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.