Tuesday 19th April - Not in Colca Canyon

All our best-laid plans of condor watching failed :-( Sarah was suffering mightily from the Lurgy of Peru and by 2.30 am it was pretty clear that 6 hours in a minibus was not the way forward. We tried to console ourselves with the thought that we saw a condor yesterday (today's pic shows view of volcanos from the terrace - the condor was flying towards us) (NB condor isn't on the photo! - you need to use your imaginations!). We spent some time googling condors and are pretty sure it was a young female.
Linda was at Emma's school today (only immediate family allowed hence doing the planned condor trip). She found it quite unsettling - there is so much deprivation there, the area is very poor and some of the kids have really tragic backgrounds. The volunteers (Emma et al) are making a real difference but some of the regular teachers, including the head, don't turn up for their lessons, some of the kids don't even start primary school until they're 11, and a lot of them are out working for families all the hours they aren't in school (only 3 hours each morning anyway). The school is outside Arequipa in the desert and is in a very dusty small community. Probably some things need to be addressed at a higher level than a local one before things really start to change for the kids there.
By the end of the day I was feeling pretty ropey too (various pieces of evidence point to the cerviche being to blame all round) and everyone was in bed by 9.30.