I´ve been in the internet cafe all morning and only managed to upload half the photos I tried to, but there are 2 new albums. After all the problems with the chest infection and altitude sickness, I changed my plans and went to the Manu rainforest on Sunday 5th July, and got back yesterday evening. There were 6 of us in the group - a Dutch couple (he was 79, she was 56), 2 American sisters in their early 20´s, a Korean/Canadian girl and me, with an English gui...

I´ve just uploaded 3 new photo albums. I felt so much better in Urubamba that I rang my volunteer co-ordinator on the Sunday and told her I needed to come back to Cusco - after that, the day was even better! The breakfast bread was so good that I got the recipe from Juan the chef. The local beekeeper was still not around, so Juan took me to the hives in the El Huerto Paraiso orchards and we smoked the bees out and took out one of the panels - Juan cut a piece o...

A good start to my week in Cusco - cold water in the shower because the gas had run out! (Later in the week there was no water at all for a few hours; apparently this happens quite often.) I had 3 hours of practical Spanish lessons every day Monday to Friday, walking around the town with a lovely woman called Hilda, who gradually told me her story. The lessons were arranged through an organisation called FairPlay, who work mainly with single mothers, training th...

I left Arequipa early on Friday, on a 6 hour bus ride to Puno. At first we passed mountains with cacti, quite bleak, then vicuña country. Next came lakes with ducks and some pale flamingoes (apparently the flamingoes I saw at the coast would have flown there from these lakes to feast on crab larvae, which give them their pink colouring). Then mining towns, and people in traditional dress tending alpaca, cattle and sheep, there was also a field of black ostritch...