Since I last wrote my blog not much has happened, although one pretty major thing has!

We decided to have a couple of lazy days in Cusco to recover from the Inca trail. We found a really nice hostel up on one of the hills that surrounds the town with a brilliant view down across the city. We decided to have a HUGE mean as a brunch because, although the food on the Inca trail was brilliant, we really fancied something other than rice! Afterwards we spent a day wandering round the city, looking at the main square and doing a little bit of souvenir shopping. I bought a nice mirror surrounded with the local fabric and a wall hanging with an Inca-style print.

That night we played a few new drinking games Steph had been taught on the Inca trail (it was an educational experience!) and Steph and Sally went out. I was way too tired still and had an early night.

After another lazy day in Cusco for the girls to recover from the night before we got the bus to Ica. From there we got a taxi straight away to Hwakachina (spelling probably wrong!) because we heard it´s a brilliant place to do sandboarding.

Hwakachina is an oasis in the middle of the desert above Cusco. We found a place that did a sand buggy ride and 2 hours of sandboarding for only 35 soles (under 10 pounds). The buggy ride was really cool, the dunes are HUGE there and he went pretty fast down some really steep slopes.

Sandboarding was amazing! We started off on what turned out to be a pretty small dune, but which felt massive at the time! It was really hard to keep your balance to start with, although Steph was a natural! Also there seemed to be a different technique for every dune depending on the steepness and the angle. Sometimes you had to bend your knees lots, others you had to keep your body straight or you´d fall over. It took me a few tries to get all the way down a dune without falling over but I did it in the end! There were a fw spectacular falls between us all too. The biggest, final dune was over 100m tall. I managed to get about 1/3 down before falling over but it was still so much fun!

So the next day we decided that we loved sandboarding so much it was worth going again. Unfortunately I decided to jump into the hostel pool (I´m blaming Paul for his encouragement!) and I really hurt my foot on the bottom. I thoght I´d probably just bruised it but I passed on the sandboarding incase it was more serious. That evening we got the bus to Arequipa where the others made me go see a doctor. After an X-ray and a specialist poking it they decided I´d fractured a bone in my foot and would have to have a cast. I now have a massive cast almost up to my knee and can only move around on crutches!

That next day the others went to see Colka Canyon, the biggest in the world, but I had to stay i the hostel. Over the next couple of days they´re going to visit some floating straw islands at a local lake, but I can´t go again! Shame! Unfortunately there is also a bus workers strike so we´re stuck in Puno for 4 days instad of the 2 we planned for! The plan is to head over the boarder to La Paz as soon as we can so we get a little time there before starting volunteering. Unfortunately because of my foot I´ll probably be late starting the volunteering but we´ll see how it goes! Fingers crossed that it heals fast!