Mariana Gledhill from Wellington, N.Z spent 7 months, in 2005, in Peru doing voluntary work. She shares her experiences.
Hi all
I am travelling right now and I have so much to talk about but not much time to say it.
There have been a few questions recently:
When am I back in New Zealand? 14 October (I went into Miraflores today and changed the ticket all by myself. It was funny because I was speaking Spanish and all of the Lan staff were speaking English).
Have I met a gorgeous Latin spunky guy? No.
How is my Spanish? Better, but it still has room for improvement. Apparently I was dreaming in Spanish the other night, about cockroaches. But I do not remember this.
I have finally been to another zone of Peru (Peru has 3 zones, coast, mountain and jungle). The jungle was great… it’´s not rainforest. It could have been once, but I don’t know. The area I went to is used for growing coffee (really good coffee) and bananas. 
Someone told me that there are two varieties of banana and that bananas are going to die out because of lack of diversity. I don’t think so!!! I have encountered 6 types of bananas here. Some are huge… about as long as the length of my arm up to my elbow. Others are tiny and can fit in my hand. There are ones that are orange inside, and red ones too.
I will be going to the mountains soon…. I have not visited but I have already had altitude sickness from the trip to the jungle (it went over mountains you see!) I could not hear for half a day from it…. feo!
See you all later
Mariana
Tags: agriculture, biodiversity, coffee, cultures, forests, language, Peru, travel, volunteer