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I've been away for 5 days now, though somehow it feels a lot longer... Life is beginning to take shape here and, sort of to my surprise, im really loving it. To be honest I was worried as I said goodbye to friends and family (despair in the departure lounge moment after hugging mum goodbye etc) that I'd get homesick to begin with or have thoughts along the lines of 'what on earth am i doing this for?',"but I've been so busy and have enjoyed the past few days so much that I'm filled with optimism for the rest of the trip. :D
The plane journey itself was a bit of an experience. The flight from Manchester to Amsterdam (and no i didn't get to go drug hunting, as is the most commonly asked question) went all to plan, only took 50 mins and was sat in the middle of two very businessy men who didn't want to chat which was fine by me! The flight from Amsterdam to Lima takes between 12 and 13 hours, longest flight I've ever been on I think and it seemed pretty fine. had the little tele in the seat infront, snacks going around etc etc. But the French guy next to me (who only seemed to know the words beautiful and sorry in English) started getting drunker and drunker and using the words beautiful and sorry alot while sort of patting me on the head. But amazingly, the captain was doing his round of the plane (apparently he doesnt need to be there for it to fly?!) to check everyone was ok and obviously saw this damsel in distress (I did the im just a small blonde haired girl look pretty well apparently) and said that I didn't have to put up with such a man AND MOVED ME TO FIRST CLASS!!! It was incredible. Drink on tap whenever you wanted (diet coke addiction further fuelled), a seat that went all the way back into a bed, legroom enough for four of me probably, a huge tv to myself, a 3 course meal (proper food, not crappy plane stuff) with real steal cuttlery and everything! Such a great start to the trip!
Since then, I was taken to my uncle's house in Lima and slept almost straight away (got a bit messed up with time zones and what not). we woke up 5am ish Thursday morning and headed to the jungle. I was a bit sceptical of the 8 hour drive having travelled for the whole of the previous day, but it turned out to be a really great drive. We had to drive up the mountains and contrary to my belief that Peru is a hot country, at the top of such giant hills (like 5000 high i think) there was snow! and it was bloody freezing. The air felt so different too but it was all pretty beautiful stuff. We headed down the other side and into the jungly area. I had my first taste of Inca Kola, pretty good though maybe not quite as good as diet cola, and a local dish of some meat in ricey kinda thing and potatoey type stuff. My spanish is evidently still to be improved!
We'd stayed in a sort of hostel thing overnight and travelled on in the morning depper into the jungle. The amount of fruit around was incredible. The trees surround everything and there are mountains as far as the eye can see, mostly covered in amazing greenery. We found a pretty nice hotel that was somehow also affordable further on into a town called La Marced. It was really nice, swimming pool, good weather and overlooking a wonderful scenery.
We went exploring around a couple of the local towns and drank so much fruit juice before finding a path that led to waterfalls. My pictures of it really don't do it justice but the waterfall was huge, fast flowing and beautiful... We braved it, stripped off (not completely!) and stood almost beneath it - to stand completely beneath it would have probably been suicide, got soaked and pointed at by some local peruvians (mad gringos).
Other than that... experienced first Peruvian Baptism, had my huge blonde hair touched by many people who couldn't understand it, listened to some amazing music on my ipod that i never knew i had!
Off to start some work at school tomorrow which should be interesting, nice early starts but hopefully the rest of this trip will be as fun as the first week!
Hope you're all well. R xxx
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