Last Days in Cusco

Thursday was our last day teaching at Tancarpata School. We finished our painting with scenes of British countryside (ideas were running thin...) and each taught our final lesson on animals. Rebecca's class wished her goodbye via a screaming match for no apparent reason and Annie's were actually surprising well-behaved.

Friday we decided it would be a good idea to sign up for a mountain-biking tour of the Sacred Valley on the promise that the tour was "easy" and "entirely downhill". Oh the lies. The bike ride started with riding through Cusco city. We initially made the mistake of forgetting that we no longer should be riding on the left, which was quickly brought to our attention when we began to greet cars head on... Having had no road safety briefing and given the wild nature of driving in Cusco, this was a rather hair raising experience. Our safety "equipment" consisted of helmets that were far to big and had lost all padding so were consequently lined with velcro... We took a bus then to the Sacred Valley and started biking at 10. By 3 we were STILL climbing uphill, having spent most of the time pushing our bikes rather than riding them. We were so blinded by exhaustion that we could barely appreciate the beauty of the area. After the guide's promise that there was just 10 more minutes of uphill, which actually turned out to be a further hour and a half, we decided we had had enough of "cycling", and sought a way out of this nightmare. Luckily a taxi came by and much to the distress of the guides we then had to dismantle 5 bikes and cram these plus 5 people into the taxi. Looking back it was a rather comical experience, sitting crammed into the back of a taxi with our faces pressed against bike wheels and the boot open with bikes hanging out. We were grateful to get home and promptly passed out on our beds for the rest of the evening.

Today unfortunately we have to spend our time packing, but later may have a quick whisk around Cusco for some last minute shopping and perhaps a final drink in our favourite cafe.

One of the hills on the bike ride

Rebecca with two of the other volunteers Meryn and Michelle in the sacred Valley

Annie with some of the children

View out over the mountains

One of our murals! London, complete with Gherkin, red bus and millennium dome!

Desert mural

Some of the children from Rebecca's class (minus the one in orange and blue)

We've had an AMAZING time in Peru, but are looking forward to seeing you all back in England. 

Lots of love

Annie and Rebeccaxxx

Floating Islands and Marriage Proposals

This weekend we took a night bus to Puno, which is the town bordering Lake Titicaca (the highest lake in the world and the second largest lake in South America). After having paid just £2.50 extra each way for luxury seats, expectations for said luxury were not high. However we were VERY pleasantly surprised to discover fully reclining leather seats with ample leg room complete with foot rest and in bus entertainment of a movie playing. We arrived in Puno at 4 in the morning and went to a hotel for a couple of hours of rest before starting our tour. We were in a group of 9, 8 of us volunteers from the house in Cusco and one man who had limited social skills despite his claims that in his job "he specializes in communicating with people"...

Example conversation (during lunch on day 2):
We are sitting on a cafe terrace overlooking lake Titicaca with everyone on our tour, the lunch is either omelette or trout. Conversation arises concerning fish as Annie dislikes it intensely. Someone mentions that not eating fish can be bad for you:
Annie - "yeah i know, i heard about this terrible neck disease you can get if you don't eat fish, where your neck swells up an abnormal amount and never returns to its normal size. That's why i eat a fish finger every now and again.
Strange Man - "I don't think that's true." *looks proud of his "knowledge" and returns to eating*
A slightly taken aback Annie - "No, it is definitely true, i studied it in chemistry."
Strange Man - "No, you are wrong"
Annie - "oh..!" *looks shocked at rudeness of strange man...*

He had also previously claimed that as a graphic designer his "skill set" was COMPLETELY different from 'you lot' despite the fact that one of the other volunteers has a degree in graphic design...

Anyway, in the morning we took a boat to the floating islands of Uros, which are made entirely of reeds. The trip involved a demonstration of how to build an island and what to do if you dislike your neighbours (saw off their part of the island and paddle away to a new location. Simple.). After spending some time here, including a ride on a reed boat around the collection of islands we headed off to our accommodation for the night, 2 and a half hours away on Amantani Island - this lake is BIG. Upon arriving we were greeted by our host families and taken to their houses, which were built for VERY short peruvian people (even Rebecca had to duck to go through the doors...). We then had lunch with the family (you have never seen so much potato in all your life, did you know there are 5000 different types in Peru?). After lunch we hiked to the highest point on the island Pachamama and arrived at the top just in time to see the sun set over the lake. It was beautiful, pictures don't really do it justice.

We then climbed back down and enjoyed hot chocolate and baileys in a small hut before returning to our houses for another carbohydrate filled dinner - rice, potato AND pasta. After dinner our host family took great delight in treating us like dolls and dressing us up in traditional peruvian clothing. (See photos). We were then taken to the most happening discoteca on the island (a barn) and partook in traditional dancing with the locals. It was hilarious. Some of us (Annie) were perhaps a tad over enthusiastic with regards to the dancing.

The following day we were taken to Taquili island, famous for the quality of its hand woven textiles. We had lunch here and then got back on the boat for the 3 and a half hour journey to Puno. Entertainment in Puno was somewhat limited, however we managed to find a lovely restaurant after fighting off various local women trying to force us to purchase various hats, gloves and finger puppets. Rebecca tried alpaca (Annie tentatively took a bite), which turned out to be a confused mixture of beef and pork, but was fairly pleasant.

Next the night bus back to Cusco in our posh seats. Thankfully we had cancelled our placement for Monday as we arrived at 4am so we were able to sleep in, then in a cultured way get a full english breakfast and cup of tea from our new favourite cafe in Cusco. Monday evening entailed a big night out with the other volunteers, which turned out to be COMPLETELY free. When you go to the main plaza in Cusco their are loads of representatives from each of the clubs who hand you free drinks vouchers. A great night.

Today there was a transport strike. So after our heavy night we were awoken by some kind of protesting parade outside our window. There was no traffic on the roads and no buses so we were unable to go to our placement. So we had a very relaxing day involving ANOTHER trip to the cafe for tea and cake and  then a trip to San Blas to find the hippies who do hair braiding. This started out perfectly normally, we located our hippies, chose our colours and sat down to begin the process. During this time Rebecca was told it was fine to have two boyfriends if one of them was in Peru and one in England, Annie was proposed to, we were both offered cocaine and or marijuana and we were invited to various parties involving "naked art" (ambiguous meaning - whilst he described he began to take off Annie's cardigan to demonstrate...). Needless to say we were out of there as quickly as possible, which was not actually that quick as they explained they'd take a long time on the braids in order to talk to us for longer. On the plus this meant a good couple of hours of spanish practice. Every creepy cloud has a shiny silver lining.

Tonight we are heading out again (NOT with creepy hippy peruvian men) as transport strike lasts 2 days so again no placement tomorrow.

Annie doing the peruvian dance

Rebecca doing the Peruvian dance

The group in peruvian dress!

The luxurious bed bus!

The Uros islands

A reed boat

 At the top of our hike

Lots of love

Annie and Rebecca

Crazy kids, rabid dogs and mental horses...

This week we began actually teaching in classrooms at Tancarpata School. What were once little angels in the playground, seemed to become little nightmares in the classroom...

Our first day, Rebecca was given possibly the worst class in the world. A group of raucous 7 to 8 year olds, who ran around stabbing each other with pencils whilst shouting 'no quiero aprender' (i don't want to learn).  Furthermore, many of them spoke Quechua as a first language and could neither read nor write. Great. Annie was given a class of 9 - 10 year olds who frankly were not much better. They chose to employ weapons to attack each other with (jabbing each other with long wooden poles and whipping each other with strings of beads....), chaos. Both the original class teachers abandoned us within 5 minutes, leaving each of us "in charge" of their respective class. NIGHTMARE.

The next day, we decided we needed sweets to bribe/tame our children. In principle a good idea, in practice a cause for more fighting. The idea of being able to win a sweet did initially work, but as soon as some children started to win, others would then attack them in a jealous rage.

Plan B, ask to change classes. Rebecca got a new class of 4 - 6 year olds, who are relatively well-behaved in comparison and actually listen. Although they do struggle to remember anything she manages to teach them. Annie was stuck with the same class, who enjoyed playing some competitive games and singing some english songs. Still, this teaching business is very exhausting and we are starting to have new found respect for our old school teachers...

Yesterday we went on a horse riding tour with some of the other volunteers around the ruins outside of Cusco. This cost us the equivalent of £6 for 3 hours. Needless to say for this price safety was not a high priority, we had no helmets and no briefing as to how to ride a horse (some of the group had never ridden before). The horses were virtually uncontrollable as their bridle's had no bit. But never the less we did have an enjoyable afternoon. UNTIL, Rebecca and Michelle (another volunteer) decided to go down a separate path from some of the ruins we visited and encountered a pack of rather angry dogs that Rebecca didn't notice until they were rather too close for comfort and Michelle had run (unnecessarily in Rebecca's eyes) back up the hill. One of the dogs in fact cornered Rebecca against some rocks, but thankfully was scared off by something, no harm done. Overall it was actually a really fun tour!

Rebecca with her horse Raito, Patrick with Coca-cola and our guide with his horse whipping implement, a branch of some sort

All of us on our horses, we're to the far right of the photo

Annie with Volcano, a worrying name yet completely non-characteristic of this horse

Us by some ruins we stopped at

The view out over Cusco

This weekend we are off to Lake Titicaca to stay on floating reed islands and partake in traditional peruvian dance (complete with costume, apparently). Photos should be good.

Lots of love
Annie and Rebecca
xxx

Machu Picchu

(Annie was desperate for that to be Mach Picch...she is sure this is what all the locals call it)
ANYWAY...
So we visited Machu Picchu and stayed in Aguas Calientes, a pretty small town with limited entertainment and massively tourist orientated. We began a search for somewhere to eat and found ourselves standing between two overly enthusiastic restaurant owners who were showering us with various offers whilst THRUSTING their respective menus in our faces. We ended up with two free drinks and a less than half price pizza. WIN.
Later we went to a small cafe where we ordered tea (obviously, although it wasn't proper tea). Annie's arrived cold so after much complaining, she approached the waiter who looked confused and proceeded to try her tea to ascertain it's temperature before whisking it away, heating in the microwave and returning it, complete with used teabag and peruvian germs. Annie was repulsed and was forced to drink tea at most unusual angles:

 
Later that day we indulged in a five star three course meal in THE most happening restaurant in Aguas Calientes, Indofeliz. It was delicious, although Annie was mocked by Germans. This was, however made up for by the price...60 soles each, the equivalent of £15 for a three course meal!
We then returned to the hostel to meet our guide for the next day. She was lovely and friendly and offered to take our tickets to a place where she could get money off to exchange them for student tickets. We thought this was simply marvelous and allowed her to go alone to the ticket place. What a kind lady.  She then returned with money for us. How nice. Unfortunately, unbeknown to us until later, she had taken a tidy little profit from the extra money and left us 40 soles short. YET AGAIN, victims of theft and tourist naivety...

The Urubamba river taken from the train

The bridges are top notch in Aguas Calientes

Apparently Jesus is black in Peru

LLAMA

So we wake up at dawn's crack and catch a bus to Machu Picchu where we greeted by our tour guide and taken on a detailed tour of one of the seven wonders of the world! Pictures can probably describe this experience rather more accurately than words, so here are a few!

The classic postcard shot...

The classic tourist...

And again.

And again...

And just once more...!

We also voluntarily decided to partake in some exercise to obtain a view looking down at the entire site. This involved a hike up to a place called the sun gate (basically a mountain in it's own right), which is along the Inca Trail and the first point where you see Machu Picchu. According to our tour guide this should take 15 minutes at "Inca Speed" and 45 minutes at "tourist speed". Needless to say it took us a healthy hour, involving multiple stops and cries of exhaustion.  It was however worth the struggle as we got to see this:

At the sun gate

We then walked back down having collected a few fellow trekkers, Florian (german) and Di

(australian), before returning to Aguas Calientes to catch our train home. The train takes four hours to cover 57 miles due to poor tracks. This does not make for a smooth journey, we've never been thrown from side to side for such a long period of time! Upon returning, Rebecca realised half her shoulder was missing, thanks sun and backpack.
This week we're teaching properly in the school and we'll tell you about that in the next post!
Lots of love,
Rebecca and Annie
xxx

Festivals and less psychotic tandems...

Yesterday was another super glue and paint filled crazy morning at school, preparing for today's festival. After lunch Annie tentatively met her new tandem partner after MUCH fretting. Thankfully she turned out to be a delightfully normal person, with no sharing of traumatic past history. In the evening we stayed in with the other volunteers and created home made peruvian cocktails involving vodka, lime and an awful lot of sugar.

Today we went to the school to finish preparations for the festival before leading a group of 30 wild children to a sports hall in the town. This involved clambering over railway lines, rivers and the children running wild amongst cars on a main road... english health and safety would have fainted! After a long walk under intense sun (Rebecca now has a lovely diagonal tan line from her bag), we arrived at the sports hall to watch the various shows each of the 6 local schools had prepared. This started with a rather raucous rendition of the peruvian national anthem followed by the Cusco national anthem, during which we stood awkwardly whilst hundreds of small children screamed the words into the backs of our heads. It wasn't the most pleasant of experiences as we then proceeded to sit through several "performances" during which the 'audience' ran around and generally did their own thing. After witnessing our days of hard labour in action (papier maché rocks and banners about how books were your best friend), we made a hasty escape with the threat of potentially missing lunch. That would have been tragic.

We then met up with our respective tandem partners again. Rebecca and Layla headed off to San Blas to explore the arts market and admire the view from San Blas Mirador whilst Rebecca attempted (under request) to explain the word wanker, which Layla then decided she would look up on google after failing to understand the explanation! Annie and hers stayed and chatted over coffee, which was very pleasant.

After this we came home and packed for Machu Picchu tomorrow. We're very excited!

Rebecca's tandem partner, Layla. At the San Blas mirador looking out over Cusco.

Traditional dancers from one of the school's at the festival

View from the mirador

Children of Tancarpata school with the signs we made!

Walking to the sports hall with the children (tan line is exactly where bag strap is here...great)

Us with some of the girls, the room behind is where we have worked this week

This is a bit like where's wally. They reeeeeeally wanted their picture taken! Especially red coat guy who apparently felt the need to show ALL of his teeth in this photo.

Annie with some of the children, they flock to wherever the camera is being pointed!

Most of the children from the school in the playground...there's only 30 in the school

Part of the play 'Leyendas de nuestra America' by the children of our school

Next time we write will be after Machu Pichu! So we will have lots of photos to share. We get back late on Sunday so tune in on Monday!

Lots of love,

Rebecca and Annie

xxx

Attempted robbery at the top of a small mountain

Yesterday was our first day of 'working' at Tancarpata school in Cusco! We were taken there with two other volunteers Matt and Ben by a small Peruvian woman who spoke no English and vaguely pointed out the bus that we would have to take the next day as we flew by the stop in a taxi (with 4 of us in the back seats!). We arrived at the bottom (sadly) of a small mountain and were then told that the school was at the top...disappointed sigh...
The four of us, plus small Peruvian woman that spoke no English and was surprisingly sprightly in her approach to the aforementioned mountain, crawled, wheezing and gasping up to the top...beginning to question adjective 'small' with reference to mountain.
We arrived at the school, greeted with shouts of 'Gringos!', their name for foreigners, as an entire herd of rowdy Peruvian children came hurtling towards us. The girls promptly began to treat us as climbing frames, asking our names and holding our hands...whilst subtly trying to steal our jewellery. First lesson...don't wear anything sparkly! Rebecca entered the school with hair clip and left, a victim of theft, without said hair clip.
We were then abandoned by our small Peruvian woman that spoke no English, and told that there was to be a festival at the school on friday so most of the children were practising for plays and doing arty things. They asked the four of us to help with these preparations this week and start teaching English next week, which was fine by us as preparations involve cutting and sticking and papier maché masks...we feel about 10 again.
Getting home was interesting to say the least...this involved deciphering a small piece of pink paper with various codes written on it, which turned out to be the names of various buses and the stops we should leave at. It was not entirely clear which was which. However, we soldiered on down the small mountain, and caught a bus, which is more like a gutted VW campervan but with 10 times the amount of people it's meant to hold, making for an experience rather like sardines in a can. The up side is, it only costs 0.60 soles, the equivalent of about 15p for any journey!
After lunch, we went up to Plaza de Armas where the festival for the Virgin Mary was taking place, Cusco is BIG on festivals! There was music and many elaborate costumes and dances that probably had some meaning if we'd had any idea what was going on!
Later that evening, we went out into the town with the other volunteers to a 'discoteca' where there was a live band with a lead singer from Chicago. They were surprisingly talented and we had a really good night.
TODAY (wednesday), we had to get up at the crack of dawn (6.30) to get to school. We experienced much the same traumatic bus journey and the mission of climbing the mountain, to be greeted with similar enthusiasm as yesterday but today as 'africanos' (irony perhaps?!). We spent the day painting leaves  and flowers (fake ones) made from plastic bottles, and created with great artistic skill papier maché rocks that the children promptly started to use as bolis (footballs)...
This afternoon we had both signed up for a tandem session, which involves meeting up with a native peruvian so that they can practise their english for half an hour and we can practise our spanish too. Rebecca's was rather more successful than Annie's, who's tandem was a classic "over-sharer", who after a mere 5 minutes had shared stories of molestation in the work place and her dead father... happy days. Fortunately and entirely coincidently Annie's had to change hers as the woman has an exceedingly tight schedule - a lucky escape. Rebecca's was a 17 year old peruvian girl who is studying tourism at the university of Cusco, and is very nice.

Some of the volunteers on our project, us four nearest the front are the newest volunteers here, and the only English speakers.

The playground at the school with 'Tancarpata school' painted on the fence

The view from the small mountain across Cusco

A poser from the parade. Not sure what he was supposed to be but his outfit was cool.

Dancers from the parade

BIG NEWS OF TODAY...

REBECCA AND ANNIE FIND ENGLISH TEA IN PERU

After Annie's panicked calculations that in 3 weeks she would miss 168 cups of tea, action had to be taken. We walked up to the San Blas area of Cusco and located possibly the only cafe in the entirety of Peru that imports British tea! It was heavenly.

That's it for now...dinner time!

Lots of love Rebecca and Annie
xxx

Is it the altitude or are we just severely unfit?

So it started like this...
We arrive at Cusco and immediately encountered our first tourist trap:
Man with trolley steals luggage and wheels outside whilst Rebecca and Annie trail behind following stolen goods. Man with trolley and luggage demands money. Becky and Annie cough up 2 dollars which is more than a 20 minute taxi ride costs and are confused as to what has just happened.
WELCOME TO CUSCO!
It's 6 in the morning and for some reason we are instantly whisked away for a whistle stop tour of the Maximo Nivel volunteer office. Blurry eyed we are then taken to our accommodation. In our heads (annie's head) and after 24 hours of traveling, our accommodation was going to be a shack on a mountain with merely a bucket to wash in. However, we were pleasantly surprised to discover an ensuite room with hot running water, alpaca wool blankets and breakfast already on the table! Eat...walk upstairs... rest from altitude/unfitness...shower...rest...unpack suitcase...rest...sleep...eat lunch...sleep.
We finally mustered up the energy to venture out in to the 'city' and eventually found the main square 'plaza de Armas' where we almost had a lamb thrust into our arms for money, but by now, we were wise to such tourist  pitfalls and made a hasty 'no gracias' type escape.
After wandering round a bit we decided to brave a taxi ride back to the 'Family house', a volunteer house we're staying in. The taxis look like they're about to fall apart and should have a remote control rather than a driver, but they only cost the equivalent of 75p for any journey! Eat...stairs...rest...put pyjamas on...sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep (as in long sleep).
TODAY, feeling slightly more alive, we had orientation for our placement that starts tomorrow... a direct quote from the orientating guy is that in our school the kids are ´very crazy´and will fight alot... and directions to the site include the term climbing a "small mountain" which sounds like an oxymoron if ever there was one. Plus in Annie's overly exagerated world, a "small mountain" is PRACTICALLY mount everest. Given that the altitude makes walking up stairs/unpacking the most tiring thing anyone can conceive, the kids will probably have to look after us on arrival. We then nipped home for lunch before returning for a 14 hour teaching English course condensed into 2 hours...he spoke fast.

Writing carved into the mountain... Viva el Peru

Boy carrying goat... For quite some time we thought it was a strange looking dog.

Political rallies going on at the moment due to elections in october. Crazy people driving through streets, shouting passionately in spanish...

The cathedral called the 'Basilica' in the main plaza.

Plaza de Armas, with a lovely fountain in the middle and buildings around it.

So after our first two days in Cusco, we are gradually acclimatising with the help of cocaine tea (mata de coca)... a local medicine. We start our placement tomorrow so we shall let you know how it goes. 

lots of love

Rebecca and Annie 

xxx