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....