fun in the park and fiestas

Hello again!

We¨ve just finished our time at the school in peru and are now settling into bolivian life. We ended our stay in Arequipa with a trip to the colca canyon- apparently the deepest canyon in the world. It was pretty damn deep but then south americans really do love their superlatives so who knows!



We were on the trek with a couple of friends from the project so we thought all would be dandy, but then Denise, aka Bryan Adams, turned up in our group-



She was possibly the loudest most patronising Canadian we've ever met, and she had the cheek to accuse us of being British prudes after not looking too impressed at her slapping a local lady's bum when she wouldn't have her photo taken with her. But Carlitos, our guide made everything bearable. He was very small, only ate protein shakes and had a shaman for an uncle. Very knowledgeable indeed. Here he is handily pointing us in the right direction.



The whole thing was beautiful, we walked through avocado orchards, saw some condors and llamas and spent a couple of hours in an oasis in the valley.





There were also several indiana jones-esque bridges which we had some fun with. Pah! british prudes, we know how to have a good time..



We also stayed in a hobbit cottage on the side of the canyon, all was peaceful but for denise and her incessant jibbajabba.



Then it was back to the school for the final week. This consisted of more carrying of small children;



teaching alex the words to thriller and being rewarded with this;



putting small children in trees;



being drawn on by small children;



trying to teach them to beatbox, and failing;



picking up Alex's pudding;



lending them our cameras, which resulted in this;



making masks with them;



and taking them to the park. Here you can see Pepe Lucinne after he broke into the tortoise enclosure;



Sophie helping kelly along the tight rope. Take note of Kelly's hair which was cut in an attempt to copy Sophie's, but failed...



And Dave at the bottom of the human pyramid, topped by a plump young girl named M'lady(!) Notice the pain on Dave's (M'Gentlemans) face. This was part of an ongoing theme where M'lady would try to join in with the smaller kids jumping on Dave and usually put him out of action for the rest of the day.



After a heavy night on the Pisco Sours, we got on a bus bound for bolivia. After a stay in a pretty rubbish town called Puno, we ate breakfast in the market and got on a chicken bus round Lake Titicaca for Copacabana.

Here is Sophie crossing the border into Bolivia. Though we were worried about all the passport stamping and such, it was all taken care of by a fat man in a shack watching con'air. He didn't take his eyes off the screen once.



The altitude here means that you can get drunk on half a beer which leaves us with more money to buy all the trout that you could ever eat. Super!

We went over to the isla del sol, birth place of the sun you know, and hiked around all day in the sunshine finding inca ruins here and there, twas very beautiful and idyllic, even the pigs were stress free!





We've got back to Copacabana for their biggest festival, involving blessing cars;


stapling dolls and teddy bears onto bits of hanging cloth;



more beer than you would believe and loads of crazy dancing:





It culminates tomorrow with the running of the bulls where the drunkest man takes on the herd- though they were all drinking at 7 this morning so there may be a few contenders!

Off to La Paz soon so will keep in touch. Lots and lots of love, sophie and davexxx