Day Twenty One

Today was our last day with the Williamson family in Cusco. We spent it dashing between market stalls, buying brightly coloured Peruvian hats, handfuls of earrings and shining beads, thick knitted cardigans and colourful paintings. We want to take some of the vibrancy of Peru home with us.

Tim enjoyed spending his evening running backwards and forwards over a concrete football pitch with some of the local boys who are of a similar age to him.

We have really enjoyed our time in the picturesque region of Cusco, this being all the more evident by the sadness that we feel of the thought of flying back over the mountains tomorrow.

A last night in the capital city of Lima awaits us however, before the long journey back to Britain.

Day Twenty

As we drove to more of the great Incan ruins (Pisac and Ollantaytambo), the devastation of the floods that struck earlier in the year was evident.

Sections of the road had been washed away, turning relatively main roads into single tracks with deathly drops.

The height that the river must have risen is amazing. This photo shows the river at its current height; dozens of feet below the remains of a bridge that it swept away.

The water at the ruins was much gentler. It trickles out of the huge, grey rocks, seemingly from nowhere. It runs down the mountains in bubbling springs, smoothing the stones that get in its way. It races through the cobbled streets of the towns, sweeping away the dust in its path.

Day Eighteen and Nineteen

Cusco is the land of ruins. Old Inca fortresses and villages scatter the green mountainsides.

Over the past couple of days we've visited a couple of what used to be Inca water systems. It's amazing how they have survived and still make their mark on Peru and it's tourists. Travelling to the site that we visited today was a bit edgy, the incline being steep and narrow and the small, dusty car park at the top being crammed full.

I have enjoyed seeing some of Peru's famous Lamas (although my dad has had a taste of Alpaca). We've also seen dozens of different butterfly species drifting around, but only when we visit these ruins, not in the dusty cities.

Trips into the centre of Cusco have been regular too. I have taken my first real Peruvian taxi ride, although the roads here are not quite as hectic and hard to read as they are in Lima. As it is The Day of Peru today, the town is covered in the flags of Peru and Cusco. People line the streets to watch processions of dancers skip past, dressed in traditional Peruvian and Inca dress.

Day Seventeen

Every year Cusco is hit by the rainy season in around January and February. This year the small town of Yucay and its neighbouring villages were hit with more rain than usual. The rain that had been gathering in the mountains streamed down into the valley, and the ever-rising river burst its banks. This led to tragedy for the mud huts belonging to the people of Yucay.

This is another natural disaster that I do not remember hitting the news.

Many of the people living here were left with nothing: no homes, no food, no crops, no livestock and sometimes even fewer family members than before the floods struck.

The Williamsons have travelled to Yucay every week, providing food for the many families who have been living cramped together in tents. The people have now left their tents and are adapting to living in what used to be good homes for them.

To help them along their way, today we gave out maize seeds to almost 400 families. This will help them to become self-sustainable again, instead of relying on food from organisations like BMS, as they grow, harvest and sell the maize.

It was tough work in the heat of the sun, and meant getting up early again, but these people have been forced to go through so much worse.

Day Sixteen

A tale of two buildings: The Inca fortress Sacsayhuaman and the Williamson's church, El Peunte.

After wandering around the ruins in the heat of the sun for a while, we moved onto a natural rock area which have been smoothed down into slides. The ruins also provided great views of the city of Cusco.

This afternoon was the Inauguration of the new church building. It was opened officially by the red ribbon being cut by my dad who also went onto preach, being translated by Anjanette into Spanish. The children enjoyed playing with balloons and eating banana cookies after the service.

Days Fourteen and Fifteen

Fuente is a medical clinic where Anjanette works two days a week sometimes seeing up to forty patients a day. Yesterday was much quieter though, being a day of celebration before the children break up from school on a two week break. At Jessica and Samuel's school they had a festival of culture, where the children dressed up in traditional outfits from different countries.

Later we went to explore the market. It is split into different sections: fruit, vegetables, potatoes and meat. I was able to avoid the meat section, but apparently it even made Tim feel squeamish, Peru being a place where no bit of the animal is left unused. I was happy to stay amongst the piles of brightly coloured fruit instead.

Over the past few days, any spare hours have been spent round the corner at the church, preparing for it's opening tomorrow. A glass door has been installed and then wiped down, the windows surrounding the children's area have been scrubbed clean, the children have covered some of the walls with paint hand prints, the floor has been swept and mopped, the mugs and plates have been moved between the church buildings and shelves, paintings and a big screen have been hammered up. There has been a lot to do!

Days Twelve and Thirteen

These were the days over which we visited the seventh wonder of the world: Machu Picchu. I have 274 photos to prove it!

We left early (a bit too early for me) on Wednesday morning and travelled for five hours by a rickety mini-bus and a more comfortable train to Aguas Calientes.

Aguas Calientes is a town built for the tourists. On one side of the river are hotels, hostels, restaurants and shops; whilst on the other side are smaller make-shift houses where the workers live.

The next morning we were picked up at 5.50am and taken by coach up the mountain to the Incan ruins.

I had seen many images of the Wayna Picchu Mountain overlooking the ruins, but it was so different seeing it in real life. The photos that I have seen and those that I took, don't really manage to capture it and do it justice.

Our tour guide led us around, filling us full of names of the Incas and the uses of the different stone houses. Our guide especially enjoyed telling us how they used to go to the toilet ("give offerings to mother earth") and how the Incas were, in general, quite short people, him being quite a small man himself.

We arrived home later that night, ready to collapse.

Days Nine and Ten

We have been adjusting to the altitude, Cusco being 3300 metres above sea level. Along with a couple of tablets, and lots of water to drink, we have been just taking it easy, allowing our bodies to adjust to surviving on less oxygen. It's interesting to be living in conditions that I have been learning about in biology this year at school.

Yesterday we visited the Williamson's church which meets at 4.30 in the afternoon. This allows a time for relaxation and setting up of the church, in the morning (or for me: games of hide and seek, shell searching, spies, football, restaurants and sleeping lions with Jessica and Samuel Williamson).

The church service was all in Spanish, meaning that I understood very little of it, apart from the posters that had been made to emphasise key points. I recognised many of the tunes of the songs from their English cousins.

The church is currently moving around the corner to a new building, so today we were helping to prepare the new church building for it's first service this coming Sunday. The walls have already been painted, but there is still a lot to do before Sunday.

Day Eight

We travelled from Lima, on the coast, to Cusco which is situated in a more mountainous area.

The two cities are so different. Cusco is more touristy, being close to places such as Machu Picchu. The people in Lima did not seem to be as used to having tourists around and liked to stare at our family as we walked past. Perhaps this was because they weren't used to seeing such pale skin, or my lighter hair.

Cusco is also much more picturesque in my opinion. It doesn't have the same thick smog that we had to fly above to get out of Lima; there is blue sky! Yesterday, I was even able to go outside without my jacket on which I wasn't able to do whilst in Lima.

We ate a McDonalds ice cream in one of Cusco's Plazzas, surrounded by Catholic churches which had been built on Inca ruins.

While we are in Cusco, for the next two weeks, we are staying with the Williamson family who are BMS mission workers. They also write a blog: williamsonsinperu.blogspot.com

Day Seven

The currency of Peru is the Nuevo Sol. Upon these coins are icons showing the three areas of Peru: the coast, the mountains and the jungle.

Lima (where we are staying until tomorrow) is situated on the coast, but we wanted to have a taste of what some of the other regions are like. My dad has been in the Amazon for a couple of days, with one of the cameras, but the rest of us wanted to explore a little of what he would see there.

The Parque de las Leyendas is Lima's zoo. I really do not like zoos. I hate seeing the huge animals stuck in cages which are absolutely tiny in comparison to how they would live in the wild. For this reason I avoided staying long at the enclosures for the lions and other big cats. These animals are also African after all, and I'm in Latin America!

The rest of the zoo, however, was great. Peruvian Llamas strolled about, being allowed huge fields in which to roam. I'm hoping that we'll see more of these animals as we move to Cusco next week.. and hopefully alive rather than on a plate.

The birds of prey, however, are something that I could live without encountering again, although from past experience in Brazil, I'm not sure if this will be realistic. According to the A Rocha website, Peru is home to a staggering 1,800 species of birds, 19% of the worlds species.

As we have journeyed around the small area of Peru that we have been exposed to, we have seen many different species of plant. My mum recognises lots of them as pot plants that she keeps indoors at home, which thrive in the natural environment here. Cacti and palm trees are everywhere.

Day Five

Peru is a country full of contrasts:

● The Inca and Spanish History
From the kitchen window of Margaret's flat can be seen a pre-Inca ruin which is currently in the process of being restored. The ancient temple was only discovered in 1969, previously being a sandy mound where the local boys would run around, playing football. It is now a huge stepped pyramid structure that stands out amongst the crowded city skyline, where the remains of what were human sacrifices, are still being unearthed.
During our tour of the city of Lima last night we were driven alongside many grand palaces which were once homes to the Spanish invaders who tried their utmost to flush out the Inca traditions. These buildings could not have been more different to the temple that we saw today. They are decorated with ornate stonework, and proudly fly the Peruvian flag.

●The Rich and The Poor
Whilst driving past the wealth of the Spanish palaces and exclusive boutiques last night it was impossible not to be aware of the street sellers and beggars. Mothers knelt at the sides of the roads, hunched over their tiny children, whilst older teenagers wandered backwards and forwards down the aisles of traffic trying to sell what ever they could: a windscreen wash, a chocolate bar or even a vuvuzela. Police in tank-like vehicles were out in force, some even bearing riot shields.

●The New and The Old
In this way, Lima is similar to many other capital cities. I think of George Square in Glasgow which has the Glasgow City Chambers on one side, and ugly office blocks on the other. Lima takes this to extremes, having Palaces, supermarkets, cathedrals and glass sky-scrapers thrown next to each other.

These contrasts have fused to be the city of Lima today.

Day Four

Today has been more relaxing, though Peruvian all the same!

The mist has risen slightly today and temperatures are reaching 17ish (Celsius). At night their is a noticeable drop in temperature. Though the BBC website assures me that the temperature is 15 minimum, it feels a lot cooler. This is possibly because of the non-insulated brick walls of the flat that Margaret (the BMS mission worker whom we are staying with this week) is living in.

I have been a vegetarian for about four months now. Although I am sometimes tempted by burgers and things, (especially with the recent barbecues) I haven't really struggled with it too much. In Peru however, the concept of being a vegetarian is completely alien. Veggie burgers do not exist, and eating salads is not recommended, as the water that they are prepared with may not be safe. So far, I'm surviving!

We visited one of Lima's markets today. It felt as if crossing the road to get there was a life-death situation. Buses, taxis and strange motorbike things race past each other to pick up passengers, indicating and tooting their horns for fun rather than for any real purpose.

The market was brightly coloured and noisy (struggling to compete with the the sounds of the roads). It was strange to hear Lady Gaga and Rhianna singing out through the stall owner's radios. Other British and American features were also noticeable: Oreos, and bags of toffee line some of the shelves. The producers of the toffee were obviously a bit confused, slapping images of men in Scottish kilts onto the bags of "English" merchandise.

Later on, we are going to see Lima lit up at night.

Day Three

Today we drove down the Pan-American Highway to a small town called Chincha. The road swept us across the dusty desert which was randomly scattered with rush-mat houses. Along the roadside were kennel-like boxes; shrines to those who had died in road accidents.

Peru is hit by frequent tremors, being situated on a key fault line. We have already been been told to crouch next to the life shaft where we are staying, should we be hit. In 2007 Chincha was hit by a larger earthquake, thought to be above 7.9 on the Richter scale.

The fact that there were few deaths meant that this earthquake was not covered a great deal by the press. I cannot remember hearing of it before today.

Visiting Chincha today, it was hard to believe that the earthquake shook the land three whole years ago. For the remains of many of the homes, it looked as if the quake may have hit only days previously. Mounds of ruble make the streets hard to navigate in some places, and red crosses spraypainted above doors (marking that the government deemed the house unsafe to live in) were still clearly visible.

We met families here who were shaken both physically and mentally by the earthquakes. Their homes had been destroyed and they had been left with next to nothing. With the help of BMS, some of these families now lived in newly built homes, with provision of sanitary facilities, that otherwise they may still have been waiting for. They were so grateful for the little that they did have. It made me appreciate how much I have.

Days One and Two

After travelling by taxi, plane, tram, coach, another coach, another tram, another plane and finally by car, we made it. Thirty two hours after we left our home in Oxford, England we arrived in where we will be staying for the next few days in Lima, Peru.

The journey was a bit longer than we had originally expected, our cross over flight in Madrid being cancelled, leading to a brief stay in a hotel nearby. After a last, seemingly never-ending flight, however, we walked out through the airport door and into Peru.

The city of Lima has a fascinating landscape which is clouded in a thick mist. Huge sandy cliffs plummet down to meet with the cold Pacific Ocean, while pelicans fly overhead. I was really suprised to see the pelicans, only ever seeing them in zoos and films before.

This part of Peru looks much how I imagine other developing countries to look: never quite finished. Little brick homes are springing up everywhere, often alongside much larger, grander houses.

After being bombarded with this hotchpotch of natural and manmade sights, I drunk a last cup of tea and snuggled down under the three Peruvian blankets. x

Day Minus One

In approximately thirty hours I will be aboard a plane travelling six hours back in time to Lima, Peru.

This has been pushed to the back of my mind recently - I have been busy sitting my AS level exams, beginning to volunteer in a local charity store and thinking of what I am wanting to do in the future, in terms of applying to universities and choosing courses - yet within the past couple of weeks, the upcoming events have been impossible to ignore.

One thing that has jerked me back to the reality of my approaching "holiday of a life time" is the numerous injections that I have had to endure. Typhoid, tetanus, swine flu... the list goes on. I now consider myself to be well acquainted with the local GP who has been told a number of times all about the subjects that I have studying and those that I'm planning to continue with next year. I tend to babble on a bit before injections.

Also amongst the list of jobs to be completed has been the strenuous task of chocolate buying. Chocolate is apparently a luxury that many mission workers have to live without during their times abroad, the chocolate available there not being considered up to scratch with its superior British cousins. Curly Wurlys are a favourite.

I still have plenty of packing to do (ok, maybe I have hardly started yet), so I better be going. See you in Peru! x