I am back in the UK now, luckily not having been caught up by the ash cloud on my flight home! The remains of my trip were very exciting and not as much of a rush as I thought it might be as I managed to fit everything in in the time I had left.

Onwards from Potosi I headed to Uyuni to see the salt desert. The tour was great fun, although it ended up being me with a Norwegian guy (who luckily spoke english!) and 2 Bolivian couples both in their 60s or 70s! Fortunately by that point in my trip I'd picked up enough Spanish to have a basic conversation and translate for the other guy as the Bolivians didn't speak a word of english. The salt flats are amazing, pure white stretching as far as the eye can see. Obviously it was packed with tourists but it was still very secluded due to the huge scale and we took lots of crazy photos due to the lack of perspective (currently uploading). It was a shame because as well as the salt flats we carried on the tour for another 3 days, yet bad weather meant that we didn't see a lot of the things were were supposed to including a volcano, the 'mountain of 7 colours' and hots springs and geysers. However we did see some stunning landscapes which changed rapidly from desert to rocky moonscape to winter mountain wonderland to valley of the rocks which had some amazing rock formations which I was desperatre to climb! We also saw the 'Laguna Colorada' - a red lake with loads of flamingoes in it, seemingly bizarre as it was bitterly cold there and the flamingoes seemed very exotic and out of place. I was supposed to finish my tour in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile and head up to Peru from there but due to the adverse weather conditions crossing the broder via the necessary mountain passes would have been too dangerous (and mostly I think my guide didn't want to go out of his way to drop me ff to get the further onwards transport) that I ended up going back to Uyuni where I began. The upside of this detour was that although I then had to get 24 hours worth of buses to La Paz and then onwards to Cusco in Peru, it meant that I would get to see Machu Picchu which I hadn't thought would happen.

Cusco was a very beautiful and surprisingly civilised city, I was expecting Peru to be similar in many ways to Bolivia but actually they have very little in common and Peru is a lot richer and therefore target the tourists in different ways and much more aggressively which I didn't like having just come from Bolivia where most of the time you get left to your own devices. I couldn't even sit on a bench in town and relax without people coming up and hassling me to buy things or asking for money which got very tiring. However I did enjoy Cusco as I met some nice people and from there went on the Jungle trek to Machu Picchu. This involved mountain biking, ziplining over a canyon (http://www.canopyperu.com/) and trekking through the jungle which was all very exciting. Unlike the actual Inca trail we stopped in local hostels overnight but I don't think this detracted too much from the adventure! The final day was hard but great as we got up before 4am to walk up to Machu Picchu and managed to get a pass to climb Wayna Picchu (which they only let a certain number of people up a day) so after walking around Maccu Picchu and getting a short guided tour we trekked up Wayna Picchu which was tiring but gave great views over Maccu Picchu and the surrounding mountains and valleys.

There was a bit of a mix up with train tickets away from Aguas Calientes (the town at the bottom of Maccu Picchu) so I got left behind from the group for a night on the last night and had to get the train alone the next morning but this actually worked to my benefit as I got to go to bed early and my night at the hotel was paid for by the tour company as it was their mess-up! I also got to go in the hot springs in the town which was very relaxing after all the recent exertion.

Back in Cusco I hopped on a 22 hours bus to Lima but booked myself into the VIP section as it was only £5 more and I felt I deserved it and could splash out a bit at the end of the trip! It turned out to be very worth it as I got a huge seat that reclined almost fully and a host who served us hot meals and showed DVDs. Lima was ok, I met back up with Rose and we stayed in a rather snazzy mansion-style hostel with chandeliers and red leather sofas but by that point I only had a couple of days left so couldn't enjoy it fully as I was just looking forward to being back! The flight home was long but uneventful.

It is good to be back although I'm already thinking about where I could go on my next trip, although before that I have to get a job now to earn some money again!