Day 20 aka the near death of Aisling The day started out ok, got up, blasted some tunes as I packed my bag, ate some breakfast (although I dropped my banana :( #stilldrunk) but that all changed when we got on the bus. So we were headed to Colca Canyon, which is basically just an oversized ditch, but to get there you have to go along windy mountain roads, to an insanely high altitude. And I was doing all this WITH A HANGOVER. We stopped at a 5,200 mt view point ...

MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU. We arrived in Arequipa completely exhausted, but it was our friend Mo's birthday and so we had a rendition of 'Happy Birthday' at the bus station. We dumped our bags in a storage room at the hotel because our rooms weren't ready yet, and headed out for an orientation walk around the city. We went to a market place like nothing I have ever seen before, it was split into sections, the meat section was gross because people were carving ch...

Day 18: Another bright and early start this morning (ok 9am) as I was off to catch a flight over the Nasca lines; geoglyphs carved into the Nasca desert, there's no certainty about why they were made, but most archeologists think that they were open-air temples. The plane we caught was tiny; there were only 11 of us in it. Every time we passed a kind our pilot would first point it out on the right, and then swoop the plane around so that those of us on the left ...

Day 17: Today was awesome. Firstly I got up bright and early to catch an 8am boat to Islas Ballestas, which means Arches Island, because it's formed from rock shaped into arches. On the way to the island we passed the Candelabra of Paracas, which is cactus shape carved into the limestone rocks, at about 40cm deep, (making it deeper than the Nasca lines) although just like the Nasca lines; no one knows who did it or how old it is. Then we headed to the Islas Bal...

Day 16: Had a chill morning, we weren't leaving until midday so I had a lie in and still had plenty of time to pack. It was particularly exciting today because I now had a new guide and 10 new people joining the group, so I was interested to meet them all. Our new guide, Mabel, is amazing, she's so energetic, enthusiastic and organised. On the 5 hour bus journey we firstly watched a movie called 'Nature Calls' about a man whose scout troup is failing so he hija...