Peru

Peru was quite hot but not as hot as Chile. People here speak Spanish.

Arequipa

The hostel was brilliant because it had nice breakfast and hammocks. There we saw Juanita the ice maiden. She is very much dead and very much alive! We went to a chocolate factory and in it we learnt loads of stuff about what makes real chocolate and fake chocolate. We also made some real chocolates in the laboratory.  We would definitely recommend this – it was really fun!

Colca Canyon

When we went to the Colca Canyon, we stayed in Kontiki lodge with Oscar, who had dogs. The dogs names were Terri & Boris. We miss Terri. The best bit was when we went for a walk in the canyon and ended up in a thermal pool where we met a friend who was really chatty! We saw the biggest flying bird in the world – that’s right, we saw Andean condors fly! We would recommend going here but beware: really long bus ride!

Cusco

Cusco is very busy! We went to a school and helped out there – it was really good because we made new friends and played lots of games. We also learned some Quechua words and some new songs – it was awesome!

From Cusco, we went on trips to the Amazon & Machu Picchu. They were both very, very amazing.

To get to Machu Picchu was a long bus journey and a long walk to Aguas Calientes (as we chose the option that required a 10km walk along the train line!). When we finished the walk we felt really good… and tired! The next day we visited Machu Picchu. It was really foggy and miserable in the morning and sunny and hot in the afternoon! Machu Picchu means old mountain. Machu Picchu was a home of the Incas.

The Amazon was epic because we saw lots of animals. We also got surrounded by an army of army ants and had to run to escape! We discovered bullet ants/cobra ants. They call them bullet ants because it feels like you are being hit by a bullet if they sting you, or bitten by a cobra if you call them cobra ants. The bad thing about the Amazon is that there are mosquitos everywhere! We went on a boat. We also went to a rescue centre to see a capybara and a monkey and a tortoise and a parrot and a sloth and an anteater and a baby pig.

Out of 100%, we would rate Peru 57% because the hostal we stayed in wasn’t very nice, but if you were in a fancy hotel and still did the same things it would be 95%!