Rioooooooooo

Over the past 3 months of travelling, everyone I have met who has been going in the opposite direction to me has ranted and raved about how amazing Rio is so we decided to leave an entire week to spend their at the end of the trip and I can safely say that it 100% lived up to expectation. The only blip was that the weather wasn't quite as beautiful as we had hoped but it didn't stop us doing anything.
I was slightly worried about how our hostel was going to turn out as it was in a not very popular area and had available space when we were booking the night before, unlike most places! However, I was very pleasantly surprised when we turned up and it was spotlessly clean, simple but spacious and clean rooms, a well-equipped kitchen, hot showers and good wifi and having now been here for 7 nights it almost feels like home.
On our first morning we went on a tour of the second largest favela (slum) in Rio. It was definitely an eye opener and I was shocked by the close conditions that everyone was living in and also horrified by the stigma that surrounds the favela and how water and electricity and rubbish companies won't provide their services to all the homes, just those along the main street. It was definitely changed my view of what a slum is like as the people of the favela are a community just like any other area in the city, if not more so as they are drawn together by their lack of money. I found it very clever that in the school system they have the first 5 hours of the day for Primary school level children, then 5 hours in the afternoon for secondary kids and then 5 hours in the evening for college age and adults to learn making as much use of time and space as possible. There were also various initiatives set up to entertain the kids whilst they weren't in school such as a graffiti school to encourage people to express their emotion through art and try and squash the stereotype that favela people are any different or worse than normal people. We were also given a little performance and dancing lesson in Capoeira which is like a dancing martial arts with all sorts of back flips and handstands and things. The guys doing it were all volunteers about my age and they teach the martial arts as a form of self defense and self respect to the local children in the afternoons when they aren't in school. They attempted to teach us some of the dance and also some samba steps but it was pretty unsuccessful, we were much better at doing the clapping and singing sounds to accompany their dancing. I loved the whole thing because I really enjoy seeing the true culture of a country like that rather than the pretend culture that we often see as tourists travelling around. In the afternoon we headed to the praia (portuguese for beach) and strolled along the beach front of Ipanema and then the infamous Copacabana beach and got rather wind swept along as the clouds came in. That night we headed 'out on the town' with a group of other people from our hostel which was great fun especially as the night started with samba in the club and there were a few guys there teaching people. I can tell you, I cannot samba to save my life as there is too much coordination of moving feet and hip wiggling and hand movement all at the same time...but that doesn't stop me trying. In the club that night there was also an artist who was doing neon, swirly, sparkly face paint on people for free so obviously I jumped at the opportunity and felt like I was a carnival girl for the rest of the night.
I woke up the next morning and the face paint was still perfectly intact on the right side of my face so I was very sad to take it off when I showered! Friday was a beautiful, clear blue-skied day in Rio so we took advantage of that and headed up to visit Jesus on the hill. There's not much to say about this day apart from that we spent most of the day stood around in extremely long queues which I think were particularly bad because it had been rainy for the last couple of days and was due to be wet again over the weekend so everyone was making the most of the clear day. We eventually made it to the top having queued for a bus to the bus ticket office, then a bus to the ticket office, then to buy the ticket, then to catch another bus up to the actual statue. It was so worth all the waiting around though as being up there stood by one of the Wonders of the World was amazing and the views over Rio from so high were incredible. It was very entertaining squeezing through the crowds of people at the top as there were numerous people laying on their back on the floor trying to get pictures of others in front of the enormous white statue of Christ the Redeemer. Once we had descended (yet more queues) we headed straight for the Sugarloaf which is a mountain jutting out into the sea from which you can see pretty much all of Rio. Our plan had been to get up there for sunset, however, this was also everyone else's plan so we didn't actually make it up on the cable car until after it was dark due to more excessive queues but it was still beautiful to see the shining lights of Rio de Janeiro during the night. It being Friday night, we obviously had to go out for Round 2 in Rio to the famous Lapa district which is where all the parties happen at the weekend. It was basically one big massive party in the street with people everywhere buying alcohol from little men walking around selling bottles of whatever you wanted - mainly vodka and energy drink - accompanied by music from the surrounding bars and clubs. We had bought a ticket for the Lapa Loca club which was so much fun, again starting the evening with a bit of samba and a live Brazilian funk band who were awesome. We also bumped in to one of the guys who had given as the dance show in the favela so he continued to try and teach us to dance, unsuccessfully which was highlighted when a girl came up to me and said 'are you English' and when I told her I was, she said should could tell by my dancing - how embarrassing! By the end of the night we were exhausted from all the hip wiggling and had absolutely filthy feet from being stood on in flip flops so caught the bus home at 4 am.
Saturday was a cloudier day again so we headed back to Lapa to visit the 'Lapa steps' which are a load of stone steps that have been decorated with red, green and blue tiles for the main part and then 2000 artistically painted tiles from over 60 different countries. The effect was amazing and I particularly loved the imperfection of it with the rugged, uneven edges of the tiles and different sized steps...it just seemed to complete the image. We then headed to Jardim Botanico (the botanical gardens), which are apparently the most diverse in the world, to enjoy a bit of nature. I particularly enjoyed the orchid garden and the cactus greenhouses with all the oddly shaped plants. By the time we had finished wandering around the gardens we were dead on our feet so decided to head back to the hostel and have a little snooze for a couple of hours to re-energise ourselves for another night out. Round 3 involved going to another hostel in Ipanema to meet 2 guys that we had met on the first night who worked there and live in Rio so know loads of things to do. We sat and chatted away with them there for a couple of hours over a few caipirinhas, mainly talking about Carnival which Phoebe and I have now made a pact that we are going to come back for together in the searingly hot Brazilian summer and learning that the Brazilians say 'facey-bookey' for facebook and 'Bradgey-Pitgey' for Brad Pitt which had me in hysterics! We then headed out with them to the same club that we went to on Thursday night as this time it was free entry (because Lucas and Gaspa knew the owner) and free drinks all night. The only downside was that the music was rubbish so we stayed for about an hour and then left to go to another bar in Copacabana - where I witnessed an entertaining but pretty violent brawl between 2 drunk girls - and stood outside sipping on beers until my tired legs could handle it no longer and we headed for home.
Sunday was a designated shopping day as again the weather wasn't great so we headed firstly to Ipanema where they have a big Sunday hippy market and spent a couple of hours browsing there, buying a few things for ourselves, including the stereotypical 'I love Rio' top, and some presents. We had a quick lunch at a cafe that had been recommended to us by Gaspa and relished in drinking chai tea (a very Indian thing). We then headed for copacabana on a havaiana hunt however things shut early as it was a sunday so we were unsuccessful on that front. Decided to take a night off on Sunday night so went out for dinner to a kebab place (which are actually more like burritos here) and then came back for a much needed early night and longer than 5 hours sleep.
Monday was a slightly nicer day so we continued our havaiana flip flop hunt, much more successfully...so much so that I am now 7 pairs richer - not all for me, I promise! We then spent the afternoon on the beach before grabbing a McDonalds and heading back to the hostel to prepare for Round 4 in Rio, the boat party. Again, we went with a group of people from our hostel down to the marina and boarded the boat which had a bar at one ended, then a dance floor, then a thin walkway along to the front and a chilling out area (which turned into a 'passed out area'). For the first hour it was free drinks for ladies (this kind of thing happens a lot here, free or significantly cheaper stuff for girls, a little bit sexist but it works in my favour so I don't mind) and then we spent the rest of the night dancing/swaying around on the dance floor. There were moments where the boat was swaying a lot, even though it didn't move very much resulting in people littering the floor. The lights of the shore line were beautiful to see from out in the bay on the boat and it was generally a really good night and great way to spend our last night in Rio together.
Had a very lazy day yesterday as Phoebe was flying home in the afternoon so we spent the morning slobbing about and packing her stuff off then said a tearful goodbye as she headed for the airport and I headed to the beach. Lay on the beach for a couple of hours until a woman came over and started ranting at me in Portuguese. I repeatedly told her in my limited Portuguese that I didn't understand and didn't speak her language and just as I thought she was leaving she grabbed my anklet and yanked it from around my ankle, then walked off. I was feeling very shakey so quickly pulled on my clothes, grabbed my clothes and walked away whilst some guy try to make her give it back to me, I really wasn't that bothered and just wanted her to leave but I had no way of saying that. It definitely shook me up a bit but I am just grateful she only chose to take my 20p Indian anklet rather than my kindle which I had in my hand. After that altercation I headed back to the hostel and chilled out for the rest of the evening for an early night.
I am currently finishing up packing my stuff (for the last time, that I am not sorry about!) at the hostel and will head off to the airport in 2 hours which is absolutely crazy and I cannot believe that it is finally time to go home for good - it definitely hasn't sunk in yet! The things I am most excited for back home are seeing my family, friends and doggy, sleeping in my own bed, using a proper towel rather than a travel one, being able to throw toilet paper down the toilet rather than put it in a bin, not living out of a backpack unpacking and repacking every couple of days, having more variety in clothes to wear rather than just the 3 shorts, 1 pair of leggings and 4 tops I have left and of course my mummy's cooking!
I have had the most amazing 3 months travelling around South America, visiting 6 different countries and meeting so many lovely people along the way who I have shared great memories with (particularly all the inspiring volunteers in Lima, my aunty Ali, Catherine and Vicki in Bolivia, Gordon, Lucas and Sophie and Sam who let me latch on to them for over 2 weeks and finally Phoebe who flew out to join me for the last 3 weeks and has been the best travelling companion). It has been the perfect end to an amazing year of adventures having covered 3 different continents, 8 different countries in a total of 9 months. As much as I am sad for this year to end, I am also so excited to head up to Manchester in September and enjoy the new experience of being a medical student for the next 5 years....
I hope you have enjoyed reading my gap yah blog over the last year. See you soon England!!!!
Loads of love xxxxxxx

Heaven on Earth

SO we arrived, after the last of the bus journeys in delightfully warm Sao Paulo. Our first experience of the city was catching the very busy metro with all our´heavy bags so that wasn´t a particularly warm welcome, especially when we got to the first hostel who to find they were full already...but thankfully they rang across to another one who had space for us 2 little English gals. Once at the hostel we hung out all our wet stuff from the previous day at Iguazu and then headed out for a delicious afternoon tea of brioche, nutella and thick hot chocolate - it was heaven on a plate. We then carried on to Sau Paulo´s infamous Batman Alley which is basically a thin, windy road with walls on either side which are all completely covered in graffiti/street art. I was in awe of the artwork (particularly as I am so no artistically talented) and just loved all the different colours and patterns and pictures that people had used to  display their messages and feelings on the walls. My favourite ones were a pair of massive green eyes on the side of a building which were scarily life like and so details, and a tree that had been painted very extravagantly in multi colours and was beautiful.
Whilst walking through the streets it was difficult not to notice the thousand of white VW campervans lining the streets (and of course I wanted to buy them all) and we saw one guy spray painting famous peoples faces in different colours on to his camper - I wanted it!! When I returned from our stroll, I discovered that my bag of smelly, wet, dirty laundry was missing from the end of my bed and it contained a few tops, some underwear, 2 cardigans and all my trousers that weren´t leggings. I have no idea where they went and I asked around loads but they never turned up and I can only assume either someone thought it was a bag of rubbish and my beloved, thread-bare clothes are in a bin somewhere or someone decided they had got lucky and decided to steal them (if it´s the later its quite entertaining that they just got smelly, very worn clothes) but on the positive side I now dont have to wrestle with my bag every time a pack it to fit everything in. That night we had a decidedly non-exotic meal and then flopped into bed to recover from the night bus.
The next day we opted to do a self-guided walking tour of Sao Paulo which included a big cathedral, a bustling market street, a monastery, a fancy theatre, going up to the top of a building for views over the city, and most importantly; ice cream. The weather in SP was much warmer than Argentina which was lovely but it was still fairly overcast. I am also finding it harder to travel in Brazil as I have to adapt to not understanding the language which is very strange after 11 weeks in spanish speaking countries and understanding most things and being able to communicate with others, to coming here where everything people say is complete gobble-dee-gook. The signs I can kind of understand because a lot of the words look similar to the ones in Spanish but when they speak Portuguese I am lost.
Next day we jumped on a bus to the beautiful beach resort of Paraty. This town is stunningly quaint with uneven cobbled streets - it actually hurt to walk - and multi coloured, wooden beamed buildings with cute bridges over the canal and gorgeous views out into the bay and outlying islands. We had been recommended to go on a day boat trip which is exactly what we did spending the next 7 hours on a little boat bobbing around the islands and white sand beaches and being loaded up with free caipirinhas stopping off to swim in the sparkling clear blue water with the fishies. For any Twilight fans, we swam off the same island that Bella and Edward go to on their honeymoon - yes be jealous! It was safe to say that by the end of the day, having been steadily slurping caipirinhas since midday we were exhausted and a little sun kissed (or in Phoebe´s case a little pink). We feasted on the BBQ that our hostel did on Saturday nights and then crashed into bed after our exhausting day of sunbathing, swimming, dancing, jumping off rocks and feeding monkeys - its a tough life, eh?!
I woke up (not deliberately) to see the sunrise over the bay in the morning which was incredible with a lovely orange glow and I loved the peacefulness of walking along the beach at 7 am with barely anyone else about. I had another of my 'Oh my gosh, I'm actually here in Brazil on my gap year, this is amazing' moments. We had a lazy morning flopping about in the sun after consuming a large breakfast on the beach before catching our transfer to the gorgeous Ilha Grande (google it!).
This is an island 50 mins boat ride from the mainland and I can safely say I have never visited anywhere so idyllic in my life. If you were to google 'beautiful beaches' then pictures of this island would come up with perfect white sand beaches and impeccably clear waters with a perfectly blue sky to complete it. We were staying in a very cute little 'eco hostel' run by a mother and son and she really did act like a mumma and made us feel so welcome that we ended up staying an extra night than planned.
For our first day on the island we decided to get up early(ish) and hike to 'the worlds most beautiful beach' called Lopes Mendes. This walk would have been perfectly easy had it not all been steep up hill or down hill, walking along a path covered with enormous roots and slippery stones, in the boiling heat of the jungley island. It was a challenge but we persevered and, boy, was it worth it when we made it, 2 and a quarter hours later, to the magnificent beach - I'm running out of adjectives here! Headed straight into the sea to cool down and wash off at least the top layer of sweat from the walk and then spent the rest of the day sprawled out in the glorious sunshine on the sand that felt like snow when you walked on it. Funnily enough, we opted out of walking back again so caught a very bumpy boat back - there are no cars on the island, adding to the heavenliness.
The following day we booked a boat trip to various lagoons and beaches around the island. We were able to snorkel and admire the fish (although they weren't particularly exciting fish) with the hope of seeing turtles but sadly they didn't turn up for us. And bouncing about on the boat soaking up the rays with my hair flowing behind me - you can just imagine it, cant you?! As the afternoon drew on, the weather came with it and the wind got up and the clouds came over making it much chillier. Just as we pulled back into the port it began to drizzle so we scurries back to our hostel, via the supermarket, and then holes up there for the rest of the afternoon journal writing, reading and cooking pasta + tomato sauce + tinned sausages....Jamie Oliver eat your heart out!
Next morning it was still raining (sad face) so we took that as our queue to leave the paradise that is Ilha Grande and head onwards and upwards to the bright lights of Rioooooooooo!!
I'm a week behind so I head home tomorrow which is absolutely crazy, these last 13 weeks have past in a complete world wind and I am going to miss the thrill of travelling and moving onto a new place every couple of days but I am equally looking forward to a bit more variety in clothes, my own bed and of course being reunited with my family, friends, dog and BED.
Besos xxxxxx

Soggy bottoms

So we left for Uruguay on a boat that crossed the water between the 2 countries and landed in Colonia and then caught a bus from there to the capital, Montevideo. Our first impression of Uruguay was a lot of fields which was later confirmed by a tour guide who told us that the population of cows in the country is 4x the population of people so there is a lot of countryside! The next impression was the incredibly fancy bus terminal that we arrived at...it was a full blown shopping centre and had everything you could possibly need.
We then caught a local bus from there to our hostel which was rather a challenge seeing as the bus was heaving and there was 5 of us all with a big bag on our backs and a small bag on our fronts, the amount of times my boots (hanging off my bag) almost got trapped in the doors is uncountable! Eventually got to our hostel (chosen for its funny name; Willy Fogg) and unloaded our stuff - I am very sick bow of trudging around with my backpack and living out of it. Sophie, Phoebe and I cooked ourselves a gourmet dish of pasta, tomato sauce and brocolli accompanied by some vino tinto...twas delicious! Later in the evening we went for a leisurely stroll along the seaside promenade (or rambla in Spanish) and took in the sights and particularly smells which were mainly fish, dog poo and marijuana as it is legal here. The next morning we got up and went on a walking tour of the historic part of Montevideo. We had a brilliant tour guide who told us lots of interesting things about Uruguayan history (did you know that there are zero native Uruguayans left because the various invaders wiped them out?!). We saw various pretty buildings, an English church, the gate from the original city boundaries and admired the promenade in daylight. We finished our tour at the Port Market which is a large food market with basically everyone selling amazing barbeque. We chose one such restaurant and sat at a bar watching our meat being cooked in front of us on the open, boiling hot grill - it was awesome!! The meat tasted amazing, even better for having been cooked in front of ours and we all came away decidedly stuffed. On our walking tour we had met a group of Brazilian students so in the evening we went to meet them for some drinks on the beach and then went on the fun fair which was hilarious.
During this time Phoebe and I had been doing some research into the easiest and cheapest way to get up to Iguazu Falls from Montevideo, which is very complicated. We had the option of paying £20 to go back to BA, spend the night there and then catch the 18 hour bus up at an extortionate price, or try and work our way up in Uruguay, cross the border somewhere further north and then buy a still expensive bus ticket to iguazu. In the end, we headed back to BA as the other option would have meant an 18 hour lay over in a bus terminal, and only saved us £10 so the next day we headed back to my beloved BA, not that we really saw any of it! Spent the night in a hostel there and then the next day got up early to book a bus up to Iguazu. Sophie, Lucas and Sam had opted to fly up to iguazu from BA so it was there that we sadly parted ways :(
The bus journey was surprisingly alright and I managed to sleep pretty well, although arriving in Puerto Iguazu in the pouring rain was not such a pleasure. Especially seeing as its the first rain I've seen in over a month. We opted to leave our bags in the bus terminal and catch a bus straight to the park to see the infamous Cataratas de Iguazu.
I have no words to describe how amazing it was to walk around a corner and see our first view of the enormous falls through the sodden trees. And then each time is we got closer, the view just got better and better. There was one point where there was a platform jutting out, extremely close to one of the bits of the falls which we went and stood on and got even more drenched than we already were by the rain.
We then took a boat ride,
which was only 12mins long but felt like a lot longer! We had to pop all our bags into waterproof dry bags and then the boat basically took us right under 3 different parts of the waterfall. The first bit was just a little one, although there was still plenty of spray, then we went around the corner where the water was a lot choppier and we were rolling all over the place and drove into an enormous amount of spray and water and wind and who knows what else. The last part was driving into the largest, strongest part of the falls where we drove close to it and I physically couldn't keep my eyes open due to the sheer force of the water and spray coming at me. I was completely overwhelmed by the quantity and strength of the masses of orangey water rolling down off the cliff towards our little boat in the river below. Its safe to say there was not a bone in my body that was dry after that but it was so much fun so I didn't really care (or at least not until later when I started to get cold!). Then next trail that we walked was along the tops of the waterfalls that we had just been under and by this point the sun had sort of come out meaning there were beautiful rainbows over many of the different parts of the falls just adding to the spectacularness (is that a word?) of the falls. A little train then took us up to a board walk to La Garganta del Diablo (the Devils Throat). We walked 2km along this board walking, over the raging river - it amazes me that those bridges survive the force of the water and I have no idea how they could ever have built them in the first place?! We made it to the top of the Devils Throat where we couldn't actually see much of the falls because there was so much spray coming off them but we could experience the mass of water swirling around us and gushing over the edge! After this we headed back to the hostel, a soggy mess to freshen up and cook ourselves some dinner (our new money saving strategy!)
Next day we wandered around the small town of Puerto De Iguazu and then jumped (not literally, that ain't happening with all those bags) onto a bus across the border into country number 6....Brazil! We got stranded at immigration because most of the others on the bus were Brazilian so didn't need to stop so they dropped us off and then told us to catch the next bus in 20mins. Well in true south american style the next bus didn't show up for another 45mins so we just sat and enjoyed the sunshine whilst waiting. Eventually a bus came along to pick us up and we were taken to Foz do Iguacu. Found our lovely hostel which is called 'Tetris container hostel' as it is entirely made out of multicoloured shipping containers which was a really cool set up, particularly sleeping in one! That night there was an enormous thunderstorm and we woke up the next morning to a very wet world! But we decided to brace it and head to the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls anyway. Its safe to say we were drenched before we even saw the falls, making the mistake of sitting on the top, open deck of the bus as soon as the heavens opened! It then continued to rain for pretty much the whole time we were there, but I guess once you're wet, and we couldn't really get much wetter. The view from this side was just as beautiful and much more panoramic, and again we were able to walk on a board walk into the middle of the river although I genuinely thought I was going to be blown away as it was so windy. Thankfully when we reached the closest point to the falls where there was just a wall of falling, orange water the rain had stopped so we were able to take a few snaps there. We quickly headed back to the hostel to cook a nice warm lunch and dry ourselves up before catching my last night bus of my travels to, hopefully, more sunny Sao Paulo....

Fallen in Love

I have fallen, hook line and sinker, in love with the beautiful city of Buenos Aires! From the moment I arrived I knew it would be a good few days here and it would live up to my high expectations set by others. It was made even better by being joined by my old friend Phoebe from home who flew out to BA to join me on the last 3 weeks on my adventure (how crazy thats its only 3 weeks left :o). I was also very happy that with her she brought English tea bags, digestives, Maryland cookies, peanut butter and a new deodorant... She knows how to make me happy :) we also re-met up with Lucas and Sam (from the salt flats and Chile) in our hostel in BA as they had arrived earlier that morning from Santiago, so we were now a team of 5 taking on the Argentinian capital!
Our first night was very much influenced by Argentina being in the final of the Cops America which was all dreadfully exciting and we watched the match in our hostel with lots of others. In my opinion the game was rather disappointing as it was very evenly matched so there were no goals in the game or in extra time and it ended up going to penalty shoot outs and unfortunately Argentina lost :(
You'll be pleased to know that this didn't shoot us down, we headed to the adjoining hostel for a party Argentinian style, which let's just say involved a lot of drinking and dancing and was A LOT of fun!
The next morning, feeling a little bit worse for wear, we headed to the infamous San Telmo where they have an enormous Sunday market, and as it conveniently happened to be Sunday it felt wrong not to go. The best way to describe it would be an argentinian tinted Camden market, about 10 blocks long with stalls selling anything and everything and an awful lot of cool looking, useless tat - and thats the sort of thing I love so I spent a long time perusing all the little stalls and enjoying the music provided by bands playing on the street. It was such a lovely atmosphere :) having exhausted our shopping potential and with an extremely bored Sam (he hates markets, as he kept reminding us) we wandered back to the hostel, passing the 'cambio' men who are doing the illegal dollar exchange on the street.
That evening we treated ourselves to the bestest meal ever. A few of us had been specifically recommended a restaurant in the Palermo district by various other travellers along the way. This restaurant is known firstly for being a steak place and secondly for having a happy hour from 7-8 every night. This meant that we weren't allowed in the place until 7, we then had to order, eat and pay our bill by 8 in order to get 40% off the meat. Now talking about meat, there is no way for me to describe the incredible steak that we were served; it was completely melt in your mouth and like nothing I have ever nor will ever eat again in my life - it truly made me feel sorry for vegetarians. I didn't even need a steak knife to cut it, just your standard butter knife. Of course, we accompanied the 'to die for' meal with a bottle of Argentinian wine and chips, not that we needed them...we virtually had to be rolled back down the street we were so full and yet our happy contentedness powered us along.
The next morning, to walk off my food baby, 4 of us (Sam was in bed nursing a hangover) went for a walking tour around the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires, which is the fancy, aristocratic area. There were all sorts of grand buildings and we also saw a funky, multicoloured, wavy bridge, the beautiful law school and a really cool, large metal flower which opens in the day and closes at night. We also visited the mesmerising but slightly eery cemetery which is where all the aristocratic people from the city, and country wide, are buried and each grave is ornately decorated with a stone or marble building with various intricacies to individualise it. Included in these tombs is the grave of Evita Peron, a female icon in Argentina and internationally for her work with ythe poor and lower classes.
That evening we were given a true Argentine experience. We paid (a rather large sum) to appreciate the tango culture. Firstly, we had a tango lesson which was hilarious. Our instructor just taught us one simple step and then the tango pose and face and then we got to practice what we'd learnt with a being of the opposite gender. It was so entertaining seeing how hard everyone was concentrating, and I almost preferred watching than doing it myself (not being a natural dancer) especially when the tango face was whipped out. Having sort of learned how to tango we went and had another delicious steak dinner, with a salad starter (still a treat to have salad) and brownie dessert and mucho vino. The dessert was also accompanied by a tango performance by 3 scarcely clad women and 3 suited gentlemen. The show was incredible and j was completely in awe of how quickly they could all move their legs and the heights to which the women's legs reached! I left the show with a spring in my step and a wiggle in my hip and headed to the hostel for another night of partying which ended in a club that was a lot of fun. The 30 minute walk back at 5am was not so good but we made up for it when we made it back by having a midnight feast of peanut butter and banana sandwiches sat in a little circle on the floor in the middle of our dormitory - I felt very sorry for our fellow roommates!
Made ourselves get up the next morning to visit La Boca which is where the immigrant community in BA used to live and is incredibly colourful. All the buildings are painted in blocks of multicolour giving the whole area a very cheery, up beat feel. We saw a particular house where 30 families used to live, each family in a tiny little 2.5m by 2.5m room which have now been turned into souvenir stalls. We rushed (I mean literally ran) back for a cooking lesson in how to make empanadas - for those of you this is like a Cornish pasty with a Spanish touch - and also had a lite competition to make the most creative empanada. I am very unimaginative so made a wine bottle and glass as it SAS simple but some of the artistically talented made a turtle, with a spinach leaf shell, a hedgehog and the winner was a 'despicable me' minion made out of empanada, eating an empanada. It was well worth the free T-shirt as a prize! I also got to try 'mate' (pronounced matt-eh) which is an extremely popular drink here...everyone walls around with their specific maté cup, specialised filter straw and flask of hot water. The flavour is provided by a herb called 'sherba' and I was really keen to try it, sadly I found it revolting and don't intend to drink it again but I'm glad I got to try. And I still bought myself a cool cup as a souvenir!
Next morning was an earlier start to get ourselves to the port to catch a boat over to Uruguay...just for another stamp on the passport, although I am very sad to be leaving BA. It is a place I will definitely be back to in the future, and I know there is so much I haven't seen!
Mucho amor xxx

Riding and wining

The transit into Argentina was smooth again, a little more complicated with a bit more of a thorough check, and they even had sniffer dogs, but that seems to be the theme that the more developed the country I'm going into, the more security there is. The bus journey wasn't too painful either, there were films being shown, I read my lonely planet, wrote my blog, gazed out the window and shnoozed.
Just the 20min walk from the bus station to our hostel made me love Argentina instantly. It was 8 o'clock on a Sunday evening and the streets were buzzing with families in the parks and food vendors lined the sides of the road smelling all sorts of yummy food. We made it to our hostel, checked in and then when straight back out again to find some food! We found a nice little restaurant where we could finally have some argentinian wine - probably the cheapest thing on the menu - and fill our stomachs having snacked on rubbish all day.
In Argentina, American dollars are worth a lot of money so they have a system with the 'blue dollar' which is where you can exchange your dollars for Argentinian pesos at a better exchange rate than the one banks give you. I had been told about this in advance so had got lots of dollars and was able to get a rate of 1 dollar to 13.35 pesos rather than 9 pesos, making the dollar almost equal to the pound for which I can get 14 pesos...so it was a great deal, even if a little tiny bit illegal!
On Monday we went up the cable car to a mountain at the side of salta and enjoyed that view, and then walked back down grabbing a steak sandwich on the way. I then caught a bus an hour and a half outside of Salta to a ranch that a friend had put me in contact with. When I first got there KT was very confusing because I had managed to find the farm and it was all open but I couldn't find anyone there! Eventually after half an hour I found someone working in a back room who showed me to my room and got me settled. K then spent the evening reading in the sunshine and eating a delicious, home made goats cheese salad. The next morning I wandered around the farm, introducing myself to the chickens, dogs, cats and goats before meeting Carlos, the owner, and arranging to ride some horseys.
I went for a morning and afternoon ride which were both absolutely lovely. It made me so happy to be back sat on a horse, particularly riding through the Argentinian countryside. I also loved the fact that I was riding in my primark plimsolls, leggings and no hat...none of the fancy equipment we have to use back home. We rode to a beautiful lake with mountains in the background, admired the view and then rode back. In between rides I sat in the glorious sunshine and read for hours which was so perfectly relaxing and just what I needed. That night there was an Argentina vs Paraguay football match in the Copa America so I watched that with the family, and it was dead exciting because they won 6-1 meaning Argentina are in the final on Saturday night!
The next day they had a big school group coming to visit the farm so I tagged along with them to learn about them the goat milking and with their visit to the tobacco and archeology museum before going for a little walk down the old train track and spending the rest of the day reading in the sun. I then got a lift from one of Carlos' sons back into Salta and met up with Sophie back at our original hostel. We made some veg pasta and then headed back to the bus terminal to catch our 19 hour bus down to Mendoza, the home of VINO!
The bus was actually surprisingly okay, there was a bit of drama near the beginning where we had to change buses but once that was sorted I managed to sleep almost straight through until 9am, made easier by having a double seat and waking up to find Sophie asleep flat on the floor at the feet of her chair which was very entertaining. I then dozed for another 2 hours and easily entertained myself until we arrived in Mendoza.
We walked what felt like miles from the bus station to our chosen hostel, particularly with the front and back backpacks! But we did eventually arrive, settled in and then went to find some pasta sauce and cheese, and of course a bottle of wine to accompany our pasta left from the previous night. We were also provided with free wine by the hotel, although they wouldn't let us do the Thursday night wine tasting because we hadn't told them early enough - sad face. Our pasta and wine was deliciously perfect though.
The main thing to say about Friday was the breakfast. Words cannot describe how goof it was, hands down the best hostel breakfast I've had and you have no ides how much that means when you've been travelling for 9 weeks and most hostel breakfasts are a bit of bread and jam and horrid coffer. This breakfast was a buffet with; orange juice, nice coffee, hot choc, orange slices, hard boiled eggs, sugar-coated croissants, fluffy bread, and incredible dolce de leche and banana crepes...it made me so happy. Having stocked ourselves up for the day Sophie and I headed out into Mendoza to find a wine tour. We didn't find a tour as such but a lovely woman explained to us how we could do a self directed tour, so thats just what we did.
We caught a local bus 40mins out of town to Maipu where there are loads of vineyards and bodegas. We walked to find a wine museum and tasting place. We payed our AR$90 (£6.30) for a tour, which is was a little horrified at, and it was a fairly interesting tour although all in Spanish making it a little harder. We then got to my favourite bit, the tasting section where we were given 2 glasses of different red wines to swirl, sniff and savour, both of which were delicious. The other people on our tour then, thankfully, informed us that we could trade our AR$90 ticket for bottles or more tastings of wine. I jumped at this opportunity and bought a similar red to the one we had tried and then a white, and only had to pay an extra AR$5 so it was a great deal and we came out very merry. Walked ourselves back to the main road where we found a much needed baño and some food before catching the bus back to Mendoza. Once back in the city we grabbed our bags from the hostel and headed for the bus station again to catch our 14 hour night bus on to Buenos Aires....

Silver, salt and sand

My next stop was Sucre, which I reached on an 11 hour overnight bus, arriving at 7am. I had learned from my trusty lonely planet guide book that on a Sundays there is a market about 2 hours outside of Sucre so I headed straight there, leaving my big bag at a hostel, on a combi which is a minivan full of locals. I spent a couple of hours walking around the market, bargaining on prices and enjoying the atmosphere with a fresh orange juice before heading back to Sucre. I sat in the central plaza soaking up the sun before finding a late lunch and then deciding to move on from Sucre as although it is a beautiful town, there wasn't much there and I felt like I had seen enough - one of the joys of travelling alone. I found a bus to my next stop, Potosi and rocked up there at 8 o'clock, exhausted and dirty so got straight in the beautifully hot and powerful shower. Thankfully, the others in my dorm were very friendly and we were all going on a mine tour together the next day. The mine tour started with getting us all kitted up in protective clothing, wellies, a helmet with a light attached to it and a scald for my nose and mouth. We then walked around town in this ridiculous attire, getting multiple gunny looks from the locals, to reach the miners market where we were prompted to buy juice, coca leaves and sticks of dynamite as gifts for the miners. We then drove up to the entrance of the mines for a quite photo and wee stop and then we went into the darkness.
It was a very strange sensation being inside the mines as it was very dark, dusty and clammy and we were wading through a couple of inches of orange liquid which I was later informed was oxidised rock that had dripped off. I banged my head hundreds of times as I was busy looking at where my feet were going and then the ceiling would suddenly get lower and I would walk into it, I was very grateful for the helmet. We did quite a lot of climbing up and down slippery rocks which I was mildly terrified about falling on, especially buried so deep inside the mountain. There was also a couple of times when our coca leaf chewing guide (he had the most disgustingly large was of leaves balled in his cheek which oozed green liquid and made him very hard to understand) would point out a pool of water which would be 25m deep and would gently recommend not falling in there. One of the things j found strangest was that it was still a working mine and we kept coming across and chatting to the miners working down there to gather sulphur, lead and tin...sadly all the silver ran out loooong time ago! By the end of the tour I was feeling quote claustrophobic and there was very close, smelly and dusty so I was quite relieved to get out again into the light and its safe to say I am very glad I am not a miner by trade. Once we got back into potosi a few of us went out for lunch and then spent the afternoon showering and packing. I managed to persuade Gordon, a 19 year old Canadian, to come with me to Uyuni on the bus that night as buses are so much nicer when you are with others. So we arrived in freezing, bleak uyuni at 10.30pm, stumbled to a hostel and crashed!
We had to get up early the next morning to find ourselves a 3 day tour of the salt flats, of which every other shop was selling so it wasn't too hard. It was just a matter of finding the best deal, which in the end was £65 for 3 days taking us to Chile...not too shabby!
Our tour took off at 10.30am, when we met the others who would be joining us. Lucas and Sam, best friends from Devon, Sophie, Lucas's older sister, a Swede with an Australian accent called Marcus and Mahani, a Chilean. Our first stop was the Train Cemetry which is next to the old train line to Chile which is no longer in use, so when the trains failed they dumped them here. So it is literally like a graveyard filled with old, rusty falling apart trains with tourists clambering all of them. I found it quite eery having those train giants abandoned in the middle of the desert
but it was really cool to be able to climb on them. We then headed off in the other direction towards the infamous Salar De Uyuni, the salt flats! We took some pictures standing on little lumps of salt amongst the vast flatness surrounding us and our only Spanish speaking guide, Vladimir, explained to us how the salt is all in hexagonal shapes because in the summer, when it rains, the entire plane floods and then when the eater evaporates it does so in hexagonal shapes. We ate lunch in a salt restaurant where the tables, chairs and walls were all made out of blocks of salt making it a little chilly but pretty cool. After lunch we drove deeper into the salt and stopped randomly for photo time. Here we took gazillions of photos messing around with the perspective of the flatness; someone stepping on a group of us, someone sat on us, people sat on an apple, being chased by dinosaurs (plastic ones), holding each other up and spelling out words with pur bodies as the sun got lower. We also visited an island which was covered in cacti that apparently only grow 1cm per year! We watched the sun go down on the flats and it suddenly got absolutely freezing and then we headed to our salt hotel for the night where even the beds were made out of salt but thankfully with a mattress and multiple blankets too. I piled on all my layers to try and stay warm and filled myself with hot tea whilst we sat getting to know each other before dinner. Played a couple of hands of cards after dinner until it was just too cold and the only place i wanted to be was snuggled up in my bed, so that's where I went and it was much warmer there!
The next morning, many of us were all...I woke up and immediately threw up and a fee of the others and very upset tummies so we were a bit slow to get going, which our driver was very angry about. However, the morning red sky was beautiful! It was probably the best day for us to be ill because the day involved a lot of driving with stops to get out and admire the views, so we were not required to be active. We stopped at multiple stunning lakes with views of 3 or more different active volcanoes, visited the rock tree which is a rock in the shape of a tree in the desert which looks like that as it has been carved from the sand in high winds. Our final stop was the Laguna Colorado which is red (although it looked more purple to me) due to the plankton under the surface and was covered with pretty pink flamingoes :) by the end of the day I was feeling much better but still didn't want to tempt fate by eating much, but we didn't spend much time hanging around when we got to the hotel as it was apparently the coldest night of the year and was going to get down to -15°c! We had an early wake up call the following morning, getting up at 4.30am at which point it was -8°c bbbrrrr! I was sick again that morning, but thankfully the others were all better. I was distracted from feeling ill by visiting geysers which were massively strong, hot funnels of steam coming out of the earth. We warmed ourselves up by jumping through the steam funnel, which was so forceful it blew off my hat, even though it smelt of eggy farts (sulphur) and we watched our guide put a bottle of water in the flow and bounce around uncontrollably! He then showed us the active, bubbling volcanoes which went up to 150°c which were awesome to see. As the sun started to come up we drove to the thermal baths which was a pool of naturally hot water. Really quickly stripped into a bikini and jumped from the -5° outside to the +38° inside which was a hard transition but was beautiful once I was used to it. It made me feel so much better and it was great to be properly warm for the first time in a while, although I still wasn't quite brave enough to join the others with their 7am beers. Watching the sun come up through the steam of the bath was stunning and we were gutted when Vladimir announced it was time to get out, mainly because the outside air was so freezing.
On the way to the Chilean border we passed a few more scenic spots, although the whole of this area is incredibly beautiful, and some lovely lakes where we took some group photos before the majority of us got on a bus headed into Chile, and Marcus went back to Uyuni. The transit into Chile was very easy, we just had to fill out a form and when we got to the immigration office in San Pedro (theres nothing actually at the border) we got a couple of stamps, they checked we didn't have any Bolivian fruit or veg and then waved us through. We stayed together as the group of 6 of us in San Pedro De Atacama and found a lovely hostel which gave us a better deal for staying 3 nights and taking up a whole dorm, even with the deal everything here is very expensive! We spent the rest of that day relaxing in the sunshine (it was so nice that it was so warm) and exploring the beautiful, sandy streets of San Pedro. It was also heaven to have a shower even if it did say everywhere to be conservative with water as we were apparently in the driest desert in the world! The boys treated us to dinner that night cooking us a 'veg omelette' although it more turned into scrambled egg and veg but it was still delicious - and cheap! In the morning, we made banana pancakes which were an incredible start to the day and I contributed my pot of Marmite brought all the way from to have with the amazingly soft, fluffy, not sweet, fresh bread, aaaahh you have no idea how good it all was! We even found a dollop of maple syrup in the cupboard each, which made the Canadian very happy ;)
For the day 4 of us hired a bike to cycle to the valley of death and valley of the the moon. The cycle to the valley of death was only a couple of kilometres but it nearly killed me because the majority of it was cycling through deep sand, up hill which you can't actually do! So we ended up pushing most of the way, but it was still very scenic. Sam, unfortunately, had to turn back as he had a bad cold so it was too much for him. Having descended back down the road from the valley which was much more fun and pretty similar to death road, although you had the added fear of potentially running into a deep bit of sand and completely losing control, we cycled to the Valle De La Luna, so called because it looks like you're on the moon - and it actually does! On our cycle, we passed Gordon who had decided to walk and we saw some of the most incredible vistas. Popped into some salt caves along the way and walked through a canyon where all the rocks were making cracking/ticking sounds around us in the heat which was very eery! After the caves the cycle became bumpier and more uphill, much to our disgust, so we carried on another 5 km and then decided to climb up to a ridge where you could pretty much see the whole crated, white, moony valley. I felt like Neil Armstrong but with a very achey bottom! We painfully mounted our bikes again and cycled the 13km thankfully mostly downhill, back to San Pedro and arrived incredibly stiff and with the sorest bums in town! But it felt good to have cycled 30km during the day :)
Sophie and I were hoping to go on a stargazing tour with massive telescopes - and hot chocolate included - but sadly although the day had been beautifully warm and sunny, there was too much high cloud to do the tour so we missed out because on the next night the moon was going to be too big and bright, sadly.
Had an extremely and appropriately lazy Saturday morning, with more banana pancakes, fluffy bread, coffee and even some added fruit juice before venturing out to book buses for the next day - Sam and Lucas down to Santiago (where Mahani had already gone) and Sophie, Gordon and I on to Salta in Argentina. That afternoon we went on a tour to the Laguna Cejar which is a lake in the middle of the desert that is very, very, very, very salty. This means that when we got in to swim in it, you cannot physically sink, its even hard to push your head below to surface.
It was also a strange sensation because the top foot or so of water was freezing cold but everything under that was really warm. So my chest, upper arms and neck were permanently freezing but everything under that was amazingly warm...this made bobbing about in the water bearable for the 45mins we were in there but you certainly didn't want to let your legs drift up to the surface too, which is what they naturally wanted to do. Once we had got out and desalted, we visit the 'Ojos De salar' (eyes of the desert) which were 2 little round pools in ground and then on to an absolutely stunningly clear and still lake where I had an incredible view of the Andes, almost more clearly reflected in the lake and we finished there with a Pisco Sour at 'sunset' although there was too much cloud to really see the sunset until just as we were leaving when the sky turned a vivid pink!
The next morning, I said farewell to Sam and Lucas, who we will probably see again down in Buenos Aires, and settled in for our 11 hour bus journey into Argentina.
I am almost afraid and very disappointed in myself to say that although we made ourselves brilliant food, we had 3 very sober nights in Chile so didn't even get to have any Chilean wine, supposedly the best in the world - don't hate me, I will make up for it Argentina....
Love all around xxx

In the jungle, the mighty jungle....

So it turns out 11 hour bus journeys are perfect for blog catching up:
Ali and I had a slight inconvenience to our onwarBolivia
ls in the form of protests on the road between Cusco and Puno so none of the bus companies were running the day we wanted them to. This wasn't the end of the world as it just meant we spent another day chilling in Cusco which is a truly beautiful town and spent some more time with my friend Liv :) we even got to visit a chocolate museum and its safe to say we made the most of the free tasters! And then a day later than planned we caught our 6 hour night bus to Puno, a Peruvian town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Thankfully we had organised with a tour company that they pick us up from the bus terminal at 5am and they took us to their office which seemed much more like a woman's apartment where we freshened up and waited for our tour of Lake Titicaca, the largest, highest altitude lake in the world!
Our tour took us on a little motorboat to the Uros Floating Islands which are islands lived on my indigineous, quechua speaking people and they are entirely made up of layers and layers of reeds floating in the water. It was a very strange sensation walking on the springy ground and I felt like I might fall through at any moment...thankfully I didn't! We then headed further into the stunningly blue lake with a piercingly blue sky overhead to Isla De Taquile where we walked across the islands for about an hour (yes, more walking!) until we reached the central plaza and then ojr lunch spot. The island had the most incredible views over the water but was extremely remote, being 2 and a half hours on a boat from the mainland and I don't think I would have wanted to live there but it was interesting to learn about the culture and lives of the people there. It was then 3 hours back on the boat, where I fell asleep in the sun and stylishly burned one side of my face - not cool!! I said a tearful goodbye to my aunty Ali and she headed to the airport to fly back up to Lima and then home and I found myself a little hostel to stay in.
The next afternoon, after wandering around pretty nondescript Puno for the morning and finding myself a 20p lunch, I jumped on a bus and crossed the border over into Bolivia. I was amazed by how easy and smooth the crossing was. I got off on the peru side, went into the office, got the stamp, walked up the hill to the Bolivia side, got my entry stamp to bolivia, changed my Peruvian soles to Bolivian bolivianos (imagined name huh?!) and then hopped back on the bus and continued on our way!! An hour or so later, I arrived in the beautiful tourist resort of Copacabana (the Bolivian one not the Brazilian one). Found myself a luxury private room in a hotel with a view over the lake and watched the sun go down magnificently. The next morning I found myself a boat that took me, and others, to the north end of Isla del Sol (island of the sun) which is another stunning island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. I spent the day walking about 25km from the north of the island to the south with occasional breaks to catch my breath (actually they were very frequent because doing anything at altitude makes you so out of breath) and multiple stops to snap the unforgettable blue views over the lake. It's hard to believe that its the middle of winter here and yet every morning I wake up to clear blue skies...I like to think its because I am so high up that I'm above the clouds ;) on the way back from the island I made friends with 2 Chilean guys, a Colombian guy and girl and an american lady so we spent that evening drinking beer, watching the Copa America which is currently on in Chile, dancing and entirely speaking Spanish as they spoke no English - it opened my eyes (or ears) to how difficult Chileans are to understand too, as they don't pronounce their 's' but I managed!!
On Sunday I caught a bus to the Bolivian capital of La Paz, on which I met 2 sisters who are travelling around Peru and Bolivia
so I tagged along with them and they used me for my Spanish speaking ability! I ended up staying in the same hotel as them in La Paz, the infamous Wild Rover hostel which is known for its party vibe, a good night and being completely full of Brits. The thing we were most happy about was that they were doing a Sunday Roast which was incredible (obviously not as good as my mums roast) but it did perfectly after 2 months without that kinda food! Vicky, Catherine and I then spent the rest of the night in the bar introducing ourselves to Bolivian beer (every town has a different beer; cusquena from Cusco, paceña from la paz, etc) and making friends with the bar men, and stumbling into bed (mine in a 20 person dorm, imagine!) in the small hours. Spent a lot of Monday trying to find ATMs in La Paz that would let us take any money out, which involved trying about 15 different ATMs and going in to talk to at least 3 different ones...and we eventually managed to get money, much to our relief. We also booked ourselves on a 3 day tour to the jungle (having hunted around for best price of course). We also did a little bit of sightseeing, walking up through the extensive markets (when I say up, I mean up, everything is up or downhill in La Paz, it being the highest capital in the world at about 3800m) and going up the cable car to take in the views over the city from which we also spied a car that had fallen off the road, down the steep cliff and was wedged between the faces of the rock!
The next day we took on the challenge of cycling Death Road, also commonly known as the Worlds Most Dangerous Road due to the hundreds of fatalities that used to occur on this major trade route before the built a new road. We started the ride at 4800m all kitted up in overall jacket and trousers, knee and elbow pads and helmets and pretty much didn't have to pedal the whole way down 3000m but that is probably a good thing because all energy was going in to holding on to the handlebars for dear life! The road started as tarmac but far too quickly turned into a dirt road with more bumps than you can imagine. The reason it is known as Death Road is that the entire time there is a sheer drop on one side of the road that you are hurtling down, made even more scary when we were in the middle of clouds so it was wet and couldn't see a lot. As much as I say it was scary, I never actually felt I safe or as if I was going to fall off it was just a matter of dodging the biggest bumps and not letting yourself go stupidly fast and I loved the whole thing - particularly when they adjusted my brakes and handlebars so that they were close enough together for my little hands to be able to hold both firmly). When we made it to the bottom, in the beautiful sunshine, we were presented we t-shirts saying 'I survived the death road, Bolivia' as a souvenir and fed a buffet lunch before making the 3 and a half hour ascent back up to La Paz which was almost more terrifying as there was an almost landslide and we were driving through thick cloud with the whole of the inside of the van covered in condensation. I have no idea how the driver saw anything!
The next day we were up at 4.30am to catch our tiny, weeny 20 seater plane to Rurrenabaque in the jungle! The plane was an experience and it was beautiful to watch the sun come up, about level with us, over the mountains. It was also funny to get on as I don't think any of the 3 of us had realised quite how tiny the plane was, as Catherine and I both 'shotgunned' window seats and of course it turned out that everyone had a window seat and even I had to crouch to walk through it. Once we reached Rurrenabaque, we had a 3 hour drive to the Pampas rivers where we were going to be spending the next 3 days. For much of the drive, I slept, as I seem to have found an affinity to sleep anywhere and everywhere her, but we were woken up by our male guide, Hilda (I know), to be on sloth watch. We managed to see 2 sloths; one quite a long way from the road climbing up a tree and another little one right next to the road just sat there in the tree watching us. It was awesome to see the sloths as apparently they are really rare to see and they are such funny looking animals - I also loved the fact that the word for sloth in Spanish is 'perizoso' which literally translated means 'lazy' which seemed so appropriate! We spent the afternoon on a little long, motor powered boat, soaking up the sun and animal spotting as we went. We managed to see pink river dolphins (which according to my brother are endangered but there seemed to be plenty of them bobbing out), turtles sun bathing on logs, caimen (of the croc family), monkeys and a large variety of water birds. We arrived at our river lodge - a couple of wooden shacks, covered in netting and all on stilts above the water - to find a caimen skulking around the camp who then stayed there for the duration of our stay and we enjoyed taunting. I even got to touch her tale, and we named her Lucy, of course :) after stuffing our faces with popcorn and coating ourselves in mosquito repellant we went to watch the sunset with a bottle of wine and all the other tour groups, for a bit of socialising as the other 2 people on our your were a grumpy French couple who clearly didn't like us! After dinner, and more wine (purely to keep the mossies away, of which there were cazillions) we went for a night time boat ride to admire the incredibly clear stars - its very strange seeing them from the southern hemisphere rather than the northern hemisphere, I CAN'T FIND ORION - and to look for caimen eyes with our torches.
The next morning we went anaconda hunting which involved donning wellies and wading through mid-thigh deep water which potentially contained anacondas! One of the other guides found and caught a baby one so I got to hold that, although it was only about 3 it was already 2.5 metres long and about the thickness of my calf - crazy! Over lunch time there was a torrential downpour of rain which awoke me from my afternoon nap as it was dripping through my mosquito net onto my face and bed, not pleasant! This meant that our piranha fishing trip was a little delayed but that didn't bother us too much as I discovered that I don't really have the patience for fishing and Catherine, Vicky and I all failed to catch any piranhas (but I did get a few bites) however the others managed to catch 5 between them so we later had them for dinner but they were so tiny it wasn't really worth it! We wisely made the decision not to get up for sunrise the following morning she to the presence of the clouds, and so headed out at 9 to find some dolphins to swim with. The dolphins were there, but sadly as soon as we got into the water they would swim away so I would say I more swam in the vicinity of rather than with the dolphins but it was still a great experience. We then powered back to Rurrenabaque where we enjoyed a hot shower, a yummy pizza dinner and a few too many free caipriña's before hitting the hay. Next morning we caught our mini flight back to La Paz, this time I was sat right at the front so I felt like I was virtually on the pilots lap! Coming back up to high altitude was a bit of a shock to the system and I suddenly felt very unfit again. Thankfully we didn't strain ourselves too much for the afternoon and j spent most of it lounging around in the sun in a hammock. That evening I then bid farewell to my friends Vicky and Catherine and headed out on my own to catch a bus to Sucre....
Much love xxx

Galloping Guineapigs

Our G adventures tour started off with a little blip with us turning up at the hotel on the dot of 6pm when we had been told the meeting was, only to discover that the meeting had been at 4.30! So Ali and I rewarded ourselves on our previous 3 days travelling by going out for a delicious cerviche (raw fish in lime sauce) dinner and a large glass of vino. We then headed back to the hotel and Ali was joyously reunited with her misplaced luggage. The next morning we were up at 4.30am to get to the airport and catch a plane from Lima down to Cusco. We safely landed in Cusco, after the hour flight, and thankfully so did out bags and we were taken to our hotel to acclimatise. Cusco is in The Andes and is 3600m above sea level, so quite a difference in altitude compared to Lima. I wasnt feeling too bad apart from a slight headache and being tired from our early start. We went for a little guided your around a few of the sites of Cusco, although I just loved walking around the thin cobbled streets with the white washed houses and blue window frames. At lunch time I thought I would be brave and try atalk
a (like llama) for lunch and really regretted it as the altitude hit me just as my food arrived and I end up throwing up all my lunch - such a waste of S50. But to be honest the alpaca wasn't anything special, it tasted like beef really! In the evening we met the rest of our G adventures 'family' which was surprisingly vritish with a few americans and an aussie (16 of us in total) and mentally prepared ourselves for the gruelling 3 days ahead.
We had a gentle break in to climbing on the Thursday where we visited various different Inca ruins which had varying degrees of climbs up to them. I found it fascinating to see the resourcefulness of these inca people, hundreds of years ago making stepped terraces in the hillside so they had flat land to grow their crops - which was basically their currency - and the different building structures designed for cold and to withstand earthquakes, etc. We visited a small Quechua community which is entirely based around weaving and the women, dressed in the traditional
 attire; big thick skirts, long black plaits and a hat, showed us how to weave the wool, make the wool from clumps of alpaca fur, clean it, and die it...I of course then felt the need to buy a lovely alpaca wooly hat (they also had the most adorable, smiley baby with the chubbiest cheeks you have ever seen). We went to a similar community for a gourmet Peruvian lunch with various delicacies including cerviche and quinoa. I spent the night in Ollantaytambo, a town in the sacred valley, which was very beautiful and quaint, making the most of WiFi, a bed and a shower for the last time for a while.
The trek started at kilometre 82 where we met our porters, and handed over our 6kg duffle bags for them to carry up (they each carry 20kg and there were 26 of them. Between them they had to carry all our stuff, all the tents, food, cooking equipment, etc...they are beasts!!). Then we set off.....
The first day is known as the warm up day so we started walking at 10ish and walked a total of 12km, with a few short uphill sections but the majority was flat or undulating. Half way through we were fed a much needed lunch in a nice little mess tent with the 16 of us and our 5 guides huddled around the table lapping up the food. And as we entered the lunch spot we all got applauded by the porters which was a lovely welcome :) made it to the final camp at about 4.30 by which point I was feeling extremely ill, probably due to a combination of extreme exertion, dehydration and altitude, so I couldn't stomach the popcorn and coca tea so just headed to our ready prepared tent for a little pre-dinner nap. By the time dinner was ready I was feeling much better, having drunk lots of water, although it was still freezing as we were at 3000m above sea level. Had a typically camping style early night, where you are in bed, all snuggled up by 8pm and fell into
a deep slumber after the tiresome day.
Day 2 is known as the killer day which started with a 4.50am wake up call. Had a delicious breakfast of coca tea (coca leaves are meant to be good for altitude sickness), bread and jam, and quinoa porridge. Then set off for 4 hours of climbing up hill. We had 1.2km to climb upwards from our campsite to 'Dead Woman's Pass' which is the highest point on the trail at 4215m up but its actually only 6km in distance. At the beginning the climb was fairly pleasant, it was a dirt path gradually climbing up and it being so early in the morning, it was a perfect walking temperature. However, the path then turned into more uneven, very large stone steps which only seemed to get steeper and steeper. Some of the steps were longer than my calf, it was hard work for my poor little legs of limited length! By the end, the sun had come around the side of the mountain which was lovely because it meant I could do a little tan topping up in the process, however, it also meant it was really warm making it all the harder to will my feet to move one in front of the other. The last climb up to the peak is known as the 'Gringo Killer' because the steps are especially steep and you have been climbing for 2.5hrs already and then end never seems to get any closer. But of course I did make it to the top in a nice 3 and half hours which I was very proud of and I have never felt such relief (or pain). The cheers at the top from my fellow galloping Guinea pigs (our team name, invented by yours truly) made it all the better and the view made it completely worth the pain! I was also dead proud that i was 5th (and my aunty ali was a close 6th behind me) to the top so im not AS unfit as i thought i was although it did take me about half an hour for my heart rate to return to normal, my breathing to slow down and my legs to stop shaking. We sat at the top in the sunshine reboosting energy levels and encouraging the other members of the family as they plodded their way up (digital zoom lenses on cameras were brilliant for identifying our companions). I was super impressed by Jim, a 65 year old, made it to the top and only about an hour later than the majority of the group which is incredible - if i can do that when I'm 65 my life will be complete!
After we had all regrouped, er had the perilous decent of 600m down the other side, down very similar enormous stone steps - this is also decidedly upsetting when you've just climbed up to climb down again! And by this point we were all low on water and energy and my legs were spasming so we just wanted to get down to camp, which we did by 2 o'clock where we were greeted with applause from our porters and a hearty lunch as a reward. Spent the rest of the afternoon napping, reading and just generally recuperating with a little bit of rummy before dinner and another early night.
The third day is renowned for being the 'unforgettable day' which it definitely is due to the stunning views. We were allowed a moderate lie in - until 5.30 - and started the day with a quick 300m climb which being at the beginning of the day, i didn't find too bad so stormed up it. I was also spurred on as a very active 26 year old from Reading (woooooh) who had made the crazy decision to carry one of the porters' 20kg bags up the hill as a challenge, so i managed to be in front of him for once ;) after the climbing it was a gently undulating path with a few ups and few downs, some very steeps drops on the side, bits through jungle, across a few wooden bridges, through some cave tunnels and along a couple of ridges. There was one point where we could see all 3 surrounding glaciers and we were really lucky to have a very clear day so we were able to see them all. At our lunch spot we could see the backside of Macchu Picchu mountain, and a million other mountains around us and we chased llamas around trying to capture our llama selfies! On the walk down to the campsite i was actually able to talk
as i wasn't stupidly out of breath from climbing up hull and we were at a lower altitude so i was able to chat to a couple of the other younguns about their travels, all of whom have been doing roughly the same trail as i am doing but in the other direction so i got some good travel and hotel tips. On the way down we also visited a few more inca sites and eventually made it to our campsite just as it got dark, having walked 16km that day. It is such a treat to turn up to camp and have your tent all up and ready for you (nothing like D of E where you have to do it all yourself. However, the toilets along the trail were not so pleasant as they had 500 people a day coming through them and people clearly are not very good at aiming so there was a lot of you-dont-want-to-know-what all over the floor and walls, GROSS!! Treated ourselves to another early night after another couple of hands as rummy.
Day 4 is Macchu Picchu day which delightfully starts with a 3.30am wake up call so that the porters can get off to catch a train and so we can then sit for an our at the check point waiting for the trail to open. But the excitement of nearly finishing walking kept the tiredness at bay, oh and of course the excitement to see actual Macchu Picchu. Our tour leader, Washington, frog marched us at an amazingly fast pace up to the sungate, which meant passing lots of other groups who had got up even earlier than us tehehee! Climbing the last 50, ridiculously large steep steps up to the Sun Gate was a killer but rounding the top and seeing Macchu Picchu in front completely blew me away. I couldn't believe i had actually made it, firstly to the end of the Inca trail without dying or falling apart and secondly to the World Heritage Site of Macchu Picchu. As much as we were excited to be there, pur first port of call was to the nice, clean, luxury baños at the entrance to the site and then we were content to commence our tour. Washington gave us our 2hr tpur aroubd the site, teaching us avout the key features and the inxredible ways of the incas and also their complete dependence on Mother Nature, who coincidentally is who they worship, for everything they need. I also found it amazing how much is based around the winter and summer solstices (although it does confuse me that they are the opposite here). Ali and I then descended the mountain, en bus, to the imaginatively named town of Aguas Calientes (literally meaning hot water) for a celebratory Pisco Sour and then had lunch with the rest of the inca-redible galloping guineapigs team. Headed back to Cusco on a train with windows in the roof so you could see the surrounding mountains.
Once in Cusco we took full advantage of a hot shower and washed off all the blood, sweat and tears from the previous 4 days and it was so great to be clean again. Ali and I then went out for dinner to meet up with a friend of mine from school, Liv,who is also currently backpacking around South America so it was so lovely yo see her if a little strange having not seen her for 6 months and seeing her for the first time again in Peru.
My thumbs are hurting now i will leave it there and carry on with the next leg soon, hopefully the gap wont be quite so long as i am now travelling solo so there are less distractions!
Lots of love to all xxx

Gap yah in peraaa

I am extremely sorry for the distinct lack of blog posts over the last month, I have just been so busy and I'm always behind on my journal let alone updating my blog!
The last 2 weeks of volunteering at the orphanage were as good as the first 2. I continued to fall in love with my babies; entertaining them, helping them out at school where they did activities such as smelling and cutting up fruit, sponge painting, hand painting, dancing, etc and jumping on the trampoline. I also used one of my Saturdays to go and visit one of the schools that the teachers from our programme work at as they were always talking about it so I wanted to experience it too. The school was in an area called Pachacutec which is a 'slum' area on the outskirts of Lima which is extremely sandy and dusty (as its in the desert) but had lovely views out over the sea. I helped out in the advanced class which had two older guys who are basically fluent in English but just want to keep improving so we had some interesting conversations about all things British, idioms and stupid pronunciation of different words in our crazy language...it makes me very grateful that I learnt English as a first language!
That weekend there was also an influx of new volunteers and I said goodbye to some of the ones who had started at the same time as me which was very sad. However, with the new volunteers I got 3 new room mates and became the non-french-speaking member of the 'French connection' which included 3 Swiss people, a French Canadian and me...don't ask why I was part of it but it meant by French was improving as well as my Spanish.
A group of 5 of us, coincidentally all Brits, went away for a very English 'surfing' weekend. We headed about an hour down the coast to a surf town which, it being the winter season, was deserted so we found another beach town where we could hire surf boards. However, by the time we had had a little lie down on the beach, the one surf hire shop had shut (due to it being a Sunday) so we ended up just lounging around in the sun, with some beers. For dinner that night we managed to find a little road side place that would do us a variety of different burgers with salad and chips for a total of S6 (£1.20).
The next day we decided to head back to Miraflores, in Lima, where we knew we could surf as it felt wrong to go on a surfing weekend without having actually surfed! I really enjoyed the surfing but it was a lot harder in the pacific off the coast of Peru than little me is used to surfing the sheltered Atlantic off the Cornish coast...I was exhausted by the end of our hour and a half in the water and constant paddling of my arms against the pull of the ocean.
I have also loved visited a half way house which the charity Tarpuy Sonqo is connected with which is a safe police guarded area for at risk girls. A group of us would go and visit the girls in this home on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and every time I went k would come back feeling so good. Many of the girls there have been brought in off the streets where they had been prostituting themselves, or they were taken away from their families because they were unsafe there. The majority of the girls were aged 14-17 and they were all so friendly and welcoming and grateful to us for giving up our time to go and visit them, do activities (like nail painting, playing cards and dancing) with them and teach them a bit of English. The teaching English part was usually the least successful but we did manage to teach them colours, animals, clothes and adjectives to describe people. Even if there English didn't improve, chatting away with them definitely improved my Spanish and I really enjoyed being able to communicate with them even if i only understood one sentence in 5.
My last week in the house was a very busy and sociable one. On the Tuesday night a group of us went a Peruvian dance extravaganza where there was a live Peruvian band playing and they would do traditional dances in traditional
peruvian dress which included terrifying masks and massive skirts or skimpy shorts. In between each Peruvian dance they would open up the stage for us general public to take to the floor...which of course we did with impeccable style, although I do wish I had the ability to move my hips and legs to a rhythm at the same time like the Latinos do! So we basically spent the evening dancing, laughing at each other dancing and drinking sangria - perfecto! On Wednesday evening we went to the cinema to see Mad Max and my mind was completely blown and I had no idea what was going on most of the time, I was using the Spanish subtitles to help me even though the film was in English.
Thursday was one of the volunteer's, Yasmina, birthday so we went to a local bar for a few NON-alcoholic beverages as it was a work night so we weren't allowed to drink (LOL JOKE). In the bar there was a girl covering some Avril Lavigne songs which a couple of us, including me, got a little too into and James + I ended up on the stage singing along to sk8er boy with her - how embarassing - and sadly someone felt it was necessary to take video evidence.
Friday was my last day at the orphanage so, predictably, I got very emotional saying goodbye to my babies that I have been chasing around for the last 4 weeks and also saying goodbye to the inspirational mamas who I was working alongside. In the evening we had a wild night out on the town to celebrate/commemorate/commiserate my leaving which involved going to the local bar first as a big group, then moving to classily drinking wine and beer on the park until 11 when the teachers had to be back as they had to teach the next day and then 6 of us went to Barranco to find a bar there and dance the rest of the night away, finally returning at 5am...its safe to say I went out with a bang ;)
Saturday mainly involved sleeping, eating, laughing at our antics from the night before and attempting to squish all my unnecessary items into my backpack. In the evening I was joined by my Aunty Ali at a hotel in Lima and it was so lovely to see her and catch up about life out here and life at home. Sadly her bag had not arrived in Peru with her so I had to put up with her in the same smelly clothes for 3 days :P
For her first couple of days we headed down to Nazca, south of Lima, which is a small desert town where the Nazca people made lines in the ground to draw pictures which are too big to be seen from the ground so we took a flight over the top of them in a tiny 6 seater plane from which we could clearly see the lines and the general desert landscape. We also visited las islas ballestas which are known as the poor mans Galapagos as they are islands off the coast, south of Lima which have thousands and thousands of seabirds all over them and we also saw seals sunbathing on the rocks and even had a pod of dolphins swimming around our boat on our way out which was just magical! I also loved the fact that the islands are a reserve and every 7 years a large team of people go out to collect up all the guana (bird poop) because it is extremely valuable as fertiliser.
We then headed back to Lima to join our G Adventures tour down to Cusco....

Yo soy un voluntario en Peru

So, as I said in my previous post, I am now working at Esperanza (meaning hope in spanish) orphanage in my grey IVHQ/Tarpuy Sonqo (the local charity) T-shirt. As a group of 11 volunteers on the orphanage programme we all get a 20min bus for 20p to our orphanages, which are all located in one block, leaving the house at 8 each morning to get there for 8.30. There is one other volunteer at my orphanage; Alyssa from New Zealand as it is fairly small due to there only being about 20 kids there, many of whom are very inactive.
On my first morning, I spent my time in the 'school' where the 4 most able kids go to sing songs, play instruments, at games and learn a little bit about weather and things. A lot of it is done with extravagant gestures and semi-sign language because one of the kids is deaf and another is partially deaf. There is Nataly who has Downs Syndrome and doesn't speak but laughs a lot which is absolutely adorable and she finds most things hilarious...however I also have to be a bit cautious as she likes to pull my hair and has a tendency to bite people or spit (I've had that in my face a couple of times now). Then there is Jose Carlos who has cerebral paulsey and can walk but he kind of floppily bumbles around and has to wear a heavy jacket thing to stop him from wobbling around too much but he looks like I could fall over at any moment - and often does - he cannot talk but manages to find alternative ways to communicate and it sure doesn't stop him being very cheeky! Danna cannot walk but is the most communicative, she repeats lots of the things that I say and can sing a long to songs and things like that. She also has the most adorable laugh and is very easy to make giggle and loves to have a cuddle and a kiss. Finally in the class there is Fatima, who I learned today has 'Cornelia Dr Lange Syndrome' which has some very distinctive features such as a monobrow, excess body hair (she has a moustache), small face, upturned nose and tiny hands. She doesn't speak, just occasionally groans, and is deaf but she can walk just with a slight wobble.
I spent a lot of time last week on the enclosed trampoline with Fatima lying under my legs and me using my now incredibly toned stomach muscles to bounce up and down with my bottom, soothing her and keeping her content whilst giving me a mini workout! I also toddled around behind Nataly stopping her from standing in the water fountain, shutting her fingers in windows, standing in wet paint and just generally making a mess!
Sunday was mothers day in most of the world (apart from the UK) and it is a massive thing in Peru, particularly at orphanages where the workers are the mamas! We performed 'twinkle twinkle little star' whilst wearing tinsel hats and waving sparkly, paper stars at 3 different orphanages for the mamas and some of the kids which they seemed to enjoy.
On Thursday we got the opportunity to dress up as clowns as Pablo, the resident Brazilian, is a clown who goes into children's hospitals back home so he roped us all in to join him in clowning around at the orphanage which he has been working at for the past 2 months. It was great fun putting the clown makeup on at the house and then catching the bus with multiple stares and funny looks from passers by. At first I thought the whole thing was going to be a flop because the first lot of kids we went to were very unresponsive but then we found some more interactive kids who found the clown thing hilarious and my inner chicken came out as I clucked around squawking in the children's laughing faces. That evening, a group of us went to play football in a local park with a few of the staff from one of the orphanages and a local man and his son which was great fun and reminded me just how awful I am at football...the ball in the face proved that!
At the weekend a group of 8 of us took a trip to Huacachina. This is a small, touristy hub of a village that is based around a beautiful oasis and surrounded by rolling, golden sand dunes
(just setting the scene, not rubbing it in or anything). It is a 4/5 hour bus journey south of Lima down the coast so is a pretty scenic route with sand dunes on one side and the sea on the other. We arrived at our classic travellers hostel, full of gringos (foreigners) all back packing around Peru and the rest of south america. It was a lovely, friendly, chilled atmosphere and got me really excited to start 'hard core' travelling in June! I was in a dorm with James, Cedelynne and Danielle who are volunteers with me too and then the others were in mixed dorms with other travellers. I spent the afternoon lounging around in a hammock in the 28° degree sunshine until 5 o'clock when we set off into the sand. The buggy that we were driven in is like a giant go-kart type thing and the driver was a complete mad man so it was basically like a massive rollercoaster with the added terror of the buggy potentially flipping over and a constant stream of sand in your eyes and mouth, especially when its wide open from screaming! We stopped at the top of a large slope and let her heart rates return to normal until they informed us, in extremely fast Spanish, that this was the slope we were going to be boarding down. I managed to go down the first slope on my feet although I did about half of it going backwards so ended up falling hard on my bum and rolling down the rest of the slope resulting in sand in every single crevice! The following slopes were all even steeper so I chose to descend them on my stomach on the board which was great fun but I made the mistake, the first time, of screaming with my mouth open, resulting in a mouthful of sand so I kept my mouth firmly shut after that. On the last slope, I was at the top with 3 British girls from Manchester uni (strange coincidence) and we were all absolutely terrified because it was a never ending hill and it was virtually dark but eventually we pulled ourselves together and plummeted to the bottom which was extremely fun and such an incredible adrenaline rush.
The following day, I attempted to climb one of the sand dunes but only made it half way up as even by 10.30am the sand was way too hot for my little flip-flopped feet to handle. We then went on a winery tour where we tasted delicious red and white sweet wines and shotted pisco (the local spirit) which was absolutely revolting - especially as they told us the best way to drink it is to swirl it around your mouth first, not a good idea - before getting the bus home in a mildly intoxicated state (hence I slept for the first hour). We made it home for Sunday night pizza night which was a lovely welcome back to life in Lima after the idyllic corner of the universe that is Huacachina.
Much love xxxx

Hola Peru

Hola hola!
You will be pleased to know that I have safely arrived in sunny Lima. I apologise for the delayed blog post, it now being a week since I arrived, I have just been very busy and there is always someone to talk to.
My first experience of Lima was a late pick up from the airport so I had to fend off the taxi drivers who swarmed round me like flies to offer me a ride, but thankfully mine did eventually turn up! There are about 20 others living in the volunteer house in the San Miguel district in an outer neighbourhood of the Peruvian capital, Lima. There is a large mix of nationalities in the house, with the majority at the moment being Canadian (some of whom are french-canadian), a couple of Americans, a Swiss girl, 3 Ozzie's, a kiwi, 3 other Brits, and Pablo who is Brazil and speaks only Portuguese and broken Spanish with the odd English word thrown in - it is very entertaining trying to communicate with him, most of it is done through acting out and large arm gestures. I am in a room with 3 Canadians, 2 of whom came together with 3 others and have just completed teaching college and are doing this as there 2 week placement.
Most of the people in the house arrived at the same time as j did and so we are all learning together. Our first (long) weekend was spent settling in, getting to know each other and exploring Lima and its bars. My first night was one of the girls last night so I was dragged out to a bar in the trendy barranco district and eventually flopped into bed at 3am - 9am UK time, having landed at 5am the previous morning. On Friday we went down to the beach after lunch and spent the afternoon filling our bikinis with sand from the violent waves and incredibly strong undertow before going out for more drinks in barranco with a bit of added dancing and conversing (in Spanish) with the locals. I am one of the few people who can actually speak and understand Spanish here which is great for me because it means I am getting to use it all the time and can already feel myself improving...although getting used to the speed and accent of the Peruvian language is slightly harder!
Saturday was a more cultural day where we visited the sites of central Lima. There is the beautiful Plaza de Armas which is the central square that has a palace and large cathedral in it. We wandered around various Inca markets with beautiful, multicoloured, woven handicrafts that I found very hard to resist. We also visited the St Francisco Cathedral which is home to the catacombs of Lima where 25,000 people were buried under the church, beneath the saint in which they followed. What is pretty eery walking around and seeing the assorted arm, leg and pelvis bones scattered around and particularly when we reached the section with piles upon piles of skulls. In the middle of the Lima there is a large hill with the cross of St Cristobel on the top do we caught a bus up to find stunning views over the whole of Lima. It was particularly interesting to see the more slummy areas of Lima, piled on top of each other, from above. The taxi journey home was a brilliant experience too; we managed to squeeze 7 of us into a 4 seater taxi with 4 across the back, 1 lying across, and 2 in the front next to the driver...it was a squish but we managed!
On Sunday I visited the plaza of San Miguel where we found a super market and a nice restaurant for lunch. We also bought bus tickets to Huacachina (where i am now) where there are enormous sand dunes to board down! Monday was our first day with a routine although it still wasn't a proper 'working' day as er started by having orientation where we were told all the rules which we had already learned or broken over the weekend and explained about our daily life. After lunch we were allocated our orphanages and taken to them to be shown around. I have been places in an orphanage for special needs babies, aged 0 to 5 who are all very cute but pretty severely disabled. Other volunteers are at other homes including
a special needs one for kids 6-18, an adult special needs home and an able babies home.
We then returned back to the house and collapsed in an exhausted heap until a delicious Peruvian dinner (we get 3 amazing meals a day, all Peruvian apart from brekky) from which we were re-energised enough yo play card games and heads up late into the night!
I am having the best time so far and the other volunteers are all so lovely. It is really interesting to get to know people from other countries so well, even if it does mean I'm picking up a slight Canadian twang and a start referring to the bathroom, trash and pop and have my accent repeatedly taken the mick of!
Lots of love to all back home xxxx

Pani pani pani, sunny sunny sunny...

Having discovered that school was in effect out for the week, with regard to us, we decided to spend the week doing a whole lot of nothing. Laura and Fenella made a trip into Badshahpur to book their trains for their onward travels from Tikli Bottom. We walked around all 3 villages that our kids come from to school and said our farewells. It was fascinating to see that the kids spend their time off school sweating it out in the fields with their parents collecting in the crops as it is currently harvest season (which is part of the reason they have a week off, even if they didn't; most of the kids wouldn't turn up anyway).
Apart from these occasional activities interspersed with packing we lay by the pool soaking up the sizzling hot (37°) sunshine and indulging in both lunch and dinner up at the house. It was lovely to spend some more time with our favourite little ones who live at the house. There was a lot of shrieking and splashing - particularly by 3 year old Yash who I have now renamed Splashy Yashy - and trying to persuade young Elena further into the water which didn't get very far as she is terrified of leaving the shallow bit! There was also a lot of 'feet flying' where they put my feet on their stomachs and I lifted them to fly above me! I also indulged in multiple games of hide and seek and teaching some of them how to make loom band bracelets.
One evening, we were taken by Kumar on a leopard hunt (we're going to catch a big one, we're not scared!) in the hills surrounding Tikli B, sadly we were unsuccessful so we went and drowned our sorrows at his house with rum and coke, pakora and plenty of spicy food. The following evening we planned to sleep on the roof, however, as we were driven back to our room enormous blobs of rain fell on the windscreen so we abandoned that plan.
On Friday, Fenella and Laura departed for Khajuraho so we bid them goodbye and good luck in their travels, it is very weird to think how close the 4 of us have become and yet 3 months ago I didn't know any of them! I guess thats what happens when you face the trials and tribulations of travelling and living in India together. It was also very strange to be down to 2, just kat and I for the duration of Saturday although my excitement for my family's arrival distracted me.
Kat and I slept on the roof on Saturday night as it was so much cooler outside our room and we wanted to sleep under the stars and see the sunrise on waking up. Sadly the one night we chose, it was cloudy when we woke up so there was no sunrise to be seen, but I did have the best night sleep in a while. On our walk up to the house, I was savagely attacked by one of Mr Kumar's dogs.... We knew it was a bit unpredictable so we were just casually walking past it keeping calm when it charged at me barking and bit me, extremely hard, on my bum! In my shock, all I could do was emit a blood-curdling scream but thankfully Kat's inner man came out and she shouted at the dog with so much authority that it ran away. I was still a bit stunned when Kumar's girlfriend and daughter came running out (having heard my scream) and only at that point did I dare assess the damage! I had puncture holes in my left bum cheek and he had ripped straight through my lovely peacock skirt but other than that I was fine. We continued up to the house, rather shaken, and found some antiseptic (thankfully the dog is all jabbed up and safe, disease wise) and a needle and thread to stitch up my beloved skirt just before my family showed up.
It was so lovely to see them but also incredibly strange to have them here, in my domain, where they didn't really seem to belong. They were also scarily pastey white after lack of sun but I'm sure that won't last long. We spent the day catching up and making the most of each other's company (as predicted my mother was horrified by my dog bite) and I showed them around the house and the school so they could see where I have spent the last 3 months. They were all very exhausted after a sleepless flight so had an early night and Kat and I returned to our, rather empty, bedroom just before an enormous storm broke it with forks of lightning right over our heads - we were very glad when we woke up the next morning and neither of us had been electrocuted ;)
On Monday, we all went for a walk through the local villages so they could meet some of my students (as they were still off school) who all ran up to us shouting 'Lucy madam, Lucy madam' - I am definitely going to miss them all, although maybe not the times in class with the constant 'mam mam mam mam' like the seagulls in Finding Nemo! In the afternoon we caught a Tuk Tuk into the delights of Badshahpur so they could experience a rickshaw and the joys of the local town. Kat and I then packed up all of our stuff (way too much) and I drove Annie's car down to school to pick it up and bring it back up to the house. We had been treated to a night up there seeing as there were no other guests, which was such a luxury! We had our last supper, which was also Annie's last supper as she flew back to England for the summer that night, but it definitely hadn't sunk in that I was actually leaving!
The next morning we were up bright and early for a quick brekky and then our massive tourist bus arrived to ferry us into Delhi to catch a train to Agra.
I cannot believe that I have now left Tikli Bottom and Gairatpur Baas Panchayat School for the last time, it doesn't feel real as I have left it so many times just for a weekend. I have had the most amazing 3 months there and have really enjoyed teaching the kids. Even though it has been hard work at times, it has always been a pleasure and it is so good to think that I have enhanced those children's lives a tiny bit and hopefully improved their chances for getting a well-paid job in the future. I have also been very spoilt by Annie and Martin with a large, western meal every evening and access to their pool at the same time as being able to travel around and see so much of this incredible country! I have learned so much from this experience and I won't forget it easily. I now look forward to spending the next 3 weeks travelling around India, in a little more luxury than previously, and exposing my family to Indian life and culture.