South Americas big, it's very very big. In fact Brazil alone is bigger than Australia (see you learn summot new everyday). Luckily I'm typing this blog from our VIP seats on 1 of the long distance buses, 18 hrs to be exact. It's a good job that the seats are large, recline nearly all the way back, have personal tv's with films and even have wifi! Just don't look outside as we have quite literally driven some of the maddest roads I've ever seen.

We had flown into Santiago, Chile and quite quickly made our way north to Peru. We weren't overly impressed with Chile and so the beauty of travelling means you move on from somewhere you dislike. Having said that we did have one of our best nights out in a while in the extremely funky city called Valparaiso. The place is full and I mean full of mural graffiti everywhere that rises up the old Spanish style buildings into the 'cerros' of the hills. Unfortunately it's also full of dog s**t so you have to watch your step. I really wouldn't have a job left if this was Burnley! But anyhow as I mentioned we'd gone out to a little bar restaurant called Cinzano that was in the trusty Lonely Planet. It started with a band and dancing to all that Ole kind of magic before we met a Chilean called Hector. Having told us of a club he was going to that had loads of cha cha cha, salsa and samba, Stacey was virtually following him out the door! After finishing our drinks we thought we'd see if Hector was telling the truth, turns out he really was. This club was brilliant and before she knew it, she had dumped her silver fox of a husband in favour of an even older silver fox who could dance a tango or two! With every huge drink measurement drank, the more we believed we could salsa and show these Chileans a thing or 2 of our own but with Hector introducing us to his dancing instructor mate Manuel, we were well and truly out of our depth. These people could reeeeally dance and as for Stace, well, she fell in love again that night and now has me practicing salsa steps from flippin youtube! Let's just hope they come in handy in Rio.

So onwards and upwards it was with us starting to pick up a little bit more Spanish as we go. It even makes me wish I hadn't got an F in Spanish at GCSE as it could have come in handy. Me mum had warned me not to expect any English but being an ignorant Brit I thought it can't be that hard, after all it was easy in Vietnam. Turns out mothers do know best as it is much tougher to get by on Rossendalian lingo but I suppose that kind of adds to the whole experience, google translation is doing its best.

So we were in and out of Chile en route to a simply beautiful city known as Arequipa in Peru, where Stacey's first act was to make me buy tickets for an evening Tango show. The dancing itself was quite good, the singing in-between was bobbins mainly because we didn't have a clue what he was bellowing on about! It's also true that the streets didn't always feel safe in Chile but it's strange how the next bordering country could feel so different but I suppose it's like the safety of England versus the dangers of Scotland!!

It goes without saying that Peru is a wonderful country but unfortunately we have had to sacrifice some of the things we wanted to do such as the supposedly sublime Macchu Picchu and the highest lake in the world of lake titicaca and it's floating islands. With less than 6 weeks left we are inevitably running out of cash and so tough decisions have had to be made. So we are now going for a cheap chilled beach week (at the supposedly best beach of Peru in Mancora) before making our way to Brazil for the you know what. Yes it's still a tough life but with the Peruvian sights not going anywhere we have left them on the to do list...after all, we know there's only going to be one Brazilian World Cup and I must admit I'm beginning to get very excited....Engeeeeeeeerrrrrrland, Engeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrland!