Lu travels

back to third world time now. Africa is apparently just as slow as south america. With just as many new experiences. My group is lovely, and its nice this time not to be apparently paying "charity" money into a company and to actually see where its headed. We are due to start work on our chosen projects later this week, its monday today and its taken us the whole day to get the materials. Tomorrow we are helping to harvest the corn, which could be horribly back breaking but an amazing experince. then wednesday is a trip up.. but why a,m i writing ahead??? So much has happened so far. An amazing week in zanzibar happened, complete with snorkelling, spice tours, village tour, swiming with turtles and a sunset cruise. Of course accompanied by a lot ... read more

Saturday night we had our last night with jenna, at a very good restaurant and then out to roots for bit of a dance. So sunday the vast majority of the group went white water rafting. It was only class 3 but still a good day out. Had fun getting absolutly soaked and just being silly in our boat with the amazing willy as our guide. Had a good lunch there too. Then back to cusco for our last meal with craig. Up early in the mornign for our long bus ride down to puno. 8 hours of pure snacking and sleeping. Then arrived in puno and went out for a meal. Then spent the night enoying just lying in bed and watching tv. Up early again, had good breakfast then got toot toot (strange tricycle ... read more

So sunday was spent just shopping in cusco. Sorted out nearly everything. Monday we went on a sacred valley tour, with a visit to pisac inca ruins on the hill and down to the market. Then on to the ruins at ollytytambo, which were interesting because they were unfinished so we could see how they were put together. After that we dropped the rest of the group at km82, the site of their inca trail and went back to cusco. Tuesday we were up early to leave, arrived in calca in time for some breakfast in the market. Then onto lares for the hot springs. Not as nice as those we had been to in colca valley but still very nice. After we had a very good lunch, a promising start of food to come on ... read more

Arequipa we went into town to look at the main square and then had a trip around a museam to see an ice mummy. It was a bit freaky to see the frozen body of the girl who had been buried at the top of the mountain. Then we had a look at the outside of the monestary but were all too tired and not bothered to look around the inside. Then we went on the net and back to the hotel. Had a big family meal that took an age to come and had rubbish service. Then went to bed fairly early as we had to get up early for colca canyon the next day. We got a bus to the canyon the next day, via a couple of stops on the way. We finally ... read more

I left you in cusco, then boarded a plane to lima. The city is no where near as pretty as cusco and fairly scary. But I got a taxi transfer from the airport with georgie so not too scary. Found gemma and erin in the hotel and had a walk. Gemma headed back to bed and us three went to barrio chino for dinner. Pricey by peru standards but very good chinease all the same. Early night as still feeling little ill. Very nice hotel, had real hot runnign water for the first time in ages!! Next morning we met the rest of our group, good and varied and everyone seems very nice. Spent the day just dossing about as trying to recover before real travellign begins. Went to miraflores at night, saw the giant adobe ... read more

Saturday was a very unproductive day. Did a bit of shopping with erin and alexis, spent ages in the black market trying to get rip off addidas tops. That night alexis went out with a mate from home, emma and gemma were ill so erin and I had a romantic dinner for 2 in jacks. Sunday gemma and I got up a lot earlyer than the others, via a jacks breakfast we went up to the mad house. Sat in the sun waiting for the others. Then erin, emma, alexis and I got a taxi to the bus stop then the bus to pisac. We got some funny looks as being the only gringos on the bus we proceded to sit down on the floor in the aisle. In pisac we had a massive wander around ... read more

Sunday, we took ourselves to jacks for breakfast. Always a good idea I think. Then we went to the black market in search of cheap rip offs and presents. Then just really headed back to hunadar. Not really that energitic day to be honest. Monday we got started on finishing the stonework on the stoves to make them look pretty. Mariso (the little kid) kept spreading our precious good mud everywhere. Then we just sat and played with the puppies. We all played paranoid over dinner, but as a sober version it was all nice things. PLus as sober no one is desperate enough to strip. Probably not a bad thing. Tuesday we went for a hike up the mountain from a town down the valley called lamac. We walked 4.8km up the mountain to where ... read more

Week number 2.... Lat friday, we were staying i hostel up in san blas region of cusco, its not luxury, but compared to huandad is certainy is. With actual showers, even if they were rather tempermental. We went out to idigos for dinner, i had alpaca teriaki which was amazingly good. Saturday, me and gemma went to jacks for breakfast, had a strange but good brekkie, with a tortilla with beans and cheese and egg on. Had a bit of a cultural day and went to see the catherdral and the corichanca. we werent supposed to be taking pictures so had a bit of a play in the catheral trying to do it without getting caught, hence a fair amount of fairly shitey pictures. In the evening it was roys birthday so we all met up ... read more