We bumped into a British couple that Jeff had met on his 'most dangerous road' in La Paz at the airport in Rurenabaque and found that we were all heading in the same direction. So plans were made for the day that entailed us leaving our bags at a hostel in La Paz for the day so that a few hours could be spent wondering the city that we didn't really get to see as a result of my previous illness while in the city before the Amazon. We later caught a local bus with Andy and Laurie to our next and last Bolivian destination - Copacabana on the Lake Titicaca.

We arrived in the quaint lakeside town after a 3 hour journey on the bus and a short boat ride over the lake at sunset with containers of fried whitebait fish purchased fresh from local women at the port. We checked into our hostel which afforded us a large double room with a beautiful view of the lake. However, 20 minutes were spent killing the swarm of flies we found hiding in the curtains of the room. We rejoined Andy and Laurie for a fantastic dinner of fresh trout, the local speciality and a bottle of smooth white wine at a restaurant that was decorated with lanterns and wooden furniture and smelled of the wood fire burning at the entrance.

The next morning, Jeff and I headed out for breakfast at a restaurant along the lake. We spent a few hours there enjoying the sun and the view and boarded a ferry with the others at 1:30pm for a 2 hour journey to an Island close by called Isla del Sol. We had decided to catch this ferry to the south side of the island and take the 3 hour walk to the north side for the sunset. The walk was pretty tough to start off with but eased out about 40minutes in and we were able to enjoy the stunning setting. The path wraps around the island and the views of the lake (that is large enough to look like the sea), the neighbouring islands and the start of the sunset made the heaving at the beginning worth it. We were the only people along the path heading north and at one point we were pretty worried that we were going to get to the other side of the island only to find that there would be nowhere for us to stay for the night. But we trudged on and were rewarded with a tiny village on the bank of the lake that was completely off the beaten track. The 4 of us made up about half of the tourists in the village. We found ourselves accommodation for the night, tucked into a few cold beers and then headed off to one of the 3 restaurants in the area. We were the only patrons in the place and while waiting for our food, the son of the owner/waitress and chef decided that we were going to be his entertainment for the evening. He found a comfortable place on Jeff's lap showing off the packet of asparagus soup we had just ordered and proceeded to feed us his imaginary food and drinks until our real food arrived. We headed straight to bed after dinner as we had all decided to wake ourselves up for sunrise the next morning.

The alarm went off at 5:30am and were up and sitting at the bank of the lake staring into the horizon waiting for the sunrise the north side of the island promised. We were however sorely disappointed when we realized the spectacle we had expected had gone on behind the distant mountains and clouds. Our ferry back to Copacabana left at 8:00am. It was a choppy journey and we were very amused when we noticed that a group of local men on the boat with us were playing a card game that turned out to be 'Casino' which is the game that Jeff and I had been playing incessantly throughout the trip.

Andy and Laurie moved on straight away but we decided to spend another quiet night in Copacabana before heading off into our next South American country, Peru. We arrived in Arequipa in the afternoon and ran from hostel to hostel trying to find available accommodation. We eventually settled on a hostel that was recommended to us by the American couple we had done the salt flats with. They had told us about the owner, Jose', the sweetest hostel owner in Peru - and they weren't lying.

Arequipa surprised us with its Cosmopolitan feel and its fantastic vibe. We spent our days at a café overlooking the Plaza de Armas, a beautiful square gardened to perfection, drinking pineapple juice and playing cards or sitting on the rooftop terrace of our hostel soaking in the stunning views of the city with the 3 enormous volcanoes standing guard on the outskirts or walking around the cobbled streets of the city admiring the architecture and people. One of our evenings started with 1.5litres of the cheapest rose wine we could find on the terrace with music and the sunset. Once we had drained every drop from the bottle, we stumbled into one of the many restaurants along a pedestrian walkway lined with trees where we were treated to a fireworks display which we were able to see from our rooftop candlelit table.

We booked ourselves onto a 2 day, 1 night tour of the near4by Colca Canyon which we had been highly recommended by fellow travellers. We had the choice of a trekking trip which would have meant a 3:00am pick up in order to get to the canyon by 7:00am to start the long walk down into the oasis at the bottom of the canyon. The early rise put us off and we opted for a more relaxed option which took us in a tour bus to the Canyon but which stopped along the way at view points, natural hot springs and which included a night in a small town called Chivay. What we didn't realise is that Arequipa is, for some unknown reason, a very popular 'older traveller' destination and we landed up being the youngest people on the tour by about 40 years. We were quite disappointed as we were hoping to meet a few like-minded and like-aged people. The tour itself also let us down as we spent most of our time in the bus looking out at scenery that we had seen on the bus coming into Arequipa, the Hot springs were swarming with groups of local school kids and the canyon itself was pretty mediocre. I think that we have been completely spoilt when it comes to views and landscapes and we have become slightly blaze'. On the upside though, we had a great English speaking guide, Victor Hugo, who was very knowledgeable, there was a strange festival going on in Chivay on our night there which we got to watch 9it entailed groups of young kids putting on little skits to the gathered crowd, some dressed in very elaborate costumes), we got to try the local delicacy of guinea pig at one of the lunch buffets we went to and we spotted a majestic Condor bird flying over the deepest part of the canyon.

A long lost friend of ours, Jason, that we had met on the Poland tour we went on last year, had been following our blog. He had also been travelling for 3 months but he had started in South East Asia and had just arrived on the continent when he noticed that be some strange coincidence we were going to be in Arequipa at the same time. We met up with him and his cousin Aimee at our hostel and got to spend the next 2 days sharing our travelling stories and tips, eating some great restaurant food and home-cooked meals at the hostel and playing Klabberjas. I have been wanting to teach the game to Jeff for ages and when Jason mentioned he knew how to play I took the opportunity to finally teach it to Jeff with his help. I'm starting to regret it now because he is addicted to the game and beats me every time!!!

We had about one week to kill before we had to be in Cusco for our Inca Trail. We decided to head off to the west coast of the country to spend a night or 2 in a sand boarding mecca called huacachina and then heading to Nazca to take a plane ride over the famous Nazca Lines. As it turned out, we couldnt get ourselves to leave Huacachina and the joys of backpacking allowed us to change our plans and skip Nazca in favour of sun soaking and sand boarding. Huacachina is literally an Oasis at the foot of hectares of enormous rolling sand dunes. The town itself is made up of one vehicle road and the rest of it is one long boardwalk style pedestrian street that circles a lagoon in the centre of the town and which is lined with palm trees, restaurants and hostels. We checked into a hostel with a stunning pool area at its centre, lined with deck chairs and a bar. We fell in love with the town in no time and our one night planned there turned into 3 and 4 full days. Every day had its routine - wake up, put on cossie and sun screen, hit one the restaurants for a delicious eggy breakfast, play klabberjas, plonk ourselves on 2 deck chairs for hours, reading and swimming intermittently, more klabberjas, late lunch, 2 hour afternoon sand boarding/buggying trip, jump in the pool to rid ourselves of the beach of sand we each had clinging to us from the sand dunes, shower and clean up, dinner and drinks. You can see why we never wanted to leave...

The sand buggies would pick us up at our hostel and head straight up into the dunes at full speed. The drivers would speed up the dunes and accelerate over them, sometimes flying through the air for a few seconds before hitting the ground. The ups and downs and the speed made it feel like a never ending roller-coaster. The landscape was breathtaking - the vast yellow hills went on and on as far as the eye could see. The buggies were stocked with sand boards which were used for going down 5 separate dunes which got bigger and bigger. Many people went down on their feet but Jeff and I opted for stomach rides down as we realised we picked up a lot more speed that way (though Jeff did try and manage quite professionally to get down on his legs once or twice). On the largest dunes we figure that we must have got to speeds of about 70kmph - the dunes are scarily high and steep but the ride down was so exhilarating that the only thing stopping us from doing it again was the monstrous walk it would have entailed getting to the top of the dune again.

We met a thrill seeking Australian guy named Shaun who attempted the largest of the dunes on his feet. He was doing quite well until the last few metres where he lost his balance and went tumbling down hard! He got to his feet and punched the air with victory for surviving but then collapsed on the ground and needed a good 5 minutes to recover. One of the other guys on the trip had managed to get a video of his ride and later at drinks we watched and re watched it, every time cringing as he fell.

Another thing that kept us in Huacachina for so long was because it seemed to be the place for many reunions. We bumped into Andy and Laurie again who we had last seen in Copacabana in Bolivia and two girls we had met as far back as Puerto Madryn in Argentina, Victoria from Greece and Christina from Germany. On our last night there, the club attached to the back of our hostel opened and we spent the night drinking Pisco Sours, listening to a terrible live singer who thought he was some sort of rock star and dodging an extremely drunk and aggressive Peruvian girl. She was the girlfriend of an even more drunk Australian boxer and so her over flirtatious advances to any of the guys we were sitting with was not readily accepted.