Firstly congratulations to my brother and nic for the arrival of another (ginger) baby girl. Today i did the sacred valley tour which pretty much involved going to lots of different ruins. Now if you explain one lot of ruins you have pretty much explained them all but i guess its just one of those things you have to be there, all of them really are magnificent. I love Peru its awesome even the scenery whilst driving from place to place is just spectacular. I made a few new friends today from Argentina they were on my tour bus one in particular took a bit of a shine to me and was following me everywhere taking photos which for 5 mins was ok but got a bit tiresome after 6 hours. I think his heart was ... read more

Last night I caught the overnight bus from Nazca to Arequipa, the bus left at 10.30 pm. I got my blanket and pillow and put my seat back hoping to get some kip. NADA. The only snorer on the bus was positioned in the seats opposite mine, and my god did he snore. Managed to sleep for a little while but was awake for the whole journey more or less! Luckily they brought round coca leaf tea in the morning and that sorted me right out! I was starving aswell so was well chuffed when they bought round sandwiches too, till i realised they had ham on them! Unfortunately id left my bag in the bus station with all my wash stuff in yesterday so had to have a cold shower for the 2nd day running ... read more

Yesterday morning I woke up packed my things and headed out the door to get a taxi to the bus station, after being ripped off by a whole tenner I had my wits about me this time, Id spoken to a guy in the hostal who said dont pay more than 10 soles so before i got in to taxi I said bus terminal for buses to ica si... si he said. Nice one, now I go to negotiate the price I held up 10 fingers and said 10 soles... ok he said. So we got to the bus station and I give him 20 soles... he looks at me gone out and says he wants 150... i told him to piss right off and we finally agreed on 50 which meant i got ripped of ... read more

Forgot to say yesterday... to the driver of the number 140 bus from heathrow bus station- stop texting whilst driving a bus full of passengers it's dangerous! Well got up this morning... set 2 alarms you know just incase and yes the second one woke me up, caught my taxi to the airport and listened to my driver Abdul singing Abba sll the way to the airport... ace! Then thought I'd have a nice coffee to wake me up, saw the brown packets thought 'brown sugar' as anyone would at 5am but no not brown sugar... pepper! Pepper is not reccomended in caramel latte! Had the inevitable nerves going through security as you do then i got pulled aside and searched- i must look dodgy. But the were sorry when they realised the extent of my ... read more

It's absolutely bleeding, red, flaming hot! I've got a bit of a dab on and I'm grumpy! Not even left the country yet, my attempts at acclimatising slowly throughout the summer dissapeared funnily enough with our summer.... it's been pissing it down for the last month but summer is now back with avengence along with the immenent hosepipe ban, we live on a frigging island for christ sake theres loads of water surely! Anyway, yes, hot weather makes me tired, grumpy and generally pissed off, it makes me frown so much I had my first lot of botox last week in the vain hope it might get rid of my frown, did it f*ck! I must be immune. So here in tropical Worksop I'm getting a taste of what the weather is going to be like ... read more