03.09.07 - Arrived in Arequipa after 6 hour bus journey from hell (local bus full of smelly and rude Peruvians) from Lake Titicaca.

After being COLD since leaving England (and obviously before we left due to s***ty English weather) we LOVED the beautiful sunshine of AREQUIPA!! Ended up staying here much longer than we should...and not sticking to our original itinerary of 2 weeks in Peru and 2 weeks in Chile, but as fellow travellers have told us that Chile is expensive and freezing we thought we might as well have a little ´holiday´in Arequipa as all this travelling is such hard work!!

Whilst in cheap and sunny Arequipa we booked ourselves on an open top bus tour along with all the other tourists, and found ourselves being the stars of a documentary they were making on the city...so do look out for us if you happen to be watching any South American programs (it´ll be worth it, they made us wear these stupid yellow ´city tour´sun-visers so we look a right pair of plonkers!) We have been to see a bull fight, which consisted of standing round what is usually used as a football pitch and watching different blokes bring out different bulls to fight over a female until one bull gives up. So not very exciting, blood thirsty or entertaining, but we did find it very funny when one of the bulls (who was rather aroused) tried mounting the bull he was meant to be fighting and all the men ran in horror to separate them!

Our favouraite activity has to be the white water rafting which we did down Chile river - absolutely fantastic - although slightly scary and very cold! Kate also dragged Ed along to the museum of the Ice Princess...over the past 10 years five childrens bodies have been discovered in the Andes, frozen and very well preserved, that have been up there for hundreds of years, sacrificed by the Incas to the mountain gods! One girl (known as the ice princess) has been frozen since she was killed all those years ago and was so well preserved scientists found all her organs intact and the remains of her last meal still in her stomach. She is in the museum, kept in a glass box at minus 20...she still has her hair and skin. Very Creepy!

So have had a fantastic ´holiday´in Arequipa, have drunk plenty of beers, played lots of pool, met loads of great people, eaten some delicious food (although sorry to disappoint you uncle kev, but we havent tried the guinea pig - and dont intend to - they serve the thing whole on your plate! Head, teeth, its four little legs sticking up...its just wrong, maybe if it were carved up and disguised in a keebab?!?)

So finally its time to leave Peru and head to Chile. On 12.09.07 we began our 48 hour coach trip over the boarder and down to Santiago..not pleasant!!

The next chapter will be here soon...