As promised our blog is finally underway.

For those who were never told about our itinerary and for those who have forgotten already, this is where we´ll be:

• Thursday 26th June - Lima
• Friday 27th - Day in Lima
• Saturday 28th - Pisco
• Sunday 29th- Nazca
• Monday 30-Tues 1st July - Arequipa
• Wednesday 2nd- Thursday 3rd - Colca Canyon
• Friday 4th - Cuzco
• Saturday 5th - Ollantaytambo
• Sunday 6th - Wednesday 9th - Inca Trail
• Thursday 10th - Saturday 12th - Amazon Rainforest
• Sunday 13th - Puno
• Monday 14-Tuesday 15th - Lake Titicaca
• Wednesday 16th-Thursday 17th - La Paz
• Friday 18th - Train to Uyuni
• Saturday 19th - Mon 21st - Uyuni Salt Lakes
• Tuesday 22nd - Wednesday 23rd - Potosi
• Thursday 24-Friday 25th - Sucre
• Saturday 26th - La Paz
• Sunday 27th - Wednesday 30th - La Paz - end of the tour
• Friday 1st August - Thursday 21st - Buenos Aires to Rio (as yet undecided)

Having witnessed Charles killing an innocent rabbit en route to the airport, we were both hoping this would not be a sign of things to come on our trip! After waddling under the enormous weight of our backpacks we joined the 7 mile queue for check-in. Still in high spirits and feeling like travellers, we struck up conversation with the two biggest chaps in the airport, Affy and Dellus, who we later discovered were varsity rugby boys who found our struggle highly amusing! Emma found it appropriate to comment "your arms are bigger than my head" several times leading them to offer to carry our bags as far as the check-in desk along with their own.

It was great to find such friendly boys and raised our morale after the death of the rabbit! Our first flight to Madrid was quick apart from chatting to our neighbour about how he fell in love and moved to Colombia and recommended we should do the same! Feeling this was a slightly awkward conversation we both fell asleep and only woke up as we hit the runway, convinced we were in a plane crash!

We said our goodbyes to Affy (or Alfie as Emma kept calling him) and Dellus (yes, that really is his name) and set off to find our next plane which was to be 12 hours! All thats needs to be said about this journey is don´t travel with Iberia airlines unless you like air stewardesses sticking their fingers in your grated carrot sandwich to prove its not fish and then standing over you until you too try it or you enjoy snoring Latin American women sleeping on your shoulder or even if you like not having the opportunity to eat or drink or watch tv for 12 hours.

After arriving at Lima and convincing ourselves that 2 girls wearing Watford Grammar hoodies at the conveyor belt were in our tour, we were proven wrong as we joined Priya and Jason, our new found friends, in a transfer to the hotel. Coincidentally having travelled halfway round the world we were astonished to learn Priya had gone to habs like Laura and they had both just graduated from Oxford - so much for getting away from home!

La Castellana Hotel certainly exceeded our expectations of our first south american hostel experience with our own ensuite bathroom and tv. Dumping our bags we went for dinner with Priya and Jason at a local Peruvian bar for travellers - despite being the only people apparently able to find this place as it was empty. Exhausted from our day we struggled to come to terms with the exchange rate as dinner was only $4 each. Heading back to the hotel, all our eyes were closing but determined to beat jetlag we agreed to sleep and meet in the morning to discover Lima together.