Buenas tardes. Apologies for the silence of late, we’ve been on the move so much! I don’t have WiFi right now but I believe the last blog was on the Inca Trail. We’ve done so much since then! Trying to be brief:

Amazing rainforest trip (I.e. the best ever)...

We flew in a tiny plane from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado where we then caught a boat to the Amazon rainforest. Wow, the heat (and humidity!). We stayed in this really cute Ecolodge in the jungle for 2 nights that didn’t have any WiFi or telephone reception, electricity only at a few particular hours of the day and no windows. There was a constant hum of the jungle but it was surprisingly peaceful. On day 1 we completed a walk around the jungle to spot as many animals as we could in daylight (monkeys, snakes etc). In the evening we also did a jungle walk... one of the most scary things we saw was a chicken tarantula that our guide tempted out of a hole in the ground with bait. But we survived without any spider bites, don’t worry!

On day 2 in the jungle we started off with a canopy walk - that is go into the heart of the jungle and climb up to a platform in line with the highest trees (which can be over 60m). It was incredible and we were lucky enough to see a king vulture, the second largest bird in the Amazon (also known as the condor of the jungle). On the way back we visited a nearby rescue centre, where the reserve have saved animals being wrongly kept as pets (such as pumas and monkeys) and are preparing them to be reintroduced into the wild. You can volunteer there - very tempting!! After lunch we had a siesta (wow, the heat just makes you want to sleep!) then we visited a nearby local jungle farm and were surprisingly then put in a dingy to float down the river (never mind the caiman!). The current was so strong and when we got near the lodge we had to row back, but my god the sunset on the river and over the jungle was the most beautiful thing. After dinner when it was completely dark we jumped back in a boat on the river to go searching for caiman. We learnt that they’re actually no way as aggressive as there other family members (like crocs) and will normally swim around humans, with human attacks incredibly low. You find the caiman by catching their red eyes with a torch. We saw a dozen baby ones, and a 2.5ft adult slither from the bank into the river which was pretty cool. More sleep, to the sounds of the jungle...

Day 3 was pretty much just a travel day back to Cusco. We popped out for some lunch once back and sat among the locals in “Super Pollo” eating chicken and chips (and watching the footie of course - it’s on everywhere here! And every time someone scores it doesn’t matter where you are, you know about it from the noise!). We also enjoyed dinner out at a fine dining restaurant (super fancy, we both had wine and three courses and it still came to under £40). Also have to mention the crazy festivities in the main square in Cusco - 24 June was the main festival day so the Saturday night was heaving with locals and we could barely move.

Buses, buses, buses....

The next day we were picked up bright and early for a “guided bus tour” from Cusco to Puno. It took all bloody day and stopped at a number of places we were not interested in. But hey ho. The bus had WiFi so Max was getting updates on the England game from you lot back home and the views were ridiculously beautiful. New Zealand-ish. So we arrived in Puno in the evening - there are pizzerias everywhere so we had a semi-decent pizza at “Macchupizza” (lol). Steph also bought an England shirt in the supermarket for just under £3. Bargains.

The next morning was yet another early start (swear to god we haven’t been able to get over our jet lag at all) and we were very sad to say goodbye to Peru. It is an incredible country with amazing scenery, friendly people, fantastic cheap restaurants and so much more. If you haven’t been, plan a two week holiday there. If you’re not going to listen to us, shame on you.

Bolivia....

After about 3 hours on the bus we had to jump off, get our exit stamp for Peru and walk across no man’s land to get into Bolivia. The bus then continued down to Copacabana, a little town on Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is the largest, highest lake in the world. It looks like the ocean - you can see the horizon before more land. We had a few drinks and meal out - we had thought Peru was cheap but wow, everything costs pittence in Bolivia. You can generally get a three course decent meal and any alcoholic drinks for 2 people for about £20. For example, in one bar we had 4 mojitos for £6.

We stayed the night in Copacabana and the next day had a trip to the Island of the Sun on Lake Titicaca. The lake was so beautiful in the sunshine and we sat on top of the boat (took about 1.5hrs). We had a guide that showed us around the tourist temples etc when we got there. It was such a hard day - lots of stairs and our knees are still in bits after the Inca Trail. We stayed on Sun Island for one night - watching the sunset over the lake and mountains, then had a home cooked meal in a tiny restaurant where a super Mum was looking after three kids (including a baby), taking our order and cooking food for the 5 people in the restaurant. But that seems pretty common there.

We have to say our accommodation on Sun Island wasn’t the best! There’s probably not many couples that can say that on there honeymoon, they had a room with two single beds, no heating (down to 0 degrees or lower at nighttime), had to use a shared bathroom downstairs and had to flush the toilet via a bucket of water. Oh the romance.

Today we got the boat back to Copacabana from Sun Island, and we’re now on a coach for 3.5 hours to La Paz.

Peace out.

Max and Steph xx