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.