Picchu Alto

Picchu Alto is a shelter in the High Andes of Peru. Their are volunteer women that take in children, many whom have been abandoned, and ensure they have food and shelter. These shelters are in the homes of very poor families whose homes are dirt floor and one room, not a one room house but JUST one room to do everything. These houses are made of adobe and have no running water and everyone sleeps in one bed. Even though it sounds awful, at least these children have shelter from the streets and creeps.

This is the court yard for about 6 different families, you can
see the houses on the sides, the roofs near the top of the

picture are different places.

This is the toilet for all the families to share. YUCKY!

and this is way cleaner than usual because they cleaned it

before we came so it looked nicer. They usually don't clean them.



Here are some of the kids. Ones a day they come here to eat a meal.
The volunteer ladies said they get about 70 children right now.

70 CHILDREN  have to come here to eat their one meal a day because

their families can't afford it! This is not a goverment funded project, these

women just started it up between themselves and we have started to help them.

Here are the women and children as we make crafts with them and
give them shoes and little toys.

We also did face painting. I sucked at it but they loved it!

  

This is at the beginning when there was not so many children
getting their faces painted. Dakota rocked at face painting.

These are some hats the kids made as well

Who couldn't love these kids?!?!

The boy in the red is a little handicapped and he is so
awesome with all the little kids. He makes sure
all the kids are taken care of. The boy with the dog
has a skin condition due to malnutrition. All the kids treat him
the same at the shelter though!

Repelling 3rd World Country

So I over heard a Paul mention him and his friends were going repelling in Peru, so of course I had to accompany them, and since I was going everyone else wanted to come.
So 2 days later we are all heading out to this villiage about 4hrs away. Little did we know that it would be the guide/instructors first time.
After the nice 4 hrs drive stuffed in a little van, we make it to this villiage and start climbing the mountain. Now this appears to be a simple climb but may I mention we are like 3 billion times higher in altitude than Canada. It was the hardest hike of my life! I could not breathe most of the hike, and I was the one of the people more fit.
After making it about half the way up, we hear yelling so we turn around and one of the Peruvians is telling us we are going the wrong way, ok so that would seem normal, but, its not because we are following the guy who is going to drop us over the edge with our lives in his hands!

So if you ever feeling like its a good idea to kill yourself, or tempt fate, go repelling in a 3rd world country with a guide that has never brought a group before, and does not speak English (and you don't speak Spanish). After you do that, we still beat you because our guide also took over from a different guide that quit because there was a "bad accident" and he walked away from the repelling and gave it to our guide. Ya it was deadly!

I'm the white dot against the rock near the middle

Just as I'm walking over. I was the first one to go and at this point, no one really
knows if the ropes are really set up right.
p.s. nice bike helmet eh?

This will give you a little idea on how high this cliff is, but then again,
it does not do it justice.



Heres a pretty good one but theres a problem, I can not rotate it because I'm not that smart.