Blogs from Ancash, Peru, South America - page 26

We rose at 6am, to meet our hillarious guide, Jose, who was blatently still drunk from the night before! This was followed by Three and a half hours of bus journey along winding roads, up the mountains, gradually feeling more and more sick! We finally arrived in a small rural area, called Vaqueria. We only walked for 3 hours on the first day, feeling rally confident that it would be easy, without bags (being carried by Jesus (our donkey driver) his 2 donkeys and horse) - How wrong we were! The altitude affected us badly and we were happy to see the campsite at around 3pm. We both had terrible headaches, and decided to have a little siesta. We were woken, half an hour later with fresh popcorn and Coca leaf tea (a godsend (from Jesus!!!) ... read more

After an eight hour bus journey, we arrived in the small hours of the morning in Huaraz, population 80,000, 3000m above sea level. We were advised to spend a couple of days acclimatizing, due to the massive increase in height.. So we spent the time discovering traditional Peruvian lifestyle - our first proper meal in Huaraz involved munching on a guinea pig’s leg!! Bex felt guilty holding the "poor little guinea’s claw", where as Dom is keen to get his teeth into a whole one! Huaraz is much more traditional than Lima, and hardly has any western influences. For example, the women dress in the traditional colorful style and carry their babies in a sling type shawl on their backs! At first we were a little shocked to see live Guinea Pigs, Chickens, Ducks and Rabbits ... read more

So my next part of my adventure has come...I am now living in the mountains at 3,700m in a secluded lodge with pretty like minded people and others who are just down right hippies!! my voluntary work begun on monday and consisted of tree planting...oh the joy,haha!! there´s four of us volunteering and we´re working alongside 3 locals. 400 trees in the heat and the altitude in 4 days isn´t bad going hey!! we´re awaiting our fate next week...there´s talk of a 4 day trek up the mountains staying in a tent,while we plant yet more trees...I´ll be a hippy too before you all know it!! we got up early today to finish our planting for the week so that we could come down into the town to play ultimate frisbee!! sounds kind of crazy, but ... read more

I had a brilliant weekend, managed to make my birthday last 3 days!! saturday night we partied Peruvian stylie in a few bars, then to a club- I pulled out the best latino dance moves my english being could master!! I did the brits proud I think, (not sure if they did)hehe!! On sunday we took a trip to Llanganuco...the views were truly spectacular although the drive through the mountains was pretty hair raising. We got to take a trip on the boat...just our luck it decided to blow gales and rain the minute the poor lad started to row us out...good job i had my trustly mac at the ready!!(I learnt something living in England!) Today my host family took me out for a chinese for lunch and the other girls even baked me a ... read more

So it's been over a week since I last made an update. Sorry for the delay, but just to clarify this did not mean I became deathly ill - although I did come close at one point. Last weekend I was still in Lima. On Friday night I went to a peña, a popular type of club with traditional folk music. The costumes were so elaborate I felt like I was at the Mummer's parade in Philadelphia. There was plenty of dancing going on, including plenty of gringos who made total fools of themselves. I laughed along with everyone else, even though doing so was slightly ironic. On Saturday I had my first ceviche, a popular Peruvian dish that is raw trout prepared in lemon juice, among one of over a dozen varieties. If you like ... read more