Four hours is an extremely long time to be on a bus, especially for Laura's bladder which left her squirming after the first ten minutes of the public bus journey. Winding through Lima the scenery changed drastically from a chaotic city to desert townships by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere en route to Pisco. Four hours later Pisco appeared, a small empty village which last year was completely destroyed by an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the richter scale, killing 580 Peruvians. Our tour managed to find a hotel which once again exceeded expectation in amongst the rubble and stray dogs we had our own room with tv and en suite - so much for us trying to slum it, we even had a porter to deliver our rucksacks to our room!

We experienced a traditional Peruvian meal accompanied by live music with everyone from the tour, Laura even eating beef and both of us sampling a Pisco Sour, a revoltingly bitter cocktail which is world renowned for being 84% alcoholic.

Today, we woke up at 6.30am to take a boat trip to the Ballestas Islands to see the penguins, sea lions and pelicans along with plenty of bird poo and matching stench! The open speed boat was FREEZING as we all huddled together almost missing a mysterious imprint of a candelabra on a sand dune, of which no Peruvian knows the origin.

Later a rickety old bus took us to a winery just outside Pisco which is famous for the manufacture of all Pisco alcohol in the region. We took a tour of the distillery and a very keen tour guide explained every minute detail of the process before taking us to a wine-tasting bar to sample every type of pisco ever invented!! Unlike normal wine tasting, we were encouraged to actually down all 8 strong wine shots in short succession (pictures of our reaction to follow...) which was interesting considering our next stop was sandboarding!

Some of the group opted out of the sand activities but we had an INCREDIBLE afternoon. Climbing aboard an innocent-looking sand buggy we expected a calm, smooth ride to the dunes happily snapping away at the scenery BUT this was not the case. We shot off at what felt like 100mph with a mental driver flying out of our seats as we descended down almost vertical drops in the sand, in a rollercoaster-type fashion, both of us screaming our heads off and holding on for dear life!

Reaching what appeared to be a sand cliff, the buggy slowed and we were told we were about to board down this drop, on our own. Great. Simon being the man of the bunch went first standing up and doing fairly well but he has just completed a snowboarding instructors course in Canada. Emma followed closely the only other person to try this on her feet. Laura opted for the lie on your stomach and slide the entire way down, face first approach to the situation and ended up with a cleavage full of sand. Approaching the second slope and feeling more confident everyone attempted to board standing. Unfortunately for Priya, who had not quite mastered the technique, in an attempt to avoid a crash with a body boarder, tumbled head first down a dune leaving behind her sunglasses and having a cut across her head to show for her efforts.

After begin thrown around some more back on board the buggy, we stopped at a beautiful oasis for photo opportunities until panic set in as Emma heard the revving of the engine and screamed "What are you doing? WAIT i´m not strapped in yet!" much to everyone elses amusement.

Drawing close to the end of our action packed day we stopped off at a tower at the side of the road to watch the sunset over the Nazca lines on our way to Nazca itself where we are now, at the 3-star Hotel San Marcelo fully equipped with a pool and a dead cockroach next to Emma´s bed! Tomorrow we will be flying in a 5-seater plane over the Nazca lines for a closer look at the random markings on the ground, in the desert. (Susan, we know you are probably freaking out at the thought!)

One last thing....we are officially in love...with our hiking boots! They are amazing and have become our shoe of choice in every situation, the new trend!