Face Plant #3

This one was slightly less epic than my others as there were very few witnesses, just the two guys who work here. I was literally just walking this time, no where special just around the hostel half asleep this morning. I managed to stub my toe on one of the floor tiles whilst falling, but managed to swiftly pick myself up again, thinking nothing of it. However once I sat down I noticed I'd sliced my big toe open and was dripping blood everywhere. Lovely.

One of the guys who works at the hostel helped me to make a makeshift plaster for it until I could get upstairs to my first aid kit (Maris Mercer, you life saver!) as he quite understandably didn't want me to get blood everywhere. It's not too bad at the moment, I just can't put it on the floor but that's not too much hassle. I'm quite impressed with myself for going so long without a fall to be honest and I could have done something so much worse. Health and safety isn't exactly South America's forte.

Heading to the beach soon to join in with some labour day celebrations. And apparently salt water is good for open wounds? I'll just have to try my best to not get sand in it.

We made it to CHILAYYYYY

It's been a little while since I last posted (sorry about that!!) but I'll try and get back on track. I don't really have any excuses for not posting, I've just had a few very lazy days.

After one night at The Point in Arequipa we decided to move hostels to the Wild Rover because unfortunately it was no where near as good as the one in Cusco. It had just been moved (it must have been VERY recently) and the hostel was empty with zero vibe. I mean it has the potential to get better in time, but it really wasn't what we were looking for.

During the day on Thursday Evie and I went exploring and wandered up to the viewing platform for a view of the volcano 'El Misti' which was really incredible. I'd love to have been able to do a trek up it but my asthma has been so bad at altitude it would not have been the brightest idea (boooooo).

In the evening there was a UV party at our hostel and a swedish guy called Jonathon invited us to join his table. We had such a good night since drinks were at criminally low prices - s/6 for two vodka oranges, that's less than 2 quid!! - and ended being covered in UV paint. Apparently I'm awesome at pool when I've had a drink and managed to thrash an irish and american guy along with the kiwi guy called Simon who's now travelling with us. They even played some epic music like Rage Against the Machine and Ramstein which makes a lovely change from some of the crazy club music over here. So all in all we had a very good night!!

Friday was spent recovering from the lack of sleep from the night before, though we did venture out for a short while to look at some of the local architecture and the massive food market.

I was so tired I couldn't stay up for very long on Friday to socialise. However the early night was very much appreciated since we had to get up at 6am on Saturday in order to make our 7am bus to ARICA, CHILAYYYYYYY. That's right, we've successfully crossed the bordered and have spent the last few days lounging on the beach and exploring the new town.

The currency here is a bit crazy, for example we got some epic ice creams that cost $1650 each. Which is about 2 quid. How good is that??? It's difficult to get used to the fact that you aren't actually spending a small fortune on every meal. So we were devestated when we ordered Pizza for $3200 and THIS is what turned up.

Four layers of plastic cheese with no tomato puree, just slices of tomato and horrible crumbley bread. YUCK.


However Simon and I later ventured out and discovered a place called telepizza, which is a fraction of the price of the minging pizza place AND incredibley tasty. Just look at the difference.

So no contest, we're eating at telepizza for the rest of our time here :P

Drugs Raid

One tip for anyone travelling on peruvian buses: all the sales people, attendants, drivers and well ANYONE involved are a complete liars. If they tell you it's a direct bus, it's not. If they tell you it'll take 10 hours, it won't. And if they tell you it's safe, it's definitely not.

We stopped off at every single one of the most dangerous cities along the way, which of course meant the bus took a lot longer than we were originally told AND when the bus got raided for drugs and stolen goods by the police, some little old peruvian lady tried to trick us into hiding a bag for her. Luckily Evie figured out what she said just in time and the police weren't stupid enough to believe what the lady was trying to say.

On top of that when we finally arrived at our hostel, it wasn't there. Unfortunately the cards with all the addresses of 'The Point' hostels in Peru haven't been updated, so we had to walk for around 45 minutes to find the new location, because apparently peruvians aren't the best at giving directions.

However I can't complain about the price of the bus s/25 or the hostel s/19 per night and I have to say I didn't sleep too badly either. Plus we've arrived safely in Arequipa with all our belongings and now I've showered and had a drink I feel a million times better.

Hopefully when we have a little more energy we're going to head out and explore. The city so far looks beautiful and from the roof top terrace at the hostel you can see the two huge volcanoes at either side of the city, it's incredible.

One month on the road!

I was supposed to post this yesterday but I forgot... This weekend has been pretty crazy, I've done very little but go out and sleep. The hostel which we're staying at is called 'The Point' and is one of those hostels where people come to party and many don't sober up for the entire weekend. I can't say I'm one to go to those extents, but it has been really fun staying here! I'll let the photos do the explaining...

The majority of today was spent in the tattoo and piercing studio, where I got to witness nose piercings and tattoo drawing for the first time. Sam decided to get a cholo (peruvian hat) on his bicep. After a group input of choosing and designing it for about 30 minutes before. Again I'll let pictures do the talking...

This has been our last day in Cusco before heading to Arequipa. I'm rather excited but unfortunately this meant that we had to say goodbye to all the volunteers :( however we're going to head back here in around a month and do a little more travelling with them when they finish they're placements. So it's not all bad :)

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Updated post! We decided to spend an extra day in Cusco to get a few more things sorted and explore a little more. I've had a pretty small appetite after the weekends antics so I decided to finally treat myself to a MASSIVE cooked breakfast at a place called Jacks. It was SO good.

After breakfast Evie, Nell and I headed to the textile market for a browse and hair braids, which are really cool! I'm starting to feel like a proper tourist now :p I also managed to book a jungle tour so I can join Matt and Dan when we head back up. Which means I'll be doing Machu Picchu for the second time. SO excited, it's the most beautiful place I've ever been, no contest.

For some reason we finally plucked up the courage to head back to the piercing studio (probably a really bad idea, I know) and Evie got her nose re-pierced for the FOURTH time whilst I got my anti tragus. I'm actually really happy with it, I just really don't want it to get infected! Fingers crossed eh?

This evening has been pretty chilled, just hanging out at the hostel and trying some new drink a guy from the bar invented called 'The Panty Dropper' which is Jaeger, vanilla ice-cream and milk. REALLY tasty! Not exactly the craziest way to spend our last night in Cusco but it's been a pretty fun day :)

Machu Picchu...

... is easily the mosat beautiful place I have ever been to. I mean WOW. It's difficult to describe how incredible it was, we spent so much time just staring in awe at our surroundings. I would recommend a visit to anyone, but I'd also say TAKE WATER, I'm still a bit upset about having to pay s/8 for one bottle.

These pictures don't do it justice.

On Wednesday it was Hernan's birthday so we got to have cake for tea, which has to be my favourite meal. Evie and I had also bought the family a cake to say thankyou for letting us stay and feeding and that seemed to go down a treat! They're such a lovely family :) I wasn't sure whether they sang happy birthday in english because we were there or whether that is the done thing here, it was rather strange. Though there was a big spanish bit tagged on the end, so perhaps the spanish wording doesn't fit the tune? I'm not sure.

Because we're the best house guests ever :D

Aftewards a small group of us headed out for the evening in Urubamba at el Point. We originally planned to go to the karaoke bar, but unfortunately that didn't happen, so we're yet to have a proper night out in Peru. However Evie and I are heading to Cusco tonight to meet everyone from Urubamba for the weekend, so I'm hoping that will more than compensate!

At el Point with Matt, Sam, Evie, Dan and Stine :)

Yesterday we went to the markets in Pisaq. As a big fan of markets anywhere I was rather excited and they were SO cool! Everything was really colourful but there was a lot more to see than at the ones in Ollantaytambo. For lunch we went to a place called Ulrikes which was ALMOST as good as Msiky's and had such an AMAZING chocolate chip cheesecake. So yummy!

Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Hernan and Rene before heading to Machu Picchu :( It was so great to experience living in a peruvian household and be completely emmersed in the culture in that respect. I feel very priviledged to have had the chance to live with and meet such lovely people. I definitely intend to come back and visit in the future!

¡ESTA BIEN!

The past couple of days have been kind of surreal, I never thought I'd spend my time in Peru hanging out in Misky's Cafe and having movie nights with the volunteers in the area. We've met so many cool people! A few of them are going travelling after they've finished their placements too, so fingers crossed we'll get to meet up with them again before we head back home. I've also been lucky enough to learn bits of Danish and Ketchwa, one of the local languages. It's been proper cool, I'm such a language geek.

I've discovered that absolutely ADORE peruvian food, I'm seriously going to miss Rene's cooking. It's mostly startchy foods and chicken, so you can't really go far wrong, but I'm so in love. We have also got really into one of the soaps called 'La Hija de Mariachi' which is SO funny, purely because we understand very little and have to guess the plot lines from the extreme OTT acting.

Today I got to go along with Sam (the other volunteer living with Hernan and Rene) to the school he's teaching at and help out in a few english classes. It was so cool to see how the peruvian school system works and get to chat to some of the kids and teachers. I was a little scared to walk in and have them all standing in lines with their hands over their hearts singing the national anthem in the playground, with a group of boys marching around with the peruvian flag. That would NOT go down well in England.

Although we haven't got up to much in Urubamba, I've really enjoyed my stay here! It's been good to have a little time to recover after the hectic three weeks in the USA, but everything is going to get a bit busier pretty soon. We're heading to Machu Picchu tomorrow night which is rather exciting, I really canNOT wait! Then back to Cusco for the weekend to meet up with the volunteers and PARTAY.

Canadian Hippies

Last night was another night from hell at yet another horrible hostel. This time Evie and I were woken up around 3am to the sound of a group of guys kicking in the doors of rooms around us and blasting out Britney Spears (weird combination I know) so most probably drunk. It was so scary. At this point we also realised that if they tried to break in we were screwed as the lock on the door was awful, there was no one of the front desk and we had no idea how to contact the police. It beat Knoxville on the scary factor. LUCKILY they didn't get to our room, but went up to the roof, where the shouting continued until about 5am. So another brilliant nights sleep for us.

Unfortunately Evie has been feeling pretty terrible for the past few days and just as we thought it was going away, she woke up feeling horrible this morning (we probably have the lack of sleep to thank for that) so after we moved our stuff to Hernan and Rene's house, I left her in bed to get some much needed sleep and went off to explore the town.

On the square I came across a small organic fayre, with little stalls and people playing music. There were SO many people with dredlocks it was amazing. They were all playing big bongo drums and dijeridoos and tamberines and had people doing cool tribal dances. I overheard a couple of them talking in english so I decided to head over to find out what was going on. After about a 30 minute conversation with a canadian guy called Danny who was so high I could hardly see his pupils, I found out very little about the fayre but now know a fair amount about his life living in the peruvian mountains 'studying' medicinal plants. He was a lovely boy, but one of those types who thinks he understands everything about the world and is into energy in the spiritual sense and thinks drinking alcohol is horrendous (note how high he was when telling me this). So don't worry Mum and Dad, I won't be running away into the mountains any time soon ;)

The rest of the afternoon has been spent chilling back at the house. We're about to head out for some food at Misky's again (I love it there!) and probably hang out with the family tonight. It's so cool to be staying in a peruvian household!! :)