Once upon a time I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama. I spent a couple of days there visiting the highest and second biggest (after Yellowstone) geyser field, did a daytrip to the Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley) where I went sandboarding and Valle de la Luna (Moon valley #2) where I enjoyed an amazing sunset and went mountain-biking with William (an English lad) in the Gargantua del Diablo (Devil's throat)!

After a couple of days in this oases in the middle of the driest place on earth, I booked a three-day jeep-tour to Uyuni in Bolivia. This tour would pass over the Bolivian highlands where we saw the most beautiful and varied scenery's: Laguna's of all kind of colours, weird rock formations, amazing snow-capped +6000m peaks, deserts AND last but not least the stunning Uyuni Salt Flats and the train graveyard with piles of garbage next to it. This trip can for sure join the list of most beautiful things I've seen out here in South America!

After Uyuni I made my way up to La Paz, where I spent a couple of days buying some hiking gear, visiting all tour agencies for the things I want to do around La Paz when I get back there (somewhere in August) and after a lot of walks around town I went visiting the last Valle de la Luna of South America (#3 after the one in San Juan in Argentina and San Pedro de Atacama in Chile). After having seen the three of them I am supposed to know what the moon would look like, so my child dreams of wanting to become an astronaut can be put aside.

When all that was arranged I moved on towards the Peruvian border. Before crossing it, I decided to hike for two days around Isla del Sol on the famous lake Titicaca. The lake has an elevation of 3,812m, so all the hills I climbed on the island with these friendly French guys were around 4,000m. Now some history to make you all a bit smarter: Isla del Sol was named like this by the Inca's, because they believed the sun and the moon arose from the lake Titicaca. That's why the small island next to Isla del Sol is called Isla de la Luna!

I had to leave the island early in the morning after two days, because the island had no bars with television and I could not miss the final of the Champions League! The victory of Inter over Bayern made my day and after a celebration beer or two I jumped on the bus towards Cusco. This city is home to thousands of passing tourists that come all the way down to Peru to visit the Peruvian wonder of the world: Machu Picchu! (more about my visit there later) Although it is a hyper-touristy city, I still loved walking through it. Streets still have something from back in the days when the Spanish came down here to slaughter the Inca's by millions. The weird thing is that no-one in the world really thinks about this. The Nazi's killed 'only' six million non-Nazi's (mostly Jews), but the Spanish killed way more Inca's, but no-one hates them for it! It is not because they won their broomstick-war, that we should not hate them as much as Nazi's for killing Jews or Belgians for chopping off hands in Congo..

This on the side, I still enjoyed being there and loved the few still standing sites that the Spanish did not destroy and took home to build churches. I made some amazing friends, but eventually my volunteering project in Trujillo was calling me, so I had to leave Cusco for a 30-hour bus ride. After spending one night in Lima to break the long trip in two, I arrived early in the morning at the apartment that I would call 'home' for the next month! After a short briefing, I got guided around town. The volunteering team consisted originally of Chase, Nicole, Linda and Iain. (USA, Netherlands, Germany and Scotland) Later that day two other American girls joined the team. (Brittany and Kylien) Brittany and I were appointed to a school in one of the suburbs of Trujillo called 'Nuevo Jerusalem'. This is one of the poorest and unsafe neighbourhoods of Trujillo. It is ruled by two mafia gangs of which one gathers next door to our school. I did not know that until a couple of days ago. To me these guys were just a bunch of friendly tough-guys to whom I asked every day the results of the 9am soccer-game.

More about our neighbourhood: It is separated from Trujillo by a 50m no man's land strip like the one that cut Berlin in two during the World War. It is located high up on a mountain surrounding Trujillo on some kind of sand dune. Therefor the streets consist of sand and the houses are made of clay bricks for the 'richer' people and of plastic bags covering a wooden structure for the people living in more extreme poverty. Our school is like all the other houses. Before we could move in I had to build a roof for it consisting of a plastic tarp over a wooden structure, because the previous building we rented didn't want our kids to use the toilet. Our building now has a sandy little yard with in the back some kind of roofless shed with a hole in the middle that serves as a toilet which can be used by our pupils. The school is basically one room with three tables where our 16 kids of various ages ranging from 6 to 15 attend class.

You might wonder what I am supposed to do as you all may know I am not a real teacher!? Well to these 16 kids I am. I teach them basic maths (additions, subtractions, multiplications, divisions, ...) and teach them how to read and write. This requires a huge amount a patience I did not know I had! Some kids get beaten up at home of have a history with sexual aggression of all kinds, which causes them to have concentration problems or are just totally closed up to the external world. Basically we give them a lot of love and must be careful about getting angry at them or giving them exercises that are too difficult.

The hardest part in the teaching is that all kids have a different level, so basically we have to give them all an individual approach. Once the class is over the kids have to wash their hands with a plastic bottle and a bucket before they get breakfast consisting of a cup of hot chocolate, milk or porridge and a cookie or fruit they brought from home. Afterwards they have to brush their teeth and pray before we let them go home for the afternoon. Some of them work for some money and others just play around in the streets between the garbage, street dogs and mafia gangs.

During the afternoons basically we are free to do whatever we want, but on Mondays and Wednesdays I attend a Spanish course to improve my grammar, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays or Sundays I go surfing in the nearby village Huanchaco and on Fridays I recover from Thursday night (Ladies Night!). This and the group-phase of the FIFA World Cup are the reasons why it took me so long to find some time to update you about what has been happening to me lately!

The waves are calling me again.. I'll write any-day soon about my adventures on the Salkantay-hike to Machu Picchu!

I hope all goes well back home and sorry if I don't answer your mails straight away!

Un abrazo,

G. volunteering.

Some of my latest pictures:

Mission San Pedro de Atacama:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=173275&id=634868429&l=395cb22b8f

Cruising the Salar de Uyuni:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=173668&id=634868429&l=86a5514a1f

Last stops before Trujillo:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=175522&id=634868429&l=b418fea51a