Peru: Puno, Titicaca and mainly Cusco

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Hola todos!
Well I stop counting how delated i am with the story, but now 22-4 i think i am more than a month beyond and almost leaving Bolivia again to ruturn to Cusco...Hope you can still follow...

??? Anyway, what happened since?
I left you at Copacabana, on the border between Bolivia and Peru. We took the bus from Copa to Puno, which lies at the shore of the Peruvian side of lake Titicaca. Puno is simply a city, and except for the fact that we had a terrible hotel and many difficulties in arrangements, there´s nothing to mention about it....

Titicaca
As some of u know, 4 years ago, during my first trip with Marco, We went to the Amantani Island, and stayed at the house of a local family there...(For poor Marco its more a nightmare than a nice memory, as he was sick like helll!!). The plan was nowe to go back to them with Tova, with the photos from 4 years ago, and stay there again. Well, i remembered a small community, but it appeared quite difficult to locate them. When we did at the end, we had to cross the whole island on foot (4000 meter altitude!): When arrived near the house, the first to see me was mama. She appreared to recognise me, the small girl too...But the guys didnt. And daddy was in Puno, so we would not see him....We gave them the pictures in an album, and the girl was really in heaven...Later the ¨programme¨ was just like 4 years ago, the soup, a bit of talking, a bit of relaxing and at night a private concert at home :-) with the three brothers playing something like a guitar, a bongo and a fluit....We had to dance with mama and daughter, as they didnt really want to consider opur problem with moving in such hights...at the end they accepted our defeat and we could sit again...Last time it was in the community center, with many tourists, so for me it was a nice variation.
Next day breakfast and again a long walk to the boat, to take us back to Puno, so we could leave for Cusco, the beutiful Inca city...

Cusco
So from Puno we moved on to peru, in a night bus which was supposed to be one of the best, quite direct (around 9 hours, which it was!!!). The truth was it stopped around 101 times this night, entering, we thought all possible cities and villages on the way. It was a fun trip though, as I gave some locals some wine to ease our pain, and we also had a nice chat with two cute (reminded us of Tomer a bit, the age, the style) argentinian guys. Around 4 or 5 in the morning we arrived at Cusco and took a cab to the hostal Aldea Yanapai.
The hostel is lovely, as you can see. The hostel is used to finance help project to street kids, at the polics station and another project involving after school help for the kids, whose parents are usualy at work from 7:00 until 22:00.
I worked with the street kids, some abandoned, some runaways from cruel parents, pregnant teenagers and light criminals, aged 5 to 15. They all stay in one room of +/- 25 square meters, with 5 bank beds, where they sleep, eat, play and live. Sometimes they can reach a number of 30 kids, which means there are up to 3 kids sleeping on ome matress. They are aloud to go out to the yard 3 times a week, for 2 or 3 hours. I think you get the picture. The first moments were very emotional. It´s hardly thinkable this can exist. but well, a lot worse exists in our beatiful world. After the first shock, I got to the job, which is simply keeping them company, trying to teach some some stuff, playing with them, and most important, give them love and affection. After going back to Bolivia, I will return and work a little more with the kids.

What else in Cusco: the city is beautifuil, so just walking there is enjoyable. Next to eat, great food places, Did some rafrting with Tova, and almost drowned, when we we stuck in an unexpected stream (the fear in the guid´s eyes was what really made me believe we were done!!!) but well, accidents would happened, and luckily now they didnt!
Spent time with other volunteers, met some Peruvian people, met travellers from much earlier in the trip. Busy life :-)
What made it even more busy was my taking the time to renovate my mouth, which meant 8 visits (in 10 days!!!9 to Gladys, my young cute dentist, who gave me 3 sessions of cleaning, 2 fillings, and a beautiful crown to make my smile even more charming. When i will be back in Cusco there is some more work left!!!

So 2 1/2 weeks in Cusco were quite a succes. After this i will be iin Bolivia, staying in Tony´s wonderfull house at the river. This will be the next blog story...Beginning ofg May I will be back in Cusco and then kleep up the Andes...

Thanks for listening and god bless america!

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