Boomers Abroad

Description

Global Volunteer Network has created an opportunity for participants to hike to the ancient city of Machu Picchu while helping a local community build a new facility for their feeding program, which feeds and distributes vitamins to 400 orphaned and disadvantaged children daily. The feeding program is run by a nun who also heads a local orphanage in Lamay. The children the program support come every day for lunch after school.

Some of the children have traveled from other communities in the nearby mountains to go to school, and before returning home visit the Lamay lunch program to receive a meal and a vitamin before heading home. The town has recently provided a few old buses to transport some of the children who live farthest away, but some of the children used to walk between 1-3 hours each way to get to and from school and the lunch was and continues to be, one of their only substantial meals of the day.

Presently, the facilities for this lunch program are extremely inadequate to provide for such a great need. The program is run out of an empty room in a local church, but recently the church has begun renovations, and so the children have been forced to eat their meal crowded on a few benches in an open courtyard. With funds from the Machu Picchu hike, the goal is to build a new comidor (dining room) for this much deserving program which has touched so many childrens lives.

Where you will go:
High above a gorge in the Urubamba Valley in a remarkably inaccessible location lay the ruins of one of the most stunning and important archaeological discoveries of modern times - Machu Picchu. Before you arrive at Machu Picchu you will have the opportunity to see Sacsayhuaman, the temple of the sun, the Patallacta ruins, an ancient farming settlement, and Winaywayna, a religious complex. On the last day of the hike you will reach the Sun Gate and the entrance to Machu Picchu. After a half day of exploring the citadel you will travel to the village of Aquas Calientes, where you may bathe in thermal pools. That evening all participants will return to Cuzco by train to prepare for the second leg of their journey.

The next morning you will be transported to a local residence where you will stay for the next two nights. You will then have the opportunity to spend time with the girls of the orphanage.

There is a possibility that the group will have an opportunity to take a hand in constructing the new dining room for the feeding program, or helping the program distribute food and vitamins to the children during these days.

The final day you will say goodbye to your new friends and return to Cuzco to catch your connecting flight home.