Posted 30 Mar 2010

Gap year adventurers looking to combine their travelling with volunteer work might want to head to Peru.

Machu Picchu – a region popular with visitors – has been left devastated by floods and landslides, Hands Up Holidays reports.

Heavy rain in early February saw around 16,000 farming hectares destroyed, 30 bridges washed away and 5,000 homes left damaged – interrupting the livelihoods of tens of thousands of inhabitants.

Around 90 per cent of recent bookings to the area – famous for its Inca Trail – have been cancelled as a result of the bad weather.

However, travellers can lend a hand to its restoration by embarking on a voluntourism trip to the area, seeing the sites yet also helping out in the local communities by restoring houses.

Lucy Cooke, a city worker in London, recently left her job behind to volunteer in Peru, where she has embarked on a six-month expedition to lend her hand to frog research in the country.

Category: South America