Saturday 4 January 2014

The life of a travelling Elf is a hard one


Nearly 2 months have past since my last post, so I thought it'd be best to have another little update - 4ish months into my travels!

This post will be split into two important parts, both which describe what has been going on over the last two months in Peru...(just to mix things up a bit)

PART ONE - THE EXCITING ADVENTURE OF BEING A TRAVELLING ELF (or 'duende', if you wanna be all Latin American about it)

So for the month running up to Christmas, my self and the other volunteers were told that we were going to be participating in a Christmas Show, being organised by Lidia and her coordinators. So this would be exciting and everything, participating in a show, but ohhh man we didn't know what was in store for us.
Queue endless nights packing 500 sweet bags and making bracelets. It was a very bonding experience for all of us. Also, dancing elves. 6 dancing elves, that is what we were. With our red dresses and green leggings, we took Lima by storm. Okay, over-exaggeration, but whatever, we were the best elves the world had ever seen. We did these shows for the children who we teach and work with in the orphanages, and a couple of times we also travelled up into the Andes to put on the show for some school children there, which was a lot of fun. The Andes both made for interesting trips - the first was fun, very very very cold and rainy, but the kids seemed to love it so that definitely made it worthwhile. For the second trip we somehow got about 50 people into a 20 person mini-van and transported them up an extremely windy and dangerous mountain road with no injuries - but that's a very stressful and painful story I'll leave for another time. I'll just leave you with a picture of the road, and your imagination can do it's own work...

Cuy!
In the Andes, I also got to eat Cuy (or guinea pig as it's known back home), or at least a bit of it, and yep it was just like chicken. Tasty though! And we also had fresh trout, literally straight out of the nearest river and
cooked on the grill - it was delicious! All the people there were amazingly welcoming and seemed to really enjoy what we did. We had a quick look around the neighbourhood and these people really didn't have much, but still gave us a full meal. They were really amazing.

Anyway, being an elf was fun, and we rocked those costumes, even if I do say so myself. Our show consisted of making crafts with the kids (beautiful Santa cards), handing out sweet`s and presents, and us dancing 4 times, to Christmas songs. And we all know that I can't dance. Add that fact to me being at the front of the group, and you get a hilarious series of events. So yep, I moonlight as an elf now.

PART TWO - THEN CAME THE FAMILY

Now, i'm back to volunteering for another month, after a brilliant Christmas and New Years shared with my family. I got to show them round Lima, and their first day here was spent in Pacha where I work, watching
our last Christmas show and getting covered in paint! Best way to be welcomed to Peru, I think. I took them to Central Lima as well, which was crazier than ever - we visited the market which is filled with fruit stands, various different types of clothes, and meat stands which come with full pig bodies casually hanging outside. We were staying in Miraflores, the touristy part of Lima, so I thought they needed to see some of the real city!
Christmas Day lunch

Miraflores was amazing though, the weather's great here now so the beaches we packed and the blue skies made it beautiful. We visited LarcoMar, a mall built into the side of the cliff,
and we also had our Christmas meal there. Me being the complete mug that I am, I managed to miss Peruvian Christmas, which, unknown to me, is celebrated with a huge turkey dinner at midnight on Christmas Eve. However, we still had a lovely day, no turkey but a lovely meal in LarcoMar, followed by Christmas afternoon with wine and cake and the
surfing! 
volunteer house in San Miguel, which was really nice! I'm just glad I got to share it with my amazing fam. Oh, another important fact is that I visited the chocomuseo in Lima for something like the 5th time...I really should get a membership or something there.

Me and Pat also tried our hand at surfing, because that's a huge thing here in Lima. Apparently the waves are perfect for it. Well, obviously Pat was great at it, he's just natural at spot and stuff, whereas I, erm, didnt do as well. I enjoyed it, it was a lot of fun, but I guess I just wasn't made to surf. But I thought it was great to try, and I didn't drown, so everyone's a winner.

During the short 2 weeks they were here, we also made it to Cuzco, which once again did not disappoint! The only downside was we were all hit by a bit of the old altitude sickness (except Patrick, who is apparently is superman or something). Mum got the worst of it, but we all pulled through and had an amazing time in Cuzco, visiting the museums and admiring the amazing architecture - I really can't wait to return! Being in Cuzco, we had to visit Machu Picchu (second time for me, why not!), and it was once again beautiful. We were lucky because we had a perfectly clear days and got to see some amazing views! And even though it's rainy season there at the moment, we had amazing weather and it didn't actually rain which was perfect! So we had a short but fantastic time in Cuzco (oh, it did rain in Cuzco, just not in Machu Picchu - yeah, it rained a lot in Cuzco).

After returning to Lima, it was New Years, which was spent by the parents watching the not-so-safe fireworks in a park in Miraflores, and by me and Pat in a hostel bar in Miraflores with the other volunteers. That was fun, and although I may have fallen asleep on the grass at one point, I was awake and alert for midnight, which was a success! So a lot of fun was had by all.



So guys, that's about where I am at the moment. The family left yesterday, and it was really sad to have to say goodbye again, now for nearly 6 months. But we power through, and I have one month left here volunteering before I have to pack up again and continue on my adventure! I'm currently trying to plan exactly what I'm going to be doing for those 5 months, but along the way I'm hoping to get back to Arequipa (my favourite city), get up to California for a week to see a lovely volunteer I met a few months ago, do a little travelling in Ecuador & Chile/Argentina (if time/money allows it), get back to Cuzco and maybe even do some more of the uni work I'm supposed to be doing while I'm here!

That's the plan, let's see what happens!

Hasta luego, S x

elves in the Andes! 


         
     

          more Andes scenes