The Wedding was a Christening in the Sacred Valley

After getting to the town of Huayllabamba Carmen and I took a combi out to the 5 star hotel where we asked about the wedding of Don Benito, we were quickly told to walk back to the town as that is where

the christening is, okay wasnt expecting a christening. 

The walk is easy enough its only about a mile along a dusty road with lots of molle trees and pumpkin  plants. Its also corn season so lots of that too. 

We get back to the town and have a look in the priests house and nobody home and take a walk around the back of the church see if there is anyone there. Th christening was meant to start 5 minutes ago. 

As we come back to the front they are there, just getting out of a car. Don Benito, Doña Melchora, Selestina, Ricardo and the child to be christened Irisita. She is all dressed in white, so different from her usual dress. 

Its also been a long time since I saw Selestina she is 15 now and speaks some Spanish. 

The priest arrives and they quickly sign some papers before heading into the church for the very short ceremony of baptism. 

Selestina

Here are photos of the ceremony. 

After that home to Cusco, a lovely Friday spent. 

Chontachaka, in the cloud forest of Peru

The place I visited last week has a volunteer programme where you can help catalog birds, butterflies, plant trees, work on the farm. Please contact us at info@tikatrek.com for more info.

4.30am alarm goes off and its time to get up and go to the cloud forest. The other people are a little late and we finally set off at 5.30am towards Pisac where we have breakfast and head towards the town of Paucartambo where they have a major religious festival every year in July.
We stop for a moment and visit the main square and the church before arriving to the entrance of the Manu national park.
The journey is pretty rough, but this is what helps the rainforest, access is not so easy. We finally arrive at 5pm, and cross the river on the oroya (a basket on a rope), after dinner I head straight to bed.

As I lie in my bed there is a massive storm, heavy rain, thunder and lightning. I really enjoy these kind of storms.
Not too early in the morning we have breakfast before heading off to check on all the different types of butterflies that we can see.
The walk is really nice about 2.5 hours up through the cloud forest and even though it has been raining it is not too muddy.

After the walk a nice wash in the river, with my lovely Tika biodegradable soap.

A nice free afternoon and in the evening an Angel ceremony on the banks of the river with a lady from DC, it was very interesting and people seemed to enjoy it. I slipped off and into bed.

I had a wonderful day today heading off to the small waterfall, it really is delightful with a small pool that you can swim in, delicious.

In the afternoon I spoke to the administrator, Alvaro who is a forestry engineer from Spain, he gives me all sorts of information about the place, its at 960ms and is 190 hectares in size, they have managed so far to reforest about 6000 trees and they have approx 15kms of trails, they are always looking for volunteers to help count birds, plant trees (this takes more work than it sounds), help with farming to feed the volunteers among other things.

The following day I spent going to the small village which is only about a 15min walk and talking to Gloria in the kitchen, in the evening onto the local bus which takes me back to Cusco. twas a bumpy cold ride but I arrived back safely.

If you would like to visit this place please contact us at  info@tikatrek.com and remember to buy your soap at info@tikasoapperu.com