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...

Chinchero is a sprawling village, 3800m above sea level, about 15 miles from Cusco. Most of the people have a small patch of land, divided into tiny fields where thay grow maize, rye, oats and potatoes, and keep a few pigs, sheep or cows. The crops are harvested by hand; one person will harvest a field of grain with a reap hook, over several days, but a few people might work together to dig potatoes. Most of the women are weavers and are often to be seen spinning...

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...

I´ve got loads more photos to upload but apparently there´s maintenace work going on that won´t let me do it, I´m so disappointed! Watch this space It was lovely to have all your messages after the last entry, thank you! I´ve been taking it relatively easy here after all the travelling, and getting used to the altitude (currently 2000m, but moving up to 4000m tomorrow.) The weather is cloudless, hot sunshine during the day, chilly by 6 p.m., when it gets d...