Wow, what a storm last night, the lightening lit up the sky, the rumbling thunder vibrated the windows and the rain fell like a torrent waterfall. I couldn’t help but worry about these wee dogs in the shelter and the quagmire that we would face in the morning.

Now that I was awake, I realised how cold I was. Not sure if I’ll ever be warm at night. Wish I could find a hot water bottle, I’d hug it to death. It was just after 5 and I knew the alarm would be going off soon. so I pulled the blankets up to my chin and fell back asleep.

6:30am. The usual routine, up, dressed and breakfast ready to start the day. I decided to wear clean clothes on the bus to the centre and take my old mingin’ clothes with me in a bag to change – I just wouldn’t put the passengers through that smell at that time in the morning.

Before I set off I contacted Peru hop to ask for a donation or a whip-round in the office for the rescue centre. I was going to collect my free T-shirt and hopefully a wee envelope stuffed with soles!!!

En route to the bus stop I went to the Vet practice at the bottom of the road to ask if they would approach their dog food supplier and see if they were willing to donate a couple of 25kg bags of food a month but it was closed and didn’t open till 9am and that would be too late for me to wait.

I’m confident in my travel arrangements and I arrived just before 9am. Work is pretty much routing but today it was slightly different, there were no other volunteers apart from me. One had finished her volunteer work yesterday and the other had been diagnosed with typhoid so it was me and the owner to clean and feed 120ish dogs 😱.

It was hard work and we had to go to the old compound to tend to the dogs there.

Unfortunately, the owner had been given notice to quite the old premises and he had to leave in 3 days time. It was not easy to transport over 120 dogs in the back of a car. All the smaller digs were put into cat carriers and the ones that were too big were put either in the back seat or in the boot. You can imaging how many trips that poor man had to make.

As I was waiting to go to the second shelter ( the old one) I took a walk down to see the horse that had been rescued. It had a torn ligament on its left hind and was crippled and unbelievably , it was still being worked by its owner

The owner of the rescue centre has persuaded a company to make a 3D printing cast and he was waiting on them to come to take measurement. It had a brand new shelter and plenty of fresh alfalfa.

Three of us piled into the old car pulling a trailer. Everything in the old shelter had to be moved, not just the dogs. All the kennels had to be dismantled and relocated – what a job!!

Thankfully some of the staff of Globalteer came to help but working at that altitude (3,900 mtrs) made every step a struggle and difficult to breath. If you stood up too quick it resulted in feeling sick and almost passing out so every action had to be done very slowly and deliberate.

It was now 2pm and I hadn’t eaten since 6:30 and I had to go. I did feel guilty but I would have collapsed for sure. I walked back to the bus stop and waited for a bus. There is no one bus company in Peru, on the contrary, it’s a free for all and there must be at least 20 companies vying for business which makes the traffic complete chaos.

The journey back to the stop nearest the hostel takes 40 minutes and I then have a long walk up two hills.

Halfway up the second I stopped off for a burger. I hadn’t eaten red meat for over a month and I just had a wee craving for something other than chicken or eggs – it was a tough decision but I was willing to take the chance that my stomach wouldn’t reject it.

It was delicious – had it with deep fried little potatoes but it was way too much and I left over half.

Walking back up to the hostel I say a wee bakery and the buns and cakes looked delicious. As I had just eaten my last meal of the day and it was only 4pm I decided to treat myself and bought two scrumptious pieces.

Back at the hostel, I took my mingin’ clothes into the shower with me and trampled them with my feet until no more dirt came out. It was freezing when I came out of the cubical and I quickly dried my hair and put the towel round me, squeezed out my clothes which were anything but perfectly clean and hung them up to dry.

Back in the bedroom, I put on my pjs and climbed under the mound of blankets. My hands and face were so cold. After making calls back home to the family, sending text and checking my emails, I decided to go down to the kitchen to make myself a wee mug of tea and what better to have with it…. the cake.

I put the mug of tea on the bedside table beside the cakes, climbed back into bed and as turned to pick up my cake and OMG, I misjudged it and both cakes fell on the floor and scattered everywhere.

Normally at home I’d have went for the 3 second rule but not here. Heaven knows my intestines have been pushed beyond their limit and were till in a delicate recovery period so I picked the cakes up and put them in the trash bin 😭 I did for a nano second consider dusting them off 😂 but nope, into the trash they went.

Nite 😢