Hey everyone, welcome to part three of my blog. I'm now two weeks into my trip, the time has flown by. Was put in charge of a project this week which was fun, then went to Huacachina at the weekend. On a sadder note I've been feeling a bit under the weather this week, starting with a sore throat, then a cough and eventually a full on cold. Also this blog might be soon used on the Pisco Sin Fronteras website and also maybe Omprakash, a volunteering website through which PSF gets a lot of its donations through.

I'm the leader of the gang (oh yeah!)
On Monday I signed up to work at a school, where the kids were playing on a half finished football pitch; so one half was nice level concrete and the other was dirt, rocks and sand. On the first day we were supposed to start pouring concrete but they hadn't prepared the ground, so we spent the day intermitently working an hour at a time. The project was overseen by Pedro, who I think was a teacher at the school. He brought us some takeaway from a nearby restaurant, which was a nice gesture because at most other projects you have to buy your own. After an afternoon of digging dirt and compacting the ground with a huge block of cement we called it a day at about 4pm. After dinner, we got our first game of poker going. Nobody had a poker set so we had to make do with playing with bottle caps and chess pieces. After a good start, my luck ran out and I finished third out of five! An aussie called Anton went on to win and has been rubbing it in my face ever since!

The next day John, the project leader on the school the day before, handed the reigns over to me, as he was keen to jump on another project later in the week (which he never ended up actually doing!!). This meant I had to tell everybody about the project at the morning meeting and explain the work we would be doing during the day. The work on Tuesday went much more smoothly and after a few problems with the language barrier between us and the maestros, we soon had three slabs of concrete poured. Pedro then took us to a restaurant for lunch, then in the afternoon, after digging more earth up and levelling the quadrants, we had another earlyish finish. After relaxing for a bit and playing some more Poi (which i'm getting pretty good at now!) I had dinner then headed off to our weekly football game against the tour guides. We lost again, although this time only 6-2, and if it wasn't for me letting in 3 goals in the first ten minutes, we might have had a chance!! I headed for bed soon after because my sore throat was starting to kick in.

Wednesday was pretty much more of the same; pouring cement in the morning, then digging earth in the afternoon, so I won't bore you with the details. In the evening there was supposed to be a music night where everyone was supposed to play an instrument or sing or whatever, but as you can figure out by my continued use of the phrase "supposed to" it didn't happen!! Instead we just sat around the fire drinking as usual.

Thursday morning was pretty interesting as the morning meeting was in Spanish! Fortunately I already knew this so I cobbled something together beforehand to explain my project. By this point I was pretty ill, but not quite ill enought to warrant a day off work!! Plus I really wanted to see the project through as it was due to finish the next day. We worked hard and managed to get 4 slabs poured leaving us only 2 to do the next day. I was exhausted so straight after lunch I unsocially went to bed, ready for my final day at the school!!

After the morning meeting on Friday, I thought I'd let my team watch the start of the world cup (which was a at 9am here), then after an incident free first 10 minutes, we headed off. I felt a bit guilty that the maestros were up and running and waiting for us when we got there but we soon ploughed in. We were briefly interrupted by a parade of kids marching for banning child labour. Many of the kids waved and greeted us in English, which was kind of nice. We finished the project fairly promptly, then after some minor celebrations, we were treated to a slap-up meal in one of the classrooms, whilst watching the start of the second game of the world cup. We each had a small plastic glass of 'perfecto amor', a sweet red wine with which we made a toast to all our hard work. One of the other teachers who was working with us gave a speech thanking us for our support and after saying our goodbyes we headed back. I spent the rest of the afternoon helping to clear up our space at the wood yard. I tried to get to bed early again but I got talking to Kevin, a new guy from Ireland who was telling me about his travels from Mexico to here and his plans to go to Argentina and eventually Australia.
On Saturday morning I signed up to clean the Plaza de Armas (the town centre square), but after talking to the guy in charge, it turned out none of the community had turned out to help (which was a pre-requisite for the project) so we left after 10 minutes. The man still gave us some free t-shirts and some bread and water which was nice. So instead me and Sarah, an American girl who I'd worked with last week went to Ludoteca to play with some kids again.

Eng-er-land!!
After getting back from Ludoteca, I headed to the petrol station to watch the long awaited big game!! Ok, to clarify this is no ordinary petrol station, its more of a petrol station/internet cafe/takeaway restaurant/shop/bar. I got some chicken and chips from the takeaway and headed into the bar area where half a dozen die hard England fans were already waiting. We went mental after the first goal went in, although the weren't that many Americans in at the time, so that took the edge off it a little! There was some proper abuse being shouted when Green let in the American goal, and a lot of dismay when the final whistle went. But still at least we didn't lose as that would have been torture, given the number of Americans living here!

Huacachina Baby!!!
After the football we all met up at the house to go to Huacachina. After a couple of taxi rides and an hour long bus journey we arrived at our hostel. It was pretty nice, with a bar, pool and restaurant inside. I broke out a bottle of Jim Beam that I got from Duty Free and had been saving since. After sitting by the pool drinking for a couple of the hours a few people took it upon themselves to climb the sand dune next to the resort. I had an argument with somebody, trying to say that it was not really that big and that I could easily climb it. I was wrong. It took me a good twenty minutes of the hardest exercise I have ever done to scale the optical illusion that was that dune!! About six of us made it to the top, but to be fair it was definitely worth it because the view of Ica was pretty incredible and the journey back down was particularly fun!! After a few more drinks and about half an hour of picking sand out of my pockets, me and Sarah headed off to a bar down the road, where we tried our best at Salsa dancing, although ultimately I think we were at best completely rubbish!! As more gringos flooded the bar they stopped playing salsa music and started pumping out the dance tunes! We headed back to the Hostel at about 2am to find Zachary swimming naked in the pool, with half a dozen people watching. With this disturbing image burnt into my brain I headed to bed. I woke the next morning at about nine to find my room mate Marcus just heading in from his night out! I had some overpriced pancakes for breakfast at the hostel's restaurant then watched the 9am football match. The plan for Sunday was to go sand-boarding and sand-buggy riding, but the weather was lovely so we spent most of the day at the pool swimming and sun-bathing. Later I had a quick look around the shops looking for some man-jewellery but I couldn't find anything manly!! There were also a few big tortoises at the hostel, so we gave them some food and made them race each other! We headed back at about 5ish to find TBC (our boss) playing a marathon game of risk with some of the new recruits. With that entertainment on offer I headed to bed after getting some food.

I'm still having a great time here, despite my ailing health!! Also I finally managed to move into the main house after a week in the hell hole that is Timberland!! Check out my photos, if you're reading this from another site they're at www.offexploring.com/tom-janes. Until next time!!
Tom x