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It’s hard to believe that we’ve already been in Peru for a week. It feels like only yesterday that we were jet-laggedly meeting at the hostel in Arequipa for the first time. We’ve done a lot of exploring of the area around the square, and eaten lots of yummy food. We visited Santa Catalina monastery, which was built during the Spanish colonization of Peru, and where nuns still live in cloisters (and, according to pictures, play volleyball in habits). Our guide Arlich took us to an alpaca farm, where they process wool and make products using the same traditional methods that Peruvians have been using for generations. We also went white water rafting, which was insanely fun, even though the water was freezing and we all got soaked. While staying at the hostel, we’ve had four days of Spanish lessons in Arequipa, which we all completed with varying degrees of success. I think that the experience of being in the communities will be the best teacher.

On Wednesday, we took a 6 hour bus ride through the mountains to Cabanaconde, where we played soccer in the street with some local kids and then stayed overnight at a hostel before setting off the next morning for the long trek into Colca Canyon.

3 hours, all downhill, while breathtakingly scenic, stops being fun after a while. Eventually though, we made it to the oasis, albeit in a sweaty, dusty heap. We spent the rest of Thursday and all of Friday hanging out, swimming in the pool, and playing like 1,000 rounds of Go Fish in the bottom of the canyon. We also celebrated one of our group member Yasmin’s 18th birthday. Saturday morning, we rose at the extremely ungodly hour of 4:30 am to start hiking back up in order to beat the scorching afternoon heat. Well, some of us trekked, and some of us, like myself, were too sore from going down and had to get horses to take us up. I’m excited to explore more of Peru and begin our homestay!

Tomorrow is Wednesday which means it will shortly have been a week since many of us met for the first time either in Heathrow or Paris Airport. It’s quite a bizarre phenomenon to put faces to the names of relative strangers whom you have only met previously through a phone or computer screen – of course this was a little daunting for us all.

Then ensued the multi-flight to Madagascar where we found ourselves plunged into humidity and heat of 30 degrees when we touched down in our final destination.

We clambered into 2 mini buses while our drivers did a fantastic job of hoisting our bags onto the roof, some of which were particularly heavy. The bus ride was a sweaty one although we were preoccupied with taking in the surroundings of what would be our home for the next 10 weeks or so.

Thick forests lined the narrow, sometimes bumpy road from the airport to the port, young Malagasy children walked barefoot on the verge carrying school bags and battered vehicles beeped to indicate they were overtaking. We reached the port after stopping at an ATM in what I later learned was the town of Hell-Ville on Nosy Be, pronounced ‘Nosy Bay’.

We climbed aboard two boats and began a 45 minute journey to our new home, Camp on Nosy Komba. Our little island is 25km squared, covered in thick forest and is home to the residents of Angpangorina (Angpang) which we would visit on Friday for pizza, drinks and music.

Camp is fronted by Main House, an open common area with a thatched roof and wood and stone structures, it is furnished with hammocks, tables, benches and bean bags (which are my favourite) and is graced with a fantastic view of the sea and the land across from us.

I’m currently on Marine with Alex, Sophie, Ben, Hettie, Harry and Cressie with Arthur and Brinley ahead of us in our training while the rest of us establish the basic principles of diving. It has been an exciting first week settling in and breaking misconceptions of one another and I am intrigued to see what we will experience next.

So it’s the first week of our south eastern adventure. First port of call: Kuching. After a long commute to the island from different parts of the world, we all came together in the city where we were able to get to know one another from the leap group.

On our way we stopped off at semengoh wildlife centre, where came face to face with Borneo’s most endangered yet treasured species: the orangutan.

Two hours and one extremely bumpy road later, we arrived at our home for the next ten days. We received nothing less than the warmest of welcomes from “Aunty” and her family. Malaysian culture treats every visitor as a guest by which they care for like they would a relative or close friend. From start to finish, we’ve felt right at home, despite the contrast in cultural context. Before we started the working week, Seth took us down to a local river which was also a destination of leisure and relaxation for locals.

The community project for the leapers this time around was to complete a concrete path to enable villagers to walk with ease and safety over the water drainage systems which we also helped to finish. Not bad for first timers!

To finish off a hard working week, we had a fulfilled weekend. We trekked to a local waterfall in the nearby jungle, had tucked into several BBQs. A personal highlight was the traditional dancing and music with some of the local villagers. Despite the struggle of keeping up with the villagers, it was really insightful and enjoyable to see more of Malaysian culture from a local perspective. This was invaluable, I can speak for all of us when I say it is something that we wouldn’t have been able to do had we not stayed with a local family right in the centre of such a rural community.

That’s it for now from your April 2018 Leapers