After the Inca trail we made our way to the nearby town of Aguas Calientes for a couple of days rest and relaxation before we returned to Cuzco. Our first afternoon was spent visiting the many local shops and markets to look for souvenirs ranging from chess sets to ponchos to the ever popular stripy trousers. The leaders explained to us that we would be given a certain amount of money a day per person to buy our own meals, something which was enjoyed by everyone, as we found a wide variety of foods to suit our own tastes (and budgets).

The next morning we visited the hot springs at the edge of the town. It was particularly enjoyable to sit in the hot, slightly yellow, water and feel the assorted aches and pains from the Inca trail be soaked away.  Several people decided that moving from the coldest pool to the hottest at high speed was a good plan, leading to some pretty funny reactions when they realized that the hot pools felt somewhat hotter.

After another afternoon of browsing the shops and markets, it was time for us to leave for Cuzco, which meant a train journey from Aguas Calientes to Ollyontambo, and then a bus trip from Ollyontambo to Cuzco. The train journey turned out to be quite different from one in the UK. We where first treated to a demonstration of a local dance, in which the train staff would dance up and down the isles which was brilliant. Near the end of the journey the staff started to do a catwalk down the isle with Peruvian clothes that you could buy, Phil and Katie were invited to do the catwalk in which Phil made a very convincing model!

We arrived in Cusco late in the night and fell straight to sleep as the journey had been very tiring. We got up late in the morning as everyone decided they wanted a rest. We changed hotels that day to a smaller hotel but it meant that we had the run of the place. That night we went out to celebrate Alex´s birthday in a pizzeria in which we consumed many family sized pizza´s. The Snake patrol (originally the Owl Monkeys, changed because the snakes are cooler) presented Alex with a toy snake to remind him of his patrol in Peru. Also Alex had a massive cake which he soon plunged his face in! We left the pizzeria to go to a karaoke bar where people (Bertie, Joe D, Joe B, Ross and James) attempted to sing “living on a prayer”, “livin la viva loca” and “breaking free”. This sent the tone for the rest of the evening.  

On the 28^th we went to visit different scout units across Cusco, me, Dave, Katrina, John and Will visited the La Salle scout unit. Even though their was a language barrier the scouts made us feel very welcome and involved in all of the games we played with them which included duck, duck goose and kick the bucket. We did flag break and flag down with them in a similar fashion as we do in England but they say a prayer each time. Nearer the end we exchanged Scarves and email address´s so that we would remember the experience.

Rafael had arranged for us to go to a restaurant in Tipon (A town close to Cusco) to try Guinea pig. Most people had half a Guinea Pig, it tasted similar to rabbit and was accompanied by stuffed peppers and salad. It was definitely a great experience and something that everyone wanted to try, it is also a great thing to tell my sister that I have eaten a Guinea Pig as she has two of them!

Andrew, Joe D

The trail started for us in a place called Patapata which is 2 days before the start to the actual Inca Trail, we were to spend this time on another part of the old inca trails on what is now called the Chilca circuit. This section took us to our highest pass called Huyanyay at around 4800m on only the second day walking.

The team all did extremely well and we were soon at a place called Huayllabamba on the traditional Inca Trail. The climb from here to the Dead Womans Pass was the steepest on the trail but was worth it for the incredible views of the snow capped mountains. Our longest distance was covered on the last full day from Pacaymayo to Winaywayne where it was possible to get a shower before the early start to Machu Picchu.

The team were up at 3.30am after a warmer nights sleep than any other on the trail. The plan was to walk the last one and a half hours before sunrise and reach the Sun Gate for a magnificent view of the ruins.

After 6 days of trekking through some of the most impressive and mixed scenery in Peru on Wednesday morning at 6.30am we arrived at Inti Punku (the Sun Gate) were there was a distinct lack of sun as it was a foggy morning. However shortly after the team arrived at the Guardian House overlooking the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu.

We have since spent a relaxed night in Aguas Calientes enjoying some fine food and local culture. This mornings visit to the Hot Springs have further relaxed the mood as we approach our last 2 weeks in Peru.

All the team are well and happy.

Dave and Bram

Hi All,

Firstly we would like to thank you all for your support. We are all very grateful for all the kind comments to our post’s.

This is a quick note to let you know that as we start the 6 day Inca Trail tomorrow morning there will be no updates for at least 7 days from today. The team are all excited and reassured we are in very good hands with our guides Eric and Huan and during our time a support team of some 30 porters, cooks and assistants.

The Leader Team

As we enter the final few days of our project at Azul Wazi, we are starting to run low on jobs.

The work on the hut has more or less ended, since the only work still to be done is the welding of the window frames, which requires a skilled welder. Because of this on Monday we began work on the bridge, which crosses the drainage ditch outside the gates to the orphanage. The original bridge was simply two sets of logs lying across the ditch, one set for each wheel of a car, truck or coach. Unfortunately this proved to be somewhat less than robust, and the saturday before last failed under the weight of our coach, as we returned from a day trip.

Our first task was to build concrete bases on either side of the ditch. These supported the sides of the ditch, preventing them from colapsing, and also provided a solid base for the new logs which where placed over the supports on tuesday. Meanwhile, the team members not involved in the bridge project, attempted to find other small jobs. These included repairing the other goal net, allowing the orphans to play football with less risk of loosing the ball, fitting locks to the toilet doors and various plumbing jobs such as replacing leaking tap to a new stop cock closer to the ground from the water tower.

yesterday (wednesday) was mostly occupied with cleaning up the site. Building debris from both our project, and other previous groups, was collected up and sorted into one pile out of the way, litter was also picked up and disposed of. After the work was inished we walked to the football stadium and had a very small but extremely tiring football match after which we walked back and prepared to have dinner and a leaving campfire. We had dinner and we gave Asul Wazi an amazing painting of the peru trip logo that Bertie and Becky had painted. They were extremely pleased with it and the gave us some pizza as a reward for the hard work we had done. Once we tidied up we gave temporary buff tattoos to the orphans and went out side where we began the camp fire. The campfire was amazing, there was a lot of dancing and singing, we taught the orphans some english campfire songs and in return they taught us some Spanish campfire songs. Once the campfire was finished some of us went to bed but most of us stayed up to receive their results.

Andrew & Ross

On Thursday (project day 4) we continued rendering, and completed most of the walls, leaving only a small amount to finish on the Friday. The welder arrived with the metal Bram had bought on the previous days expedition to Cusco, and a team spent the day helping him. Their first job was to sand down the six beams of metal to get them smooth enough to paint electric blue! We then helped hacksawing the beams down to size for welding into window frames, while the rest of the team did the (women’s job apparently!) of scraping the render off the floor of the room, leaving a nice smooth concrete slab. By the end of day we had a complete window frame – but due to the wonky wooden frame (built by the team before us!) it didn’t quite fit.

This meant that on Friday (project day 5) the welder was busy modifing the frame to fit, and moving on to weld other frames in situ. The rest of us continued rendering which was finished by lunchtime, (finished render) after which most of the team decamped to Oropesa to play football, shop or use the internet. We came back to a typical evening of socialising, soup for dinner and diary writing.

On Saturday we did a massive coach tour of the beautiful sacred valley. Our first stop was the viewpoint for the sacred valley, from which we the could see most of the lush farmland of the valley and the snow covered mountains of the Andes brap (Alex made me write brap!) It was a popular coach stop and many randoms with annoying whistles kept coming up to us but this didn’t entice us to buy one!

We continued on to the ancient market town of Pisac where we saw lots of colorful stalls with clothes bracelets and voodoo dolls (called voodoo by Dave as an excuse because he’s scared of them.) Andrew bought some traditional stripy tousers which we all agreed were very sexy – most of the boys are now after their own pair. After a snack of inside out pizza we jumped back on the coach and continued along the valley.

We arrived at our lunch stop after another hour of gorgeous scenary. Ollantaytamba is a huge site of terraces used for farming, and the start of an Inca temple abandoned because of invasion. The stones are huge and its really hard to imagine how they got them up the hill from the quary site on the opposite side of the valley. There was also an amazing house, which we could imagine them living in, we got to stand in the top floor windows looking down onto the room below.

After a failed attempt to visit some salt mines (vetoed because we found out we had to pay) we continued to some awesome circular terraces (Moray), which looked like a huge arena. 

 We were taught a game here by the Peruvian scouts called the Spider Game. Six of the guys had to make a circular rugby scrum leaning shoulder to shoulder I (Becky) then had to jump on top of the scrum, put my arms round Dave’s waist and flip over so my face was basically in his crotch! I then had to hold myself upside down whilst five other people got in similarly compromising positions round the circle. More people were supposed to get on top to make a spider but we all fell over too quickly!

We then had an epic journey home of 2 and a half hours on the coach. Everyone pretty much went to bed straight away when we got back because we were all so tired.

Sunday was another day full of tours. We travelled into Cusco on an extremely full bus, which was probably way over the weight limit! We walked around Cusco and into an underground museum where we found out all about the Inca’s traditions. We then arrived at the main square where a huge parade was going on. There were dancers and muscians everywhere, it was incredible to watch. Our team, then had a steep walk up to some more ruins which were called Sexy Women. By this point in the day we were all absolutely starving, but we found smooth rocks which everyone slide down. This cheered us up a lot!

We then walked into Cusco town centre to our guide’s house for lunch. We ate 1/4 chicken and chips each! So we were absolutely stuffed by the time it came to walk into the market square, where we saw furniture being sold on the side of the street! It was crazy! Getting a bus back to Oropesa proved difficult with the number of us that there were, but we managed to get a lift in a small minibus. By the time we reached Oropesa square the festival was over so we walked back to Asul Wasi, only to find that there had been a power cut, so diaries where written by candle light.

Becky and Katrina

So now the bases of  the walls were finished it was time to start the rendering/plastering of the insides of the walls. We had no sand and instead of ordering it we decided to save money by diggin it up from a local river flood plain that was about 300 m away. Dave came up with the  genius idea of filling our rucsacks with the sand to carry it back as we had only two working wheel barrows (one of which had a flat tyre).

Meanwhile, The Pumas, Dave, Bram & Alex headed into Cusco to buy some shopping and the metal for the window frames. Bram had an epic time buying the metal then we had to transport the 5.5 m steel lengths in the back of the old skool split screen VW campervan back to Azul Wasi with a bag of potatoes, Bram & Alex sat on top to kee it from falling out.

Joe, Doug and others finished the football net.

Alex

Day 2

After the success of laying the concrete slab on day 1 of the project we moved onto the walls. Bram was established as the Project manager, he took the lead with his newly purchased plumb line and trowel. All hands were used mixing mortar and moving blocks into place ready to be laid. The group washing line consisting of 30m of paracord was used as the string line to get the walls straight. The overall plan for the building is a half height wall with windows at the top. The day went really well laying 3 courses of blocks on all 4 walls. The last task of the day was to insert a steel rod across the wall before the 4th course to strengthen the wall. 

Others made a start on repairing the nets on the goals on the playing field. 

The building close to the finish of the day.

Dave

On Sunday 8th we went white water rafting on the Urubamba river. We left the orphanage at half 8 and drove to the river which took a long time. We met our guides, who were experienced on the river and started paddling at 10. We were on the river for about 3 hours and when we got off we had a BBQ lunch, which was cooked by one of the rafting people. It was an amazing day, for most of us, and we all got wet and had a good time. When we got back later that evening our bus broke the wooden bridge and we all had to help to lift the bus out of the ditch and back onto the road. This proved more difficult than it first appeared as the bottom of the bus was stuck on the banks so we had to lift out a bus for 26 people.

The next day, Monday 9th, we started the project properly. We had an early delivery of concrete, to cover a 7×3 meter room. We spent most of the day mixing concrete  and despite it being hard work most of the team felt glad that they wer finally helping the orphanage. Once we had cleared away all our tools and washed up a bush caught fire because of the hot temperature and the dry grass. We had to put it out with dirt so the embers didnt land on the tents and set them alight. The 9th was also Joe Bampton’s birthday so we had a party for his birthday in the evening. It was a good day and we all felt better for relaxing at the end of a hard days work.

Doug Bennett

We arrived into sunny Cuzco by plane which is at about 3000 metres, some of the team felt the effects of the altitude but soon became aclimmatised and started to enjoy the beautiful scenery and gorgeous weather. We were then taken to our hostel in San Sebastian district before braving the local taxis into central  Cusco where we had our first Peruvian meal in a small restaurant which gave us a taste of the local food and what is to come. That evening the leaders organised the arrangements for the community project at Azul Wasi with Alcides the project manager.

The following morning we took the team into Quencheq market where we had a traditional healthy Peruvian breakfast of fresh fruit juices and light sponge cake. After breakfast our guide Rafael showed us round the market and explained the local produce on offer. Later on that day Rafael took us to the scout centre of Cuzco where we saw all the facilities of the centre including a dance studio where they practise traditional dances with authentic costumes.

Rafael’s wife had kindly provided lunch for the day which was chicken cooked Peruvian style served with potatoes, salad and Inca Cola which tastes like Iron Bru. After lunch we travelled to Azul Wasi by coach which was half a hour away from Cuzco in a town called Oropesa. We met with all the children of the orphanage who were all dressed in their yellow football kit, they were ecstatic at our arrival and welcomed us into their home. We then proceeded to set up our tents along the bottom of their smallfootball pitch. We finished the day with hot chocolate and sweet bread.

We woke up to a cold and fresh morning  when Dave and Bram went to get supplies for the week from Cuzco while the rest of the team explored Oropesa. On our return we unloaded all the materials for the community project which we had purchased with fund raised money from the UK.

Today (sat) we got up early to walk into Oropesa to get a local bus to a place called Pikillacta which is a massive archaeological site which is the remains of a pre-Inca city built at the peak of the Wari culture. The site has many ruined houses and the remains of straight streets, there were a few houses that were in good condition which gave us a real flavour of the living conditions of the time.

After that unique experience we then walked across the valley to Lucre where we had lunch and caught a coach to Tipon our next site of interest. Tipon is a place of agricultural research and worship where water channels are used to irrigate the crops in the past for the Inca people. We had an interesting coach journey back to Azul Wasi along small dirt roads with sheer drops either side.

After this amazing day we are looking forward to tomorrow when we will be white water rafting !!!

Bram & Phil

After a long and tiresome 2 days travelling we are now finally in cusco. The 3 flights all went without any major problems just some small delays. The team are all well and settled into the hotel here. Today we have ventured into the town centre and had a 3 course lunch at ” La Cofradia” a small restaurant. The leaders are getting to grips with currency exchange while the team are trying their best at spanish whilst organising taxis and ordering food.

Looking forward to tomorrow we are having a traditional lunch with our in country friend Rafael Escobar before travelling to Oropesa to erect camp at the Azul Wasi orphanage.

Love to you all

Dave, Alex