Hi MIke, good to hear about your erections. Phil is collecting all the sand from his pants for you to use !!!
Hi Craig and Leslie thanks for the message how did you know about our jungle antics!! Erin we are still looking for Paddington for you xxx
Thanks for all our other messages we really appreciate it.

7/6/09 Arequipa

Had a lazy morning before going for breakfast in Plaza de Armas. We watched a demonstration in the square which was the country people protesting against the government. There have been police and civilians killed in clashes in the Peruvian countryside because the government are trying to take land for oil and impose new rules without any discussion.
We visited the Museo Sanctuarios Andinos at the Universidad Catolic de Santa Maria where we took a guided tour around a museum about the discovery of a frozen mummy of a sacrificed 12 year old girl. She was named Juanita, the Ice Maiden and was found on the summit of Amputo (6288m) a volcano near Arequipa in 1995. She is believed to have been sacrificed 500 years ago to stop the volcano erupting.
After a lunch with some of the guys we visited the Monasterio Santa Catalina, which is a convent founded in 1580 by a rich Spanish woman. The convent was very different to normal as each nun had her own house and servants and lots of expensive possessions provided by her family. Many convents were like this before the pope reformed the convents to the modern way. The convent is behind huge walls and is like a Meditteranean town within the city, really pretty little streets and blue and terracotta painted walls.
We had a fun evening out with a few of the others , eating Alpacha steaks again and having a few beers before bed.

8/6/9 Arequipa to Chivay

We went on a Reality tour this morning, so called as it showed the reality of Perus poorest people. We started by going to a stone quarry where families work on a stretch of stone wall for 12 hours every day to create bricks to sell for about 35 pence each. They could make about 10 per day which would provide a very basic living as water alone was very expensive.It was blisteringly hot and there was no safety for the people and no facilities to use or clean water. It was really sobering to see the elderly father chipping away at the stone with basic tools made from car axels.
We were taken to see the cemetery and learned that in Peru looking after the dead is very important and each family would prioritise saving for a burial plot as cremation is not the tradition. The plots cost 2000 Peruvian Soles and if you couldnt afford the whole
amount your body was removed and cremated after a certain time period, which any money paid had covered!!!
Next we visited two community projects within the shanty town/slums. Firstly we visited the children of the nursery set up by single mums to provide a safe place while they went into the city to find work. All the children were very friendly and interested in us...really cute. Prior to the nursery being set up the children could be left alone and rapes were not uncommon!!
Just before lunch Miguel our guide took us to a local community dining room where the mums took it in turn to cook for the local needy. In the week they cooked they earned all the meals for their family for that week. They served up to 100 people each lunch and dinner time....it was good to see the community trying to help themselves.
We all felt glad that we had seen all the intersting things today and have all learned alot.

We joined the truck to head towards Chivay. It was a long truck day passing through LLama pastures, high passes and we stopped at 4900m to take pictures of three volcanoes Misti, Chachini and Sabancaya.
We all bought Alpacha wool clothes which local craftswomen had knitted.
We arrived in Chivay which is a small market town, took a wander through the fruit market and had dinner in a local food kitchen before spending a few hours playing pool in the Irish Pub !!!We all signed the walls to add to the hundreds of other names.

9/6/9 Chivay to Puno

Another early start to go on a tour to Colca Canyon. It was believed to be the deepest in the world, deeper than the Grand Canyon, until recently another nearby canyon was measured deeper. The Canyon is famous for the Condors which live there and we were lucky enough to see many of them swooping through the canyon and over our heads. There was a local chap playing the pan pipes so it was really special. Condors are the heaviest flying birds and use the thermal winds to fly.We spent an hour mesmerised by the birds before heading back to Chivay through the Colca valley where we stopped to view the Inca terraces and agricultural lands of the valley.
After leaving Chivay we travelled towards Puno which is a large port on the shores of Lake Titicaca.We had a long drive through the Llama and Alpacha fields with really beautiful scenery and even spotted an ash eruption of Sabancaya volcano.
We arrived in Puno really late and had a quick pizza and a short walk through the main street which has the feel of a ski resort.

10/6/9 Puno to Amantani via the reed islands

This morning we took cycle taxis to the port to join an overnight tour to Amantani island.
After about an hour we arrived at the floating reed islands where the Uros people live. We were invited onto a small island called Kontiki, made from piles of reeds picked from the lake. It was really spongy under foot and the people were mostly bare footed. Several families live on each island and each has a reed hut with solar power ! The families sang us several songs and we treated them to a rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star !!
They showed us how they cooked, built their homes and survived on the islands. They showed us their homes and dressed us all in the traditional dress and played music and danced with us before we left to visit the next island where the school was. We travelled by hand made reed boat and it was all very idyllic despite being quite touristy.
We travelled another three hours to Amantani island to have an overnight homestsay. We were introduced to our host Lydia who took us to her mothers home. We were shown into our room for the night and then helped Lydia make a lunch of Quinoa and potato soup followed by more potatos and fried local cheese. We watched a football game between our truck boys and the locals before heading up to the top of the island to see the sunset. The island peak is 4120m just short of Machu Pichu altitude and we all felt the altitude when climbing to see the sunset. At the top of the island are two pre Incan temples to Pachapata and Pachamama the gods of mother and father which the locals still used.
The overnight stay is designed to give a taste of real life of the rural and island people of Peru. Lydia and all the locals spoke Quechua an Inca language almost impossible to read and pronounce: Allillanchu-hello
Imataq Sutiyki-whats your name
Sumaq-its delicious
Maypita Wanu-where´s the toilet...most important !!!!
As you can imagine we were both fluent within a matter of hours....not!!!
Lydias mothers home was very basic with a mud hut litchen and traditional wood fired clay stove with big iron cooking pots. They eat a very simple diet of vegetables and cereals grown locally and have no running water to the house but did have a toilet a short walk away !! Lydia then took us to her own home which was more modern with electricity and proper doors, her mothers were corrigated metal sheets ! We ate a dinner of chicken tomato and local vegetables with Lydia and her children Alex and Judith and her nephew Allessandro and her husband joined us too. We manage dto communicate with our little Spanish and Quechua and plenty of sign language!!!
After dinner Lydia bought out lots of clothes to dress us in traditional dress. Phil got a poncho and hat and Liz had the tradional layered skirts, shirt and scarf to dress in. We joined all the host families and our tour group for a dance to folk music in the community hall. It was great fun and the locals all danced traditional dances for us. We went off to sleep in our reed mattress beds and Phil got desperate in the night and had to have a good aim for the tiny chamber pot we had been given !!!

11/6/9 Amantani to Puno via Taquile island

Lydia´s family would normally eat soup for breakfast but had cooked pancakes for us. After breakfast we bought two of Lydia´s handmade hats before walking to the port to join the others for the boat trip back. We said our goodbyes to our hosts and set off for Tequile island. It is famous for its handicrafts and all the local men knit themselves hats to show their marital status, single men where red and white hats and married where multicoloured ones. The island is only 7kms big and the people are Quechuan. We wlaked a short uphill walk to the central squre where several locals were knitting hats and other handicrafts to be sold in a cooperative shop to the many tourists that visit there. We stayed a short while before heading to a resturant for another fresh fish lunch overlooking a view of stunning Lake Titicaca. We walked down 550 steps to the port on the other side of the island to set off back to Puno which took 3 hours on the slow boat and we were all burned !!!
We went out for a lovely meal with two of the other lads James and Ruiridh (like
Rory but with a u...) then headed to bed .

12/6/9 Puno to Cuzco

Brendan the truck driver hadn´t come to the island with us and had been in Puno while more protests to the government had been happening and made the TV news. He had been asking around and had heard that there may be road blocks on the road we need to take today.We started off quite well but after a few hours we hit the first road block which was the third of three and had to take another route. We were all ready for a long truck day but it ended up being 17 hours of cross country unsealed roads. We were all pretty exhausted when we finally pulled into Cuzco just after midnight and all went for a quick drink to wind down which turned into many and a night club until 3.30 !!! We need to be up for our briefing about Machu Pichu in the morning so maybe not the best idea!!!

Of the radar for a few days now until we return from the Machu Pichu trek...wish us luck!!
Lots of love Liz and Phil