Apologies for not writing in so long. After spending a few days on the coast of Ecuador we headed back inland to Cuenca. Did a bit of sight seeing here and watched Ecuador V Bolivia in a pub. The commentators get seriously excited when anything at all happens, when Ecuador scored he said Goooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllll for about ten minutes.

Last stop in Ecuador was Vilcabamba, a little village in the hills where they claim to have discovered the secret of eternal youth. Lots of old hippies hanging around presumably looking for it. Stayed in a really nice hostal run by two Germans called Peter and Dieter. We assumed they had a special relationship but later discovered they were just brothers. We met up with quite a few people here who we had met previously along the way. On the second night we were just finishing our dinner when someone said something about a fire. Nobody seemed that concerned so we finished eating and then decided to head round and see what was happening. The whole hillside was on fire and was rapidly approaching the hostal. Obviously there is no fire brigade in the area so we all formed a chain between the toilet and the fire and started throwing buckets of water at it. Not sure if it did much good or if it just burned out itself. It took about an hour to get the fire completely out at which point the fire brigade arrived. To thank us for saving his business Peter (or maybe it was Dieter, we never did work out who was who) announced that there would be a free bar that night. Obviously we took advantage of this and stayed up till three drinking rum and coke. After a couple more days of hillwalking and other healthy outdoor pursuits we headed on to Peru.

We took a night bus so border crossing was very easy, just a guy in a hut wearing a football top stamping passports. The bus was pretty minging though and the seats seemed to be infested with little black bugs. Eventually made it to Mancora on the north coast of Peru with only a few insect bites. The sun was shining so we stayed here for a few nights and ate lots of Ceviche (raw fish marinated in lime juice). Kate´s friend Scott is also in Peru so we met up with him for a few days here. Decided we had spent enough time doing not very much on the beach and headed south again.

Spent one night in Trujillo and saw a lot of ruins of a pre-Inca civilisation before Kate got bored and we decided to move on again. Yet another night bus later we are in Lima, the capital of Peru. It is absolutely massive, something like 12 million people. The area we are staying in is pretty posh, it is the first time we have seen lots of actual shops rather than just stalls. Going to yet more ruins tomorrow and a black market where you can buy fakes of just about anything.