In the Andes with Alpacas: Christmas, New Year and Ecuador

The Christmas period at the aldea was weird, it got sunnier and sunnier every day and the kids decorated a huge tree outside with Christmas decorations that all the casas had made. There were visitas almost every weekend (sometimes more) - visitors that came to give presents to the children, throw parties for them and share chocolate milk and panetone. The weekend before Christmas I think there were 7 visitas in total over the 2 days - we were so sick of panetone by then!! It was really nice to see people being so generous to the kids who don't really get anything else from the aldea.

All the focus at Christmas seems to be on Christmas Eve, so we had a special meal of pollo a la brasa (roast chicken) and chips for dinner. We had been promised a big build up party at night to celebrate Christmas but really what happened was we just stayed up until 12, said Feliz Navidad, hugged everyone and went back to our casas. Got to be honest, it was a bit of a disappointment, we felt really homesick and just wanted to have had a Scottish Christmas like back home. Thankfully though casa 2 invited us to their house for more chocolate milk and panetone. We sat for ages with lovely Tia Carla with some of the older kids and had a long chat about ghosts haunting the aldea. It felt a lot more like Halloween than Christmas!

On Christmas Day nothing really special seems to happen here in Peru, but our Directora invited us to her house for lunch which was really nice. It made us feel way less homesick, since we actually had something to do to occupy ourselves and we were in a family setting. We actually did have turkey and potatoes which were so good but different to at home - just not roasted so it felt a lot lot healthier! (Probably better that way though so as not to add to our expanding rice bellies)

On 27th December we left for Máncora, Peru to spend New Year there with the other Peru girls. Máncora is awesome, there's such a great vibe there and we met so many people just travelling round South America. It made me so jealous so I'm already planning a return trip to South America to travel (once I have the money)! Pretty much every second person you met were from Argentina (on a side note, they seem to have way too many incredibly stunning people in their country, it's very unfair) which was weird since we were in Peru,

We said goodbye to the other girls and then Amy, Cassie, Amelia and I had a one day stop in Guayaquil where we walked down the promenade and went to the craft market before heading up to Montañita - such a stunning place, right on the beach in and it was lovely to be able to properly chill out and not do anything apart from lie back and relax. It was SO hot there, in the red zone for malaria so we were extra careful about putting on 95% deet insect repellent and of course our mosquito nets at night. Topped up our tan nicely there, just as people at home were complaining of cold weather and winter and such.

After Montañita we headed to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. This turned out to be my favourite place we visited and I don't even know why! It is absolutely HUGE. From the top floor of our hostal as far you could look the city didn't stop. I just loved the feel of the city, it seemed so friendly and Unfortunately we only had 2 days there so the first day we took a $0.20 cent bus to the equator line (Mitad del Mundo) and spent a very rainy day there - for some reason, being right on the equator doesn't mean it's going to be hot and sunny all the time, even in the height of summer...Anyway it felt more like we were back in the UK with all the rain!! Our second day we took a bus to Mindo (1-2 hours away) where we went ziplining which was so much fun, amazing views of the Rio Blanco from hanging upside down.

From Quito we went back down south to Baños. There we went canyoning which was incredible!! Basically just abseiling down waterfalls which sounds absolutely mad but which is SO much fun! I would so do that all over again. Also we went to the thermal baths - you can't not go to the baños when you're in Baños! Really really lovely and and hot (and one which pretty much burnt your skin off as soon as you stepped in) and relaxing...although we did get stared at as if we were monkeys in a zoo or something.

I loved travelling, getting to see new cities and do things I've never done before. In a way it was sad to come home back to the aldea, but I missed the kids so much, especially the wee ones. It made me realise how hard it's going to be when we leave here in mid June to go travelling again!!

We now have a new summer timetable in the aldea, which Amy and I both really enjoy. In the mornings we have the wee ones in for an hour - that's Jandi (1), Fatima and Estrella (both 2 years old) playing with dolls and plastic bricks and drawing a wee bit. Then from 10 until 12 we're in the swimming pool with the pequeñitos - the kids aged 3 to 6. After lunch we do art with the pequeñitos again which they love - every day without fail we have kids knocking at our door wailing "para pintaaaaaar, para pintaar".

In the afternoons we have also started English lessons with the 5 siblings that are going to be adopted by a family in the U.S at the end of February. I really wasn't sure how this would go because I do not see myself as a teacher, at all, but it seems to be okay. The 3 boys (11, 12 and 15 years old) seem quite willing to learn and they're improving. The twins are harder to work with, they're 9 years old and don't have as much enthusiasm as the boys but we're getting there (we think) and they are learning, little by little.

Also a big change in our aldea life is that Margarita and her 3 siblings have left to go and live with their parents. One of us was taking Margarita to the hospital every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for her therapy so without her here it's a bit weird! Unfortunately we're really worried her parents won't be able to take her into Trujillo for her therapy since they don't have much money, and that everything she's improved with will just go backwards. Of course she is with her family now and that's better for her, but we're just concerned about her development. She's just such a lovely wee girl!

I think that's everything for now, really sorry for the delays in blogging -I need to get back into the routine of getting a post done every 2 weeks or so!! It just depends though because some weeks it seems like nothing happens apart from our usual day to day aldea life, which I don't necessarily deem blog-worthy.

I'll leave you with some pics of our holidaying up North and in Ecuador.

Ciao for now!! Cuidate xxx