Monday 26th - Sunday 2nd May

Monday 26th April:

Went to the pub quiz tonight and met Nicola , a past POD volunteer and a couple of her friends, we joined teams and won by a mile and got a free bottle of wine! :D

Tuesday 27th April:
Had kindergarten as usual in the morning and are trying to teach the kids body parts, were bringing in "head, shoulders, knees and toes" although at the moment they just stand and watch us do it, then say "again again!" when we´ve stopped.

Had our first salsa lesson tonight! it was so much fun, us lot were learning the 5 "basico" steps at the front, while jess and rafael were doing all this fancy stuff in the background.

Wednesday 28th April:

Arrived at the kindergarten this morning and all of the kids were lined up in the courtyard for another school trip!

We all had a designated year group again, I had the year 4s, who had a rope to hold on to to keep them all together, but it was a bit short so they kept tripping over each other! We walked all through a market with the kids, pointing out different fruit and veg etc, then we went to a fire station. All the children were fine and enjoyed hearing the alarm and everything, but suddenly there was a real emergency, we were completely in the way and loads of the kids got freaked out and started crying. A couple of kids got to go down the firemans pole and in the fire truck.

(the year 4 class)

After, we went to a police station, we went out into a courtyard in the back where they had lunch and played for ages, but the tour was so pointless cause we literally walked in a line through an office, waved hello to the policemen then walked out the door at the other end!

Had chincero in the afternoon again, Heather is starting to do grammar with them, then after a break we had them doing role play, buying fruit from a stall.

Had cooking tonight and made Papa Rellena. We had to seperate loads of mash into balls, then after that we had to flatten them out again, which seemed kind of pointless, to then stuff it with this mince stuff, then theyre rolled in flour and fried, they were actually pretty good.

Thursday 29th April

Had the kindergarten in the morning and the afternoon off, jess helped us plan our chincero lesson for tomorrow.

Friday 30th April:

Jess came into the kindergarten this morning and organised it so that we´re working a lot more, because before we kept having to sit round in between lessons. It meant we had a tiring morning of an hour in year 3s hour in year 4 and about half an hour in year 5s. Its hard teaching 3 year olds english for that long!

Went to San Pedro market to buy fruit for Chincero, we had a hole in a box and the kids had to stick their hand in and guess in english what fruit it was, we stuck a cup of jelly in there as well.

(The juice stands at San Pedro Market)

Packed my bag for macchu pitchu , 6am start :S and i´ve started to get a cold.

Saturday 1st May:

Got picked up by two guys, (who arrived early!) and took us to the station,. we got given all our tickets for macchu pitchu then put onto a bus which took about three hours and drove us to Cusco station. We boarded "peru rail" which took us to "Aguas Calientes" the town before macchu pitchu. We looked round the market for there a bit, went to get some lunch and by the time we came out it was absolutely pouring it down with rain. We went back to the hostel and sat in our room playing games like eye spy to pass the time. There is literally nothing to do in aguas calientes, apparently there are some hot springs but we had no idea where to look and it was raining too much anyway. Met our tour guide this evening ro tomorrow who told us when to meet him etc.

Sunday 2nd May:

Got up at quater past four and made it to the bus stop for half past, we were 11th in the queue! We wanted to get there early so we could get tickets for wayna pichu, the mountain overlooking machu pitchu, and they have a limited number of tickets. The bus left at 5:30 and we got there at 6, there was a queue of people already there who had spent the night in the hotel next door, but when we walked in, its so big it felt totally empty!

It was so amazing, and the clouds were lower than us which was really cool. It was so quiet, and felt like we had it to ourself.

We looked round quickly for half an hour and got some photos when it wasnt packed with tourists, and went and met our tour guide. We had a two hour tour, then after a quick break we climbed Wayna Picchu, we were looking at the mountain all day, and its so steep we just didnt understand how you were meant to get up. There are really steep and narrow staircases, but sometimes you have to properly climb the steps are so big. People kept passing us on the way down which was scary cause it was so narrow and a massive drop on one side. The climb was among all the trees and at times it felt like we were in the jungle.

When we got to the top we stayed there for ages, we sat on the edge just looking at the view and taking pictures and stuff. By the time we decided to leave, everyone else had gone and we had it to ourself. When we were up there we decided to

climb to a higher point, but we had to go through a tiny cave to get there, it would have been fine but we all had massive rucksacks on making it nearly impossible. Then you climb up a wooden ladder and literally just stand on a big old rock at the top.

(The girls stuck in the Cave)

We came down the mountain and i had left my hand bag with ipod and stuff in at a bag place. When i got it back i opened up my bag and my ipod wasnt in it! i was about to panic but looked up and the guy in charge of the stuff had been sat there listening to it all morning! my battery had gone from full to half! I would have killed him if i wasnt so relieved.

By the time we got down it was about half 2, and machu picchu was basically empty again! it was really wierd.

(The massive mountain in the background is the one we climbed!)