1st October 2008: We leave Cusco ihis morning and head to Ollantaytambo, a small town from where we will be starting the Inca Trail. We´re all vey excited given that this trek is one of the highlights of our trip - none of us can quite believe that tomorrow we will be walking the Inca Trail!! We take a quick walk around town, from where we can see some nearby Inca ruins. We walk to the market and decide it would be wise to buy some ponchos in case of rain on...

30th September 2008: We arrive in the pretty city of Cusco early in the morning and all head off for a huge fry-up, which is very welcome indeed! We visit a nearby factory selling products made from alpaca wool, and after feeling how soft it is my good intentions of not buying anything go out of the window and I end up with a pashmina and some christmas presents! We also find the factory cat has recently had kittens so we manage to find them and cuddle them......

27th - 29th September 2008: This morning we head to Coporaque, which is on the edge of the Colca Canyon. The views are amazing and we stop along the way to admire it. We see llamas, alapacas and vicuynas, whose wool is even more expensive and prized than that of the baby alapaca. Before we reach the highest point we stop to sample some coca leaves and drink some 'triple tea', which includes coca and mint, which are meant to help with altitude sickness and headac...

26th September 2008: After taking the night bus we arrive into the city of Arequipa, which is the third biggest in Peru and definitely the prettiest we have seen so far. We take a walk around the main square and then head to the Andean museum to see 'Juanita' - a mummified Ince girl who was sacrificed on the top of one of the nearby mountains. We learn more about the Inca culture which is incredibly interesting - they were one of the only cultures to worship th...

25th September 2008: We've got another early start for our flight over the Nasca lines - which are a series of geoglyphs which were created between 200 BC and 700 AD by the Nasca culture. The best way to see the lines is to take a flight over them, so we get to the airport and clamber into our tiny six seater plane. The ride is a bit bumpy to say the least, the pilot does alot of sharp turns so we get to see the lines from all angles. Some of the lines are ver...