Llamas, Altitude Sickness and Guinea Pigs - you´ve guessed it we´re in Peru!

Well what to write? Sally and I, plus her mum for 10 days, have been relaxing in the sun in Huanchaco for the past week. Huanchaco is a small fishing village, located in Northern Peru. It´s been great - like a holiday within the holiday, as we finally got to laze around and read lots of books!

Here´s a photo of the village


And this is the infamous fishing boat (caballito - it literally means ´small horse´)that the locals use


We went to the Chan Chan ruins (the largest Adobe city ever built, its pre-Inca so v old and really well preserved!)


I´m loved worldwide!


After that nice holiday (definitely necessary as Sally and I have both been a bit sick recently) we had to say goodbye to Sally´s mum and travel to Cusco (where millions of tourists head to do the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu.)
It´s actually a pretty city/town, as my photography demonstrates, with cobbled steep streets - its over 3000 metres above sea level and Inca buildings


Credit to Sally for this one


Umm a few interesting facts - it´s really cold here at night we have been sleeping with 4 blankets! We´ve also both suffered from altitude sickness and have felt out of breath whilst climbing stairs (highlighted by the fact that we are easily overtaken by old Peruvian ladies). Oh and the reference to guinea pigs in the title is because in Peru ´Cuy´ or G.P is a popular dish!
Well gotta go and tuck into my cuy, xx

My official children´s home post

Some photos of the Salvation Army Children´s home that I volunteered at for three weeks - I better say now that it looks really lovely in the pictures, but don´t be fooled, it doesn´t have much money at all!!

The entrance (you can also see a kiosk where I frequented many an evening to buy chocolate and coca cola)


Yes that is the children´s home:


The patio bordering the home, where I spent a lot of time sitting, watching boys play ´bolitas´ (or marbles - it´s like the craze in Argentina and apparently Peru as well!) and making friendship bracelets for all the kids:


Me and some of the girls (note the bike which they taught me to ride - it was v traumatic):


Some of the younger boys (a brief moment when not fighting and actually appear to be getting on with each other)


The birthday party of the officer´s daughter (she was 15 which is a special birthday in Argentina) - it was actually like a wedding and lasted from 9.30pm until 6 in the morning!


It´s really interesting hearing about Sally´s time at the children´s home in Peru because in some ways I can identify with it and in other ways my experience was very different. My children´s home was much smaller, and being run by the Salvation Army, not the state, meant that they could take only 20 children rather than packing as many children in as possible. And it was really obvious that the kids had a lot of respect for the officers who ran it (who were brilliant), but at the same time it´s sad to think that they will be moved on to another appointment sometime and then the kids will have to get used to new people and potentially big changes could be made to the home. I was also surprised that the kids went home at the weekend to stay with someone in their family, and that the main reason for them being there was because their parent couldn´t look after them as they worked during the day. (there were other reasons too). Hmm it was definitely an interesting experience and I learnt a lot - realised that things are very different in Europe though!

Well anyway there´s some of my thoughts...better go!
x