something that I don't understand at all!!
So it's looking like it's going to be a lazy day of sunbathing/ice cream eating! :D
X

Beach break and First Day of School

This weekend 8 of us got in a suprisingly luxurious bus and made the 3 hour journey to the town of Camana to go to the beach. It was all good fun. We were the only gringos in town and got stared at a fair bit, the beach was a little dirty, the sea was super strong and the lifeguards mostly wore speedos and preferred posing to enforcing beach safety! It was good, but I wouldn't really go back to that beach again.
Yesterday I had my first day of school which was great. I'm working mostly with 10-13 year olds and yesterday we were doing maths. I did try to help them but mostly seemed to get the answers wrong though. The kids are really lovely and affectionate. As soon as I arrived they were asking my name and calling me senorita anastasia and giving me hugs. It's mostly because they don't get much affection at home that I think they are so affectionate with us-we give affection back. Their parents mostly work in nearby fields. But the settlement is literally built on a hill of rubble so if there was an earthquake i really think the whole hill would fall down.
Today we actually had a day of school because of a strike of transportedores so we went shopping to a little craft market where I bought myself a couple of early birthday presents! And we sunbathed a bit...but not too much because the sun here is way too strong.
This weekend I think I might be going trekking in Colca Canon...a canyon that's twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. And there are hot springs and condors and all sorts. YAY!
X

Spanish Lessons and the History of Arequipa

In my spanish lesson yesterday my teachers took me and another volunteer out into the city to go look at a museum and some churches. It was nice to get away from the 4 hour solid classroom work that we do every other day. In the museum there three mummies which were super creepy. The Incan tradition, similar to that of the Egyptians, was to bury people with all their belongings so that they had a good afterlife. But interestingly the way they buried people here was to put them in the fetal position so they´re all curled up and I kept feeling like they were going to jump out at me any minute! It´s weird because all the mummies still have some skin and hair and perfectly preserved fingernails. It´s weird!!
Last night the guy who owns the hostel which acts as our base invited us all over to make this Peruvian cocktail which has Pisco, lime juice, sugar syrup and lemonade in it. It was really nice...can´t remember the name though!
And then today he took us on this sort of walking tour of the city and to eat some traditional Peruvian dishes. Walking about the city was really interesting. We went into all these little places called "tumbos" which are basically where the old city boundaries used to be. You go through this tiny door that looks like nothing from the street and down these steps into a gorgeous courtyard where you can´t hear the city at all. Apparently when people used to come and visit the city they would stay in the downstairs parts of these houses and the family would live upstairs at street level. It was really cool.
This weekend I think we´re going to the beach to soak up some sun. Should be good!
X

I´ve arrived!

I left home the day before I was supposed to because of all the snow and then on Friday I went to the airport super early to change my flight so that I didn´t miss my connection in Madrid. All the flights worked although they were far too long and I don´t want to see an airport again for a long time! There were four new volunteers starting with me on the same day which is nice because we all hang out together this week when we´re doing our Spanish lessons and hteo ther volunteers are at school. There seem to be a lot of volunteers here many of which I haven´t met yet.
I met my host family yesterday and there are a lot of them. I have a mother, an aunt, and uncle, a grandmother and two sisters. Plus there is also a lovely greek lady staying with my family for 3 weeks to learn spanish as well. It´s nice but I think it´ll be quite hard work because of having to speak in spanish all the time. But at least there are lots of other people who can sympathise.
The weather is really nice most of the time although today it is a little cloudy.
I´m still a little jetlagged and seem to wake up at 4.30 am on the dot every day which is a little annoying but I´m sure I´ll adjust soon.
The city is really nice and so Peruvian...cars don´t stop, wolf-whistlers are everywhere and service in restaurants is really slow!
All in all it´s been a good if overwhelming few days.

The journey begins...almost

I am leaving the UK in 3 days to embark on a 5 month adventure to South America and I am nervous, excited, scared, apprehensive...and many other adjectives that I can't even think of right now!
First stop will be the city of Arequipa in Southern Peru where I will be teaching 3rd grade students for 10 weeks. Then I have 2 weeks travelling. After that I fly up to Quito in Ecuador where I meet my next project which is 5 weeks conservation in the Amazon rainforest. Finally I have left 3 and a half weeks travelling at the end of that for doing whatever I feel like. Both of my projects have been organised by the company GVI, who so far have been extremely helpful in preparing me for my trip.
I am busy trying to do last minute shopping and seeing all my friends before I leave. Not entirely sure if everything is going to fit into my pack but I'm going to try!