A pinch of sand, a lump of mountains and a sprinkling of trekking...

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After a flurry of concerned emails, the two veges are still in two separate pieces and we have all escaped the blockade in Sucre after the students finally packed up their pebbles and decided to do some work - bloody students, eh!

So we popped over to La Paz with one thought in mind: to cycle the world's most dangerous road! This involved 3 hours of death-defying extreme downhill madness with a constant 1000m sheer cliff drop to your left!! Fantastic!!

Then, through blizzards and a very choppy lake Titicaca, we reached Puno - Peru's most ugly city!! We met with Heloise's parents and put Edith's mothering skills straight to the test by acquiring altitude sickness (Lolo threw up no less than 10 times - Jack counted (from a far!)). Thanks to another bloomin' blockade and, even more fortunately, thanks to Lolo's parents acquiring a secret bus for us (in order to escape Puno), we hastened straight away up to Cuzco just in time for our Inca Trail....

...which brings us nicely on to the Inca Trail! Our group became supersized with the addition of Matt, who had come over to Peru just to do a pathetic imitation trail (which we later found out to be a 15-minute downhill stroll!!).
Despite the ridiculous weight and luxuries carried for us by, no less than, 7 poor Peruvian porters (!) and our guide, who turned out to be as fast as a lame snail, the trail was breath-taking. Macchu Picchu too is absolutely fantastic while fascinating & mysterious to boot!

Meanwhile, back in Cuzco, we celebrated one of the most important days of the year: "3 days before Jack's Birthday" (some say that it was Steph's Birthday but Jack still hasn't realised!!). So the carnivores - Matt, Jack & Steph - headed off to Tipon to sample a certain local delicacy...the not-so-fluffy, ex-squeaking, chargrilled guinea pig carcasses provided plenty of Kodak moments & far too much entertainment!!

Having sampled Cuzco's night life, we said "Hasta Luego" to Edith & Terry and "Vengo Vamos" to Arequipa - Peru's 2nd most beautiful city. The most amazing memory here was a magnificent corridor-strewn, courtyard-laden, blue & terrecotta, convent village. Steph demonstrated her firm grasp of the Spanish language by asking if we would need a "guinea pig" to escort us round the convent (the words for "guide" & "guinea pig" are quite similar!) and we were all suitably shocked to discover that guinea pigs were, in fact, optional! Not to worry, Jack acted as head guinea pig and brought the convent to life with tales of naughty nuns and other ridiculous yarns.

Next up was Jack's glorious birthday celebrations at the Colca Canyon: spotting condors gracefully warming up their wings right over our heads, and some good old folkloric dancing. We had only just sat down to order dinner when we discovered that Matt had suddenly been whisked away and was dancing with a lampshade on his head!

On a serious note: Peru is an amazing country with a superb range of climates & topography - from awe-inspiring mountainous and pictureque views to luscious, dense, "insect ridden" but fascinating jungle. And it was, therefore, both entirely surreal but also perfectly reasonable for us to find ourselves, the next day, sitting astride a giant sand dune armed with a plank of wood for some gnarley sand-boarding action!! Laura, at this point, had just popped off back to the motherland while we explored this desert oasis town of Huacachina! Matt finished up flat on his front but Steph went one better still, becoming airbourne and then impaling herself head first in the sand, a la ostrich!!

Off to Lima for a few hours (which was a few too many!)! We used our time constructively buying 4kg of bananas (instead of just 4 - oops! - well done Steph!) and receiving a prize TV guide from a very excitable restaurant owner lady - Rosa!

In one fell swoop, we engulfed central Peru and emerged in Trujillo, a colourful colonial town with yummy sweets & ice cream galore 😊. Steph & Matt were shown up to their hostal room only to find it was a construction site solely containing a toilet. The dude promised that a custom-built bedroom would appear within two hours...7 hours later, he was applying the final touches (pillow cases and doors!!) just in time for the wet paint vapours to lull Steph & Matt into a very deep sleep.

We now write to you from Cajamarca and have cracked open the first anti-malarial tablets...cheers!

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Comments

[Paul]

I'm so jealous
:(