20th-23rd We only spent a day and a half in Arica. It was pleasant enough and I'm sure if we were better at surfing we may have had a go but we wanted to explore Patagonia and have started running out of time. We had been told by numerous people that the Atacama Desert is worth a visit so after seeing the town of Arica and not much else we caught a night bus to San Pedro de Atacama, the town in the desert. We had told the owners of the hostel that we'd b...

14th-19th We had another night bus to the city of Arequipa and found our hostel that was a bit grubby but the owner was really nice and the kitchen was clean so we made our own food for most meals. Our first two days here we spent exploring the city and then booked our trip to the Colca Canyon. When we actually decided on the company to book I was waiting for the lady to fill out the receipt as James popped outside to get some fresh air, or so I thought. Abou...

9th-10th The following morning M&D had to leave the hostel at 10:30 so we only had the morning together. It was so nice to see them and we will miss them so much. It was an amazing two weeks where we were truly spoilt with food, treats and great company. Looking forward to New Zealand even more now! We said goodbye and I moped around for the rest of the day. We watched what we thought was their plane take off, as it turns out they were really dela...

7th-8th After a slight time adjustment from 4:30am pick up to a more reasonable 6:20am we left our luggage at Tierra Viva and Eddie our guide for the next two days came to collect us in our private van. We were all excited about the day ahead, knowing that by this time tomorrow we would have already seen Machu Picchu, one of the seven new wonders of the world. The journey to Ollayantambo was quite long and windy but we saw some great views along the way. We ...

3rd-4th We wanted to catch the tram ride that did a short city tour, on the sheet it had clear times of when it was running. However, we are in Peru and Peruvians run on a different time schedule! After waiting around for ½ hour and asking the useless tourist information we decided to try again in the afternoon. It was on time after a two hour lunch break and it was the sort of tour I like. We only had a few stops and it was sight after sight. Unfortunate...