19/5/13 Fort Myers Beach Survived the night despite the feuding couple – I half expected to hear gun shots and it was another glorious hot sunny day, so it’s off to the beach. We had a quick stop at Walmart to buy a smart price beach umbrella (cheaper than hiring one) and drove down to Fort Myers Beach. Parking was pretty expensive but just back from the sea road we found a pair of enterprising pensioners who had turned their garden into a parking lot and for $5 you could park there all day. We finally got away from Mrs Pensioner who was delighted we were English and proceeded to tell us all about her son who was stationed at Mildenhall with the air force and all of his accomplishments, bless her. Back at the beach ... read more

15/5/13 Grand Turk We were up early as we were excited to get off the ship and explore. Grand Turk is a tiny island, a British Colony and former pirate hangout. From the balcony we could just see the tip of the island and it is very flat, with white beaches, green palm trees and sea every shade of blue and green imaginable. After disembarking we walked along the pier to the ‘welcome’ building which is basically a duty free shop, then out into a plaza surrounded by jewellery and souvenir shops. We visited the memorial to the astronaut John Glenn whose Friendship 7 space capsule landed in the sea just off the island. There was a replica of the capsule, a pretend astronaut and a small rocket with some information boards. We had a quick ... read more

10/5/13 Florida City, Miami Well I had the best night’s sleep for a very long time! Today we decided not to go anywhere just to get sorted out and take it easy. So we started with a trip to Walmart (ha ha gotta love that place), Howard reckons we were there for 2 ½ hours but I’m sure he exaggerated! There are so many fascinating things to see in Walmart, clothes to try on, gallon containers of a hundred varieties of ice cream to be examined, cds to look through, weapons of every variety to be shocked by, all the different types of m&m’s to be surprised by and so the list goes on! After all that excitement it was back to the motel and two machine fulls of washing to do and finally I was ... read more

7/5/13 Trip to El Brujo and the Lady of Cao I was really looking forward to today’s trip as it was to the Pyramid of the Witch Doctors (shamans) and the Lady of Cao – the first female Moche ruler. Our guide yesterday had told me how the site is still used today by Witch Doctors from Peru, Ecuador and Columbia to perform shamanic rituals. In the past witch doctors went to the pyramid to boost their healing powers as the site was known to be a place of powerful energies. Great stuff! Imagine then my disappointment when after an hour travelling north through barren desert scenery only broken by areas of sugar cane plantations we finally reached the El Brujo Archaeological site and were told we weren’t going to the pyramid! Gutted!! Allegedly the site ... read more

3-5th May ’13 Chiclayo Our first full day here we didn’t do much as Howard’s bowels were causing him grief! We did manage to get to the main square without being mown down (a minor miracle), Howard finally got a haircut and I have never known someone take so much pride in his work – Juan was a perfectionist, he must have been in the military!, we managed to sort out and book ourselves on a tour for the next day and found the bus station we needed to book our tickets for Trujillo on Sunday, which after a long time in a queue we did. The next day was fantastic we were booked on The Sipan Tour with Moche Tours and the guide spoke excellent English and hearing him switch between Spanish and English was ... read more