It´s nicandde´s special guest Sarah here and to give De and Nic a hand with writing the blog I´ve got to try and remember what happened a couple of weeks ago - it´s been so much fun and all a bit of a blur but here goes. I´d planned my trip so I could join the girls on the Salkantay route to Machu Picchu. We set off as planned on 1 October, rising early to catch a local bus leaving at 5am to take us to the starting point - the town of Mollepata - about a 3 ...

The fabulous 4 all travelled to Cusco, known as the belly button of South America. We had a week to spare before Sarah´s arrival so we decided it was time to chillax and do a little bit of yoga every morning. Nic decided on doing a week of Spanish lessons whilst de decided on mountain biking and working on finding the best coffee house in Cusco (which she finally found on our last day there). Cusco brought about some shedding of hair ... de decided to shave her...

A 12 hour bus trip transported us from the mountains of Huaraz to the dunes of Huacachina, a small oasis town set on the edge of a massive range of sand dunes which exists purely for tourists. Along the way we picked up an extra friend, Maayan from Israel , who joined the Aussie contingency in an afternoon of fun! We took a dune & sand boarding tour, where we were loaded into a large dune buggy with 6 other people and went hooning through the sand dunes. It w...

With a couple of days rest eating ice cream in Huaraz, the Aussie contingency (Nic, de and Robbie) headed off on another hike into the Andes. This time 11 days around the Huayhuash mountain range and WOW was it impressive! This range is amongst some of the highest in South America. It was freezing cold at night with us wearing everything in our packs to bed (7 layers of clothes) and waking up to ice on our tent most mornings. On day 5 we stumbled across some nat...

After 36 hours on 4 different buses we arrived in Huaraz, Peru. A town surrounded by massive glacier covered mountains. In our $4 a night room we can see the towering mountains from the shower, kind of cool! Huaraz has a high indigenous population and it is hard not to stare at the colourful outfits the women of all ages wear. Bright pink skirts with many layers, massive top hats made from sheep's wool with feathers, knitted tights with little high heel shoes and...