I´m lucky

Once again I got confirmation that I´m lucky. Or, that I´m such a good person that all the good forces look after me well. Immagine that my friend from London, Sergio (my ex-flatmate, some of you met him) who is origianlly from Arequipa proposed that I stay in the house of his family, gave me contact to his brother, I met the brother and now I live here with his family. They just invited me and said "our house is your house". I wanted to rent, pay etc. and they said "no way". I got my own room with private bathroom (and very hot water!), the keys and... 3 brothers who are looking after me really well! So I was taken around Arequipa, visited all the miradores, language exchange, yestarday we went out and we have many plans what to do together. For me it´s still hard to believe it.
When it comes to my school, it is very involving. I work on lesson plans, materials I could use and ideas. On Thusday we took 50 kids to the field for horseriding. That was an adventure for everybody: a touristic bus coming to school, lecture on horses given by the guide and then one after another mounting the horse. Try to immagine how happy and excited the kids were! And we, organisers maybe even more.

Arequipa

On Sunday I arrived in Arequipa, the 2nd biggest city of Peru (also nice and charming and full of young people so should be good to stay here). I gonna stop here for 1 month to volunteer. The project is to help at school in the suburbs of Arequipa, the district is very very poor, there is hardly any water and electricity installations there. The school is also very basic. Please check the website to know more about it:
http://www.travellernottourist.com/

I visited the school yesterday. You wouldn´t believe how warm welcome the kids give to the volunteers! It looks that they really need love and attention and they are lovely. The project is relatively new but it looks very interesting, promising and honest. We don´t pay any money: just the staff that is needed for the school and any materials we wanna use for the lessons. There´re 4 English girls volunteering here at the moment. In the afternoon we had a meeting with the teachers to discuss the best ways to cooperate. The teachers work for some little salary and they are devoted to school only bcs of their ideas and hearts not bcs of money. That´s why looks it should be a good experience and cooperation. Especially the head mistress is a person of great heart. She welcomed me very warmly. After we went to buy the paints as we gonna paint some walls and make some designs together with kids.
Today I was already in "delegation" to the municipality of the district to get permission to take kids outside of school for one day as we organise 1 day horse riding for the biggest kids, as there´s a local guy - owner of horse riding services - involved. We spent long hours in the office bcs you need few signatures and also bcs the clerks have lots of time to chat. So we chatted to the ladies there. It was also kind of advertisement for our organisation, and maybe municipality will want to use us as a publicity for them. just some politics. Discussions with the clerks however gave me a great idea about views, opinions and politics of Peru and that was great!
(Yes, I understand lots of Spanish and somehow I can make a discussion! Even if I more listen than speak I must have such an intelligent and full of understanding face that they are convinced I understand everything;-) I don´t know how but people think I speak Spanish!;-) which is great for me, just the English girls behave bit strange sort of "how come you coming here and you are in easier position understanding and communicating while our perfect English is not enough?!").
Somehow I cannot upload the pics from Cordilliera Blanca etc as usb is not working in Arequipa...

Cordiliera Blanca

I stopped for 2 and half day in Lima, the capital of Peru. Nothing to write about. Just a capital. Moved to Huaraz - base for trekkers, quiet little town in the mountains. It felt so good with nobody bothering you in the street "señora compra" (niech pani kupi) and attaking you with the menus from the restaurants in teh middleof the street just bcs you passing there. Although a single european girl arises some interenst among locals. Local people are curious about the world. They ask me about my country: what is the currency and how strong it is, what is our typical food, if we have black people, if we have cows and horses, weather, snow, winter, summer, language. They all know however that the Poland is a country of the Pope and they all loved him.

Just back from another trek. 4-days Santa Cruz trek in Cordiliera Blanka. Blanca means White, bcs there are geourgous white, snow-capped picks of altitude above 5 and 6,000 m asl there. This time was only 3 of us plus our guide plus 2 donkeys and their guide/owner joining us for the night as here it´s more usual to hire donkeys to carry your tents and food than porters. I can say only one thing: fantastic landscapes! just wait for the pics.
Donkeys, cows, horses, (walking among the animals shit but you get used to it after a while), flowers, silence and georgous montains above all.

Inka Trail to Machu Pichu

So the Inka Trail to Machu Pichu for which I waited so much is...done. I´m back. i´ve seen these world famous misterious ruins. (For those who don´t know what Machu Pichu is: it´s a lost town of Inkas in the middle of Andes.) As b4 I´ve seen all the ruins around Cusco and I felt like I´ve got enough of ruins for a while eventually , as I suspected I think I enjoyed the trek itself more than the Machu Pichu. Of course it is very spiritual and magical place and also what was good it´s so big that we didnt´feel like among all these tourist - I was told that it´s so crowded but we still could find a place for a solitary contemplation, which was great. The trek 4 days a group of 16 people, nice young, international yet English speaking bunch - we all became friends and had great fun. It felt like a big family, everybody knew who suffered from altitude (few people did)or from stomach problems. Everybody took care of everybody and that was so great. There was these group of 5 South Africans (first Sth Af. I met during my trip) and I have to say they were very cool and very friendly people. Our tour operator provided excellent service. It wasn´t cheap but we hadn´t expected 3-courses meal twice a day +you wouldn´t believe...tea and coffe brought to our tents for a good wake up!
Then on day 4th wake up at 4am to get to the Sun Gate -view point to see sun rising over the Machu Pichu. We were not hikking, we were running for it. And then waiting all together ready with our cameras. This was magic.

Cusco

Just very shortly to let you know that Im in Cusco. Shortly bcs Cusco is so great and there´s so much to do that got no much time for writing. Cusco was a capital of Inkas empire so there´s much more ruins than Machu Pichu to be visited. Actually, I visited most of them already and I think Ive got enough of ruins for a good while.
Cusco is a charming city where you can just stroll the coblestoned streets stopping in the art galleries and artisanian shops in the qauntity I´ve never seen before. There`s more bars, restaurants and toiur operators than tourists and believe me there´s plenty of tourists. There bars/clubs around the main plaza compete who gonna offer beter promotions to attract tourists: they just hand you free passes in the street: happy hours often last 24 hours! So all are full of Europeans and actually with English music it feels like at home which is good for a while after Bolivia.
I met here the Canadian guy with a motorcycle - but now without his motorcycle as he had to many problems with authorities everywhere and sold it.
On Friday I start my days trek to Machu Pichu.
Kisses for everyone xx