Peru revisited

Wow, over a week has passed since I returned from the Galapagos and already that feels like an age ago. Last Thursday I flew back from Quito to Lima as I'm going back to language school starting next Monday for another month. It's been good coming back to Peru. For some reason I found Ecuador hard work, my fault I think not the country's but being back in Peru is nice and familiar, I can use the currency without thinking about it, I understand the odd ways that some things work and just generally find it easy to be here. After three months here, it was difficult to be somewhere else new and be motivated to work hard to get on with the country. Some time I'll have to go back and give Ecuador another go and focus on the wildlife because I think that is what really stands out about it, not just the Galapagos but whale watching on the coast, birds in the cloud forest and lots of rain forest.

When I finished language school the first time at the end of July I had accomplished what I originally wanted to do, i.e. be able to have a conversation with someone, but my ambition had changed. I wanted to be able to talk more fluently. After a couple of months travelling, I have forgotten some of the grammar that I was taught but have a bigger vocabularly and more than ever I want to improve. At the moment I'm stuck at the self correcting stage, i.e. I say something, realise it's wrong and correct it, which makes my conversation a bit stilted to say the least! I decided to ask work to extend my sabbatical by a month and they kindly said yes. I felt it was better to return to the same school as I really enjoyed it and knew the teachers, although I'm concerned that I'm going to be scolded for bad habits I've picked up in the interim!!

So it's back to Cusco, starting on Monday next week for 4 weeks. I met a friend in Lima and we travelled down to Arequipa in the interim. I visited here two years ago and hadn't originally intended to come back but I'm glad I did. It's a very pretty city, white stone with palm trees in the Plaza de Armas, gorgeous colonnades and cathedral and fantastic weather. It tends to be around the mid 20s here most of the time in the dry season with bright blue skies and views of snow capped mountains from all round the town. The last two days we spent on a trip to the Colca Canyon. The main reason for going there is to see condors flying close up and we certainly did. At one point I counted 9 in the sky at the same time, soaring with little effort on the thermals out of the canyon off to the altiplano (high plain) to look for food. But the thing that I enjoyed the most on this trip was the walk we did in the afternoon round the pueblo we were staying in. Just two of us and the guide and it was incredibly tranquil. It's a very beautiful valley with lots of terraces for agriculture, deep river gorges, high snowy mountains and volcanoes and spectacular views. We were walking towards the end of the day and met lots of people coming home from the fields, either bringing their animals home from pasture or from ploughing. The bullock is the main ploughing machine here and they amble along in pairs with the farmer following carrying his wooden plough over his shoulder.

Tonight it's another long bus journey, around 14 hours and no doubt some "interesting" films to look forward to! It's amazing that it's ok to show a bus full of people including children lots of violence but never anything resembling sex! I'm looking forward to being in Cusco again and in one place for a month, not having to repack every two days.