Today was the start of our epic adventure through Peru so expectedly I barely managed to get any sleep and was up at 4am raring to go. Cris rang at around 8:30am and I headed straight to the square to meet her - it was wonderful to see her again and she hasn't changed a bit :) She has a wonderfully positive energy about her and you can't help but be happy around her - we talked, laughed and reminisced on the way to the bus station. We had a little trouble finding station but after asking a few people we found it and caught the first bus heading to Ica (the famous sandboarding sand dune place in Peru) - we had hoped to go direct to Nasca but unfortunately there were no direct buses. We arrived late in Ica and still really wanted to make Nasca before dark to see the famous Nasca lines - we caught the first bus heading towards Nasca but unfortunately didn't make it before dark and missed seeing the lines. We could have stayed and seen the lines in the morning but we both agreed our time would be better spent at the Colca Canyon - tomorrow's destination. We ate some dinner and then caught the local bus to Arequipa - an overnight bus that would take us close to our first main stop: Colca Canyon. Cris speaks Portuguise which is close to Spanish but at the same time very different - for some reason this had given me confidence and my Spanish today was really good - talking to many people and understanding a lot of what was said to me, this is both exciting and motivating for me.