So I started my Budget Expeditions tour in La Paz Bolivia. I arrived a few days early with Lucy to get used to the altitude (being 3800 metres above sea level), and look around and absolutely loved it. The city is huge and as you drive down into it you can see the houses built up for miles along the mountainsides and the streets were full of little old women in huge flowery skirts and black bowler hats with shawls full of trinkets (or sometimes children) tied over their sholuders. Then the street floors were scattered with shoe shine boys in balaclavas - who looked quite scary - and markets gallore! Everything was so so cheap too. Me and Lucy had a three course meal with soup and bread, then salad then meat and potatoes and a cup of tea for 80p!!! We also drank a lot of Coca tea, apparently to help the altitude... not to make you high!

Two days later I met up with my tour group. Not everyone was there at first, because some were meeting us in Puno and some had been stranded because of the strikes, but in the end there were 16 of us. Mike, our leader from Birmingham, Tom from Hertfordshire, Nic (gay guy) from Oz, two Oz couples, Rochelle and Mick, and Sarah and James, then Kate from New Zealand (who we have nicknamed the iron woman as she is an athlete, never ill and went for a half hour run after a full day of walking the Inca Trail!!!) then James and Matt brothers from Devon, Billie, steffanie and Geoff from Canada (Geoff we named snap happy as he ALWAYS had his camera ready, even the rabbit day when he was sleeping outslide - i'll explain later!) and Kate and Claire from Oz - the two that were a week late due to strikes and lost bags. And we all got about on a huge yellow truck!!!

Ok highlights incase you cant be bothered to read the 2 whole pages of this trip...
1) The Inca trail and Machu Picchu
2) Sand buggying at speed over the highest sand dunes in the world in Huacacinna
3) Sleeping on a Sand dune (no tent) and waking up to sunrise in the desert
4) Fancy dress bin bag party in that same desert
5) Drinking lots of Sangria, finding pet rabbits and putting them in sleeping peoples tents
6) Eating Guinea pig and llama and drinking coca tea
7) Home stay on the islands of Lake Titicaca and dressing in traditional dress for a dance
8) The bowler hat women and the Souvineers
9) The Nasca Lines
10) The Colca Canyon and the Condors


Our first drive was to Puno and to Lake Titicaca. Me and Tom hired a pedellow in the rain and then got a buggy bike back completely drenched which was fun then the next day we all had a buggy race through the city to the ferry port where we went to visit the islands on the lake. We first visited Uros floating Islands which are made entirely out of reeds, even their houses and boats are and they eat them too! They fled there hundreds of years ago and built them to escape the Incas and never moved back! Later that day we went to Amantani Island to stay with a family with basic housing, no electric, funny food and clothes and dressed up in these clothes for a party later! That was an experience! We each were given a new mum and dad and sister to live with! I got sick after this though, they probably don't wash their hands properly, but i was sick for 5 days, 2 of those on the inca trail!!


The Inca Trail
The inca trail was amazing, the views and scenerey and ruins, it was a little tough when you´ve not eaten for 3 days and can only since eat bread, but I got there we even got out pasport stamped along the way! We had porters who carried a little bag of our stuff which could only be 5kg (they weighed it too) and then we carried our day bag with water, sun cream etc. The porters did everything for you, each lunch spot and camp site you got to they had already arrived at before you and had the tents and food ready and even managed to pull out hot popcorn from somewhere everyday for afternoon tea!!! The food was amazing, well it looked it because as I said I was only aloud rice and bread! Each time i tried to eat the food and thought I was better nope all bad again!!

Day two was the hardest day, 13k, 10 of that up hill! so 5 hours of up hill climing (some parts with steep steep steps) and then one hour down although it was meant to take a bit longer than that even but with Kate Iron woman at the front of the group we always overtook the groups that left before us!!

By day three I had recovered and this was the best day, stopping at all the ruins and going through bits of swamp to see newly discovered ones. JC, or Juilo (hoolio) our guide was so funny the whole time his phrase was 'piece of piss' to everything because our group was quite fast and half way through day three he sent us all off to a look-out and while we were away hid big rocks in some of the boys bags! It was so funny when they found them a few hours later!

James one of the brothers from Devon carried his guitar all the way so each night we sat around the tents singing (mostly Nic, the gay guy as he is a singer in Oz and Piano man) so it was really nice. Their rendition of Wonder Wall was the best and Toms knowledge of a few radiohead songs on the guitar kept me entertained when my ipod died!

The last day was short, only the last 4k to the lost city of Machu Picchu but we had to get up at 4am to get to the first gate before it opened and ended up queing behind bags and no people! Kate and Rochelle were determined to get past the groups that had used their bags to save a spot in the morning and Kate obviously wanted to run so they both did! To which a guy behind me and Nic said ´its not a race´ to which Nic replied ´it is if you want to win´ Hysterical, and later Kate got shouted at with ´There's a time and a place for running' so we´ve put that on our tour t-shirt along with ´piece of piss' at the bottom! Looks good!

Machu Picchu was amazing even though on arriving to the sun gate, the first point where you get to see down into the lost city, it was foggy and we couldn´t see it! The fog later cleared but after we sat under Pachamama with a bottle of victory whisky and the guitar for a few hours! JC´s (made up) rendition of a Machu Picchu song and the Whisky definitely helped with the cold! And my pink Poncho of course! Yep we all bought multi coloured ponchos for the walk. The deal had been to all wear pink but there was only one so I got it! Nic got Apricot!!! Geoff Purple and another array of colours!

As inca tradition we all had to carry a piece of rock with us all the way to Machu Picchu in the same way the incas had done when building the city (although their rocks were obviously a lot bigger) and so when we arrived to Pachamama, (the biggest rock in the entire place, which was sheltering us from the rain) we placed our little rock down in a pile. And when we finally left our shelter and headed into the lost city we got our final passport stamp with a picture of Machu Picchu on it!

After Machu Picchu it was off the the natural sulphur hot springs in a town called Aguas Callientes (translates to water hot) and then to catch the train back to Cuzco where we had a comedy film moment with half of the group thinking a train pulling away was ours and running alongside it jumping on. It turned out to be going the wrong way....................... and turning around luckily so we all got on the right one in the end but we were in stitches the whole way back recalling the mad action! We all blamed Sarah as she had caused the panic and jumped on first... without her husband! Then Kate the Iron woman jumped on followed by a few of the boys until the attendant jumped off and stopped me, Tom and Billie with Kate still screaming ´jump Jenni jump´! Funny moment.

In Cuzco we had two free days to go White Water Rafting, Mountain Biking and Horse riding around the ruins and we decided to have a mad night out at the cheesiest bar we could find! The music was gay bar eat your heart out right up Nics alley and everyone was singing along! But the next day consisted of walking very slowly around the markets and nearly chucking up when we got to the raw meet and hanging chicken sections! Here was where we came up with the idea for our bin bag fancy dress party and me and Nic began making the costumes!

From Cuzco we headed on to Arequipa (11 hours, plenty of time to make costumes) which was a beautiful big city, but we were camping there!!! In a random garden of the hotel, with a highway above us! Very odd! We all took a two day tour to the Colca Canyon from here to see the condors and visit the hot springs, and had a lovely soft bed and pillow for the first time in a while and went to watch some native dancing. The hotel had a pet llama that they let roam around indoors too and walk up stairs!!! I LOVE PERU!!!


Arequipa and the Colca Canyon Arequipa also housed Jainita the Ice Princess. A girl that had been sacraficed over 500 years ago but discovered only 50 years ago and completely preserved by the ice in the old volcano. We also visited Santa Catalina Convent the day we got back from the Canyon, which was like a city inside a city it was so big.

From Arequipa we jumped back on our bus and myself and Nic continued to make our bin bag costumes and decided to make everyones! We came up with some great designs and were in stitches the whole way getting members of the group to come down and try them on whislt we were weaving down dirt roads! I wanted a posh spice esque puff ball dress, Nic insisted on wearing a bin bag nappy! So we made him a collar and a lead too complete with studs made from foil!!! Tom we made Toga complete with platted bag head-dress and belt, James 1 we put in shorts and braces, James 2 a waistcoat and tie, James 3, origionally a pirate we changed to a nun at the last last minute lol, oh and tons more I cant write them all, you wont find it funny but the pictures sure are! I'll be having this party at home one day though don't you worry! Oh yeah the funniest was the Borat swim suit we made Geoff!


Puerta Inca, Nasca and the rabbits!!! Next we arrived in Puerto Inca where we had a lovely camp site on the sand and were finally back at sea level after 2 weeks 4000m up! We could all finally breath again! But we still lost a game of football against the locals!

We had a BBQ on the beach later, which my group cooked, followed by Marshmellows and a giant bowel of Sangria! Yum! And the next morning we were off again this time to Nasca to see the famous Nasca lines and we had an even better camp site with a pool!!! We had Sangria again in the evening but most of the group wigged out and so it was just me Nic, Rachelle and Mick and Mike our leader finishing off the giant cooking pot. The rest of our camp were not happy as we got louder and louder, so we decided to move along a bit and stumbled upon a rabbit hutch with three rabbits, so in our drunken stupor we decided we would put them in sleeping peoples tents! So I grabbed one and me and Rachelle tried to sneak off to put it in someones tent while Nic created a diversion for our tour leader (who turned out not to care saying "ah, how sweet" when he saw, and "what a good idea" when we told him what we were doing!) Toms was the first culprite, even though this was mine and Nics tent (Kiwi Kate my tent buddy was sick and had a hotel room)! I plopped it right on my sleeping bag and then zipped up the tent. We woke Tom obviously, through the endless giggeling and then the rabbit must have hopped onto him and he sleepily questioned "Guys... is there a rabbit in my tent?" We obviously could not stop laughing at this point and then the whole of our group got the rabbit treatment! Geoff, snap happy was sleeping outside for some reason and obviously we woke him up, but all of a sudden as we snuck past him he pulled his camera out from his bag and started snapping away! Can't wait to see those photos! Poor rabbit though! And I´ve decided I want a rabbit again now! Dan you need to move to the ground floor!

Hmmmm what happend next, you probably don't care, I bet only 10 per cent of you make it to the bottom! Anyway oh yeah the best bit how could I forget...

Bin Bags and Sand Dunes
So we headed on to Haucacina, home to the biggest sand dunes in the world. We stopped at a place with a pool for lunch and me and Nic only had 3 hours on the bus to finish the costumes for the party taking place later. We stopped on the way to visit a cemetary with mummies that had dread-locks - which were interesting at tomb one but after tomb six we were all nearly asleep. Anyway we relaxed at lunch by the pool before being picked up by the dune buggys and sped to the dunes! The buggs were like funny shapped metal cars that held 9 including the driver, so we had two, and raced along the sand. You were straped in like on a roller coaster and we soon knew why as we hurtled over a sand dune vertically down jumping out of our seats. Nic was next to me and screemed louder than me all the way!

After about 15 minutes of roler coaster bumps and drops they stopped at the top of a dune, let us out and handed us a sand board so we could slide to the bottom where they picked us up and raced around some more! You could either strap the board to your feet and go down like a snowboard of lie on it hold on and whiz straight down - this way was most fun and you went scarliy fast! About 6 dunes later we stopped for the sunset and then headed to our camp, well sand spot as you can hardly call it a camp when you have no tents can you?! Any way then it was time for me and Nic to put everyone in their costumes, which was so funny and everyone looked great... except some of the shorts we made were a little too tight for the boys and we had a few blow outs! but nothing a bit of extra tape couldn't fix!

Later that night me and Nic decided our creations needed a cat walk so we arranged a fashion parade that our Peruvian guides could judge! Nic crawled along the cat walk and came first! (I designed his outfit p.s even down to the tin foil studds!) Then we all sat around the camp fire said thanks to Mike our tour guide and then suddenly we were going around the circle all saying a nice thing each about each person in tern! It was very Legally Blonde!

After drinking more Pisco Sours (contantly topped up by Mick) I decided we should all get in our sleeping bags and roll down the sand dunes in them so told the rest of the drunken group and within a few minutes most of us were at the top and rolling down! What we hadn't bargained for was our heads and faces getting covered in sand and most of it ending up in the bottom of the bag we had to sleep in! Was fun though!

The next morning was the best though, as we had all climed one of the dunes too sleep high up, and without tents were awoken with the first gimpses of light (I actually awoke for a wee, and had to find a secluded spot behind another dune) I just stood in awe for a moment as I looked around at miles and miles of sand and sand dunes and sunrise, it was so so beautiful... Then I got back in my bag and rolled to the bottom, forgetting all the alcohol I´d consumed before and felt instantly sick! But that wasn't the end of it, we still had to endure the buggy ride home at 6am (well there was no going back to sleep after the sun had risen with no tents) and they didn't spare us the roler coaster ride either! It was back the way we had come - exactly as we had come!

And well that was our last major event, it was then on to Lima where we had a last meal as a whole group, and then breakfast the next day with half and then we gradually dwindled until it was just me, Tom and Nic and now its just me, here in Hauancayo, volunteering in a very poor town helping the Spanish children with English. Today I took my first class alone and prepared a whole lesson plan in Spanish and English! It was so much fun and the kids are really cool. The family I am staying with are very sweet too and cook all our meals and have taken us on excersions over the weekend to a trout farm!! and on a bike ride through the mountains. Back to school in a min for my next class and then Wednesday I am flying home. So see you all soon! Hope your all jealous and bored! I will be too soon as it will be as if I never left! Dan will have to put up tents in the garden for me so I dont feel so depressed!

I'll write you my top 10 soon, or maybe it will have to be a top 20 as I think I have 10 just from Peru!

Oooo and in case you wondered... there was a trip romance, although not one you would expect... Remember Holyoaks? John Paul and Craig? Well that was Nic and James from Devon, almost scene for scene, although they claim it never went further than a kiss but who knows lol... funny!

Love you all see you soon!