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Hello again all!
I´ve been told that I´m leaving this too long so here I am! I´ll make it a long one!
Ok so my news...I´ll start with the 1st of July. It was the oldest girl at the orphanages birthday. She is Sonya, the tia who takes care of the babies, daughter so she´s not actually an orphan but shes a really great kid. She turned 10. They really do birtdays big for the kids which is sweet. They dress up the room, buy a big cake and all the kids get dressed up. It was a really great day. After dinner the kids got lollypops and there was a lot of dancing.
We finally started to buy some things for the orphanage which is exciting. We´ve gone twice now and on the first day we bought a lot of small but importent things and on the second day we bought some bigger things. So I´m going to list the stuff
over 300 nappies!
2 large baby wipes
6 jars of milk formula
Box of shoe shine
A lot of soap! both for cloths and body.
Shampoo
Lice shampoo
A DVD player
A CD player
A box
of chocolate for all the tias
A baby monitor
140 rolls of toilet paper
This amounted to about €380. It was pretty much split between me and another volunteer so I only spent aboout €180. The plan for the rest of the money is to buy some bigger things like blankets and pillow. Then some very big things like solar power to heat the water so the kids can have hot showers and they can wash their clothes in hot water. And hopefully either a fridge or a washing machine. Possibly both if the money streches that far...it goes a long way here.
On friday night I got a night bus to Cuzco, which is the town you stay in before you head to machu picchu. Its a really beautiful city that would remind you a lot of Italy. I met Nicky there and on saturday we just spent the day wandering around and doing a lot of shopping in this really cool market and did some serious damage for very little money. After that we headed to the hostel and then out to dinner. We went to bed because we had a 5am start the next day
to get the train at 6.30 to Machu Picchu. It was a 4 hour train ride (at big expenses!) to Aguas Caliente and from there an hour long bus ride on a very windy road up to Machu Picchu. I wont go on about the details because I would be here all day but I will say that I was told by everyone that it was phenomenal and we just sort of thought ok they´re bound to hype it up completely but it was all of that and more. Its almost too difficult to describe but it is probably the most beautiful thing I´ve ever seen. It just looks like the pictures and the surrounding landscape is amazing as well.
So 63 mosquito bites later (no really..all over my legs and arms) we headed back to Cuzco and got another bus to Puno. Puno itself is not a nice place but we werent there for Puno we were there for Lake Titicaca which is the highest lake in the world and has man made floating islands made out of reeds and have little houses on them. That was really amazing. Then we went to a bigger Island (not made of
Party time
claudia´s birthday reeds!) called Taquille. We hiked from one side to the other (quiet the challanage at that altitude in that heat! But about half way up one side we had lunch with a native family and they told us all about the culture of the island and did 2 dances as well! very entertaining! So we were back in Puno at night fall and we´re brought to the bus station to buy tickets for the next day and were told that the would be a bus strike so we had no choice but to leave that night. I was lucky enough to get home in one piece and on time but Nicky was heading back to Cusco and was stopped 2 hours into the trip untill 10am and then stoppe another 2 or 3 hours later and had to walk from there. She is still stuck in Cusco and it is questionable if she will make it back to Lima on thursday for her flight home.
So possibly the most interesting thing that happened was about 10 minutes after getting in to bed on return to Arequipa we had an earthquake!! A level 6 one, which is aparently quiet impressive.
Lilia
cutting the cake So that was a new one for me. And today there is a strike on and we can leave the house because the protesters dont have permission and apparently it could get quiet violent!
Final new is that we have a new baby at the orphanage. She just arrived and she is 5 days old today so that is really exciting.
Also I only just recieved all the comments that you have been leaving and I wanted to say a big thank you and sorry for not responding, but I now know how to get them all!!
OK I´ll update sooner this time, promise!
Lots of love
Madeleine
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