Brazil, last month of work and first few days of travel!

I'm getting really lazy with the blog writing at the moment, I can blame around 85% of it on lack of time but the other 15% of it is just plain old laziness. It's been a while since I have written a blog almost a month to be exact and this will most probably be the last one for another month as in 2 days I will be leaving to start my travelling with Ms.Rachel C Young for 7 weeks around South America eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek.

I should most definitely start with rounding up my trip of Brazil, I will try and summarise the majority but knowing me I will blab on a bit but here it goes. I left for Brazil on May 31st via Panama with COPA airlines and it all in all took I think around 10 hours mas o menos. I had stomach butterflies the WHOLE time I was flying due to my high levels of anxiety at the thought of seeing my dad after practically 10 months. Just my luck I arrived in Brazil and my bag along with another 30 peoples bags were 'lost' which means I was an hour late for leaving the arrivals, stressed due to my lack of a bag and anxious at the thought of seeing my dad, not a great combination. As I was taking my very nervous walk down the arrivals walk way I was looking around and there I saw him, my dad!!! I didn't know how I would react to this but it ended up being one of those soppy film moments. I ran and jumped on my dad in tears, it was so strange seeing him again but such a great feeling. My great Auntie Celita also met me at the airport and I haven't seen her for I think 15 years maybe less maybe more but long enough for me to forget what she looked like. And she is soooooo cute, so small but still with her pertruding latina bum (I can see where my little sister lisa gets hers from now lol).

I spent 9 days in total in Brazil, we stayed at my aunts house in Caju, Rio de Janeiro. It was a very working class area which meant everything was generally pretty cheap around there. My aunt has a small apartment but with two bedrooms so me and my dad got a bed which was nice, there was no hot water ( which I am now accustomed to thanks to Oropesa) and very very tasty coffee throughout the day as my aunt seems to have a bit of an obsession but who wouldn't when its Brazillian coffee? Whilst in Brazil we visited the Suger loaf mountains, the statue of christ, markets, a zoo and me and my dad went off to a small beach town called Paraty a 4 hour bus journey from rio. I have absolutely fallen in love with Brazil, the people, the climate, the culture, the language (which i think sounds like spanish meerkats on drugs) and the music. I think that Brazil will have to be one of the destinations of my study abroad year in univeristy. I especially loved Brazil because it was so family orientated, I got to know my auntie quite well even with the language barriers - she can't speak english/spanish only french/portuguese so she spoke to me in french/portuguese which I understood thank god- and It was so nice being with my Dad. I got to know so many things about my Dad which I don't think I would've had the opportunity to find out would it have not been for this holiday.

Here's some pictures for you to have a look at from my trip ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I came back from Brazil and went straight back to work and got right back into the routine so it felt like I had never had a break at all lol. The time from Brazil passed unbelievably quickly, filled with fathers day celebrations, enjoying the last few weeks with my boys and just making the most out of my last few weeks at ciudad de los ninos. I had spent the last month teaching around 14 of my boys a dance routine for a performance on the 17th July which im so sad I wont be there to watch but after training them hard for a month solidly dancing every day Im they will do amazingly!!!!

Leaving ciudad de los ninos was incredibly hard and I left in tears. If I thought I would be crying this time last year I would probably have laughed at myself but Peru has just made me into an emotional wreck!!! I seriously hated saying goodbye to the boys, giving them all hugs and kisses goodbye left me in tears and I was suprised (But somewhat happy in a weird way) that 3 of the boys were crying at me leaving, it was Jhamyr, Luis and Jesus who are all my Sonrisa dancers and boys who I spend the most time with. Jesus has just became my hijito, the love of my life and his cheeky nature literally reminded him so much of myself, Jhamyr is one of the dancers who just came so much more confident through dance and I sat next to him on my table at lunch so always had some funny conversations, Luis is one of the boys who I helped through grieving for his grandfather who passed away, he started to call me tia (aunty) and I was just really sad to say goodbye to everyone. Rachel and I were suprised with a huge party the day before we left and it was SO lovely. We had some crazy dancing, pinatas and everything, It´s really nice to know how appreciated we were at CIudad de los ninos.

We left Ciudad on July 1st and caught a 17 hour bus to Arequipa in the south of peru, we spent the first day just looking around the plaza, seeing all the sites like the museum which holds Juanita the ice mummy, a girl who was sacrificed to the inca goods around 500 years ago and was found perfectley preserved in ice in an arequipan mountain and is now in a arequipan museum for a few months a year and the rest of the year is being probed by scientists all over the world. We also booked the Colca Canyon trek for the next day at 3am so had an earlyish night to prepare ourself for the 2 day trek ahead of us.

Colca Canyon was actually amazing, it reminded me so much of the beauty of oropesa but was so untouched, natural and just immense. Anyone who knows me would know that treking isn´t really my idea of fun, i mean put on a dance beat and I´ll be dancing for hours but walking doesnt scream my attention in any way or form, Rachel on the other hand is a born treker, camper and just everything outdoorsey so I sucked up my hate of treking and done it with Rach. To be honest the walk DOWN wasn´t too bad, we had a really cool and knowledgable guide called chiqui so we had some really good conversations which made the time past quicker, but it was just anything and everything up hill which KILLED me, I literally wished for an elevator to just get me to where we needed to be at times. We walked for a total of just under 8 hours the first day and walked through all these small towns where the only mode of transport was donkeys or walking, and then finished the day in the oasis at the bottom of the Canyon which was amazing. It had swimming pools and everything, all be it freezing but after 8 hours walking it was just what we needed. The stars were so bright as there was no electricity and it was just so perfect.. I took the smart option after my suffering of going up hill the day before and got a Mule up the mountain as the walk in the morning was purely up hill, it was usually s/60 but I got it for s/30 due to my charm and the fact I gave him my headtorch LOL. It was really fun going up on the mule, I thought I would fall off the mule at times as it took tight turns around the mountains and my butt now seriously hurts but it was fun. I met all the other guys including rach who had trekked up the mountain in the plaza where we had breakfast. Today we went to the hotsprings which were amazinggggg after the walking, i wsa basically a swimming pool with the heat of 39 degrees and ooooooo it was heaven!!!!

Okay so I need to go and shower now as Rachel and I are getting a bus to Puno tonight to see Lake titicaca. We are slowly but surely learning how to budget a bit better as our first few days haven´t exactly been what I would call cheap but its all a learning curve, we are keeping our budgeting books which includes writing down something as small as a s/1 inca cola to the s/105 colca canyon trek.

I´m not sure how well I will keep up with my blog whilst travelling but I will ATTEMPT to keep up with it, but not keeping any promises.

Only a few weeks till Im home now and Im shitting myself, there are so many things going through my mind that I wont dare to bore you with but I can´t wait to be with my family again but at the same time can´t imagine saying goodbye to Peru :( .

Goodbye for now and until I can be bothered to write another blog. see you all soon!!!!!

Tanya xxxxx

has passed scarily quickly and now I am left with 2 days left of work and 7 weeks of travelling to look forward to. Im not looking forward to leaving here at all, I already know that the tears are going to be streaming heavily from my eyes for hours on end, leaving some of these boys who I have became so close to is going to be SO hard. I'm welling up even thinking about it now.