Hola I arrived safely in Lima and although I spent the 12 hour flight from Madrid next to a lady with a baby it actually went OK. The food was even OK apart from a completely synthetic illuminous pink cake thing which I gave a miss. My flight was a quiet one as everyone near me was either Spanish or South American and my Spanish as yet is limited to asking for a beer. Much to my relief Simon was waiting and we got a taxi to our hostel in the Miraflores are of Lima. Miraflores is a nice well kept area and we found a nice restaruant on a square to have dinner at, then went for a drink in a nice bar overlooking the sea. I realised I'd been up for 24 hours apart from a nap on the plane and thought it was time to go to bed. I actually slept pretty well given it was my first night so far from home. We left Lima straight away the next morning for Cuzco so we have time to acclimatise before we start the inca trail on Friday. After a high quality flight on LAN Peru we arrived in Cuzco and were greated by plastic Lamas and within 30 seconds we were being serenaded by poncho wearing pan pipe players. A very freindly taxi driver drove us to our hostel giving us a guided tour of the town on the way. Its so cheap at 2 pounds a night but the bathrooms are dubious. Also I'm not sure how the whole place is standing as there are no right angles - everything is wonky. I'm not sure how the doors fit - they must have cut the wood wonky specially. Its very central and relatively comfortable and clean though. At 3500 meters above sea level its hard to do anything much and although we haven't been or felt sick, its hard work just walking up stairs. Things seem easier this morning than they did last night though, so I guess you get more and more used to it. We had a good meal last night in the Bagdad Cafe which had a lovely view of the cathedral and main square. There didn't seem to be any relevance of the name as we were served soup and then spaghetti by a Peruvian. I haven't seen guinnea pig on a menu yet, so haven't been faced with the choice of weather to have it or not. I'm still thinking no way. I have tried a new drink called inca cola which is actually illuminous yellow Irn Bru. The Peruvian sangria and red wine have been tested and I can confirm that they are good. Getting used to the road traiffic is going to take some doing. There don't seem to be many rules, its hard to know when you can and can't cross a road and there is constant beeping which can mean hello, do you want a lift, get out of the way, I'm here - don't get in my way and our taxi driver yesterday in Lima beeped at a large number of policeman for no aparent reason so I'm not sure what the meaning of that beeping was. We've got 4 days in Cuzco getting ready for the Inca trail on Friday which takes 4 days so we'll be back in Cuzco on Monday night before heading south to Arequipa probably. Josiexx