After 2 nights with Katie, Tom, Andreas and Anja in Chile it was time for 7 to become 3, and we said good-bye to everyone. It was really weird to go from so many people back to just the three of us - but it did make choosing restaurants easier!

So we caught another overnight bus and a half day bus - it was a long time - to Arequipa, a beautiful town in southern Peru, where you can go to a Condor canyon and do some hiking. We only had one night there, so we didn't have time to go, but it is supposed to be very good.

After checking into our hostel, Charlotte and I headed out for some dinner while Jo stayed back for some sleep catch up time. We met some Irish and American guys, and had a few drinks with them. But it had been a long day, and we were tired so we headed back to our hostel.

The next day, we went off to a beautiful nunnery, which has only been opened to the public for the last 30 years, but it's about 400 years old altogether, and still has nuns living there. It was really lovely, and we had an amazing lunch and the best carrot cake I've had so far on the trip at the restaurant there.

After the nunnery, we headed into town to get provisions for the next overnight bus trip to Cusco, and while were walking Charlotte suddenly realised that we hadn't paid for our Pisco Sours the night before when we were talking to the boys. And 5 minutes later, I went into a book shop and saw them! It felt a bit weird to go up to them, apologise and try and pay for the drinks, so I just did a quick circuit of the books and sheepishly snuck out and pretended I hadn't seen them - such bad behaviour!

After that, it was another overnight bus trip to Cusco - where I'd be meeting my mom, and Jo and Charlotte were going to a retreat centre for 2 days in Pisac in the Sacred Valley.

Mom had had about a 2 or 3 day trip over from South Africa when she arrived so we had a nap at our lovely hostel - Madre Tierre, which is on the hill in Cusco. Cusco is a lovely city of cobbled streets, red roofs and shuttered windows. We spent the next two days exploring the city, going to museums, visiting some of the inca ruins near the city, going to the cathedrals, some traditional dancing and eating at the most amazing cafe called the Hemp Cafe. Everything was so good there!! they had amazing herbal teas with rosemary, orange and ginger and everything on the menu has hemp in it. It was lovely!!

After that, the girls were back from their retreat time, and we headed off to begin the Lares Valley trek, which would take us to the small town of Aquas Calientes, where we would then go and see Machu Pichu. It was a 3 day/ 2 night trek up to 4500 metres, and it was a beautiful trek. We didn't see anyone else but local Quechua for the 3 days. We were also very spoiled because our tents were all carried for us, and we were given a cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner every day in our dining tent. We didn't have great weather though and it rained on the first day and the second day we were caught in a hail / snowstorm. Made for interesting times!

On the third day we got to Aquas calientes, which is actually a horrible town. All the buildings are gray concrete and half finished and it's a total tourist town, it doesn't make you feel very excited about Machu Pichu. We checked into our small hotel and got an early night in preparation for the next day.

Charlotte and I got to the bus stop at 5am - we wanted to be the first people there, and no one was going to stop us from getting a ticket for Wayna Pichu - the hill opposite Machu Pichu, which only has 400 tickets which are given to the first 400 people. We were very good at directing people to the end of the queue that morning! My mom and Jo came down a bit later, just before the busses arrived and we were on our way to Machu Pichu.

It was incredible - we came up through swirling mist and cloud, through an amazing and lush jungle, and I couldn't have imagined how beautiful it was. We spent about 2 hours walking through the ruins with our guide, and then did the climb up Wayna Pichu, which is about an hour of very very steep climbing, which is quite tiring after 3 days of trekking, but so worth it, and the views were amazing of the opposite side. If you ever go, I would definitely recommend making sure you get there early enough so that you can get a ticket for Wayna Pichu.

After that we had a very well earned late afternoon lunch and then caught the train back - which is a lovely, colonial train and runs next to the river. Mom and i went to Ollyantambo, a beautiful Incan town where 80% of the original buildings are being used and checked into a nice B&B, where we had a sauna with Eucalyptus leaves, which was great for our aching muscles, followed by a pisco sours which put us straight to sleep.

After exploring Ollyantambo, Mom and I went to the same retreat Jo and Charlotte had been to, which is run by a woman minister / Andean healer who ran a food shelter in South Africa in Hillbrow for 10 years. And then it was back to Cusco for our last night with the girls and mom took us out for a lovely dinner.

The next day we headed off to Lima, and mom caught her flight back to South Africa, and I left for Brazil and Rio - bring on the beaches!