So, up this morning at 5am and struggled to breakfast. Breakfast wasn't as nice as the soup at dinner last night but at least a few options and the juice was good :)

Emma and I had spent some time last night lying in the hammocks, overlooking the lights of a small town down the hill and the stars in the clear sky. It was gorgeous but a bit chilly so we didn't stay long.

We were on the bus by 6am and started our drive through the Colca Valley. We had a number of points to stop at, to see the magnificent views. The photos just don't do justice to how awesome the landscape is in this part of the world. The weather was a bit chilly but still and the sun was out so it was going to be a good day!

The last stop on the way out was at a point known for it's Andean Condor. We spent over an hour there, admiring the view, Condors and other Peruvian birds. Condors wing span is about 3.2m so having a couple soar over your head was an experience that made you feel a little bit small!

Back on the bus by 9am (what a long morning already!), we headed back towards Chivay, stopping in a tiny little town called Maca. It was very quiet, with a few shops and market stalls and a church. The church was closed (and so were half of the market stalls) so we headed into some of the little shops and browsed for souvenirs. They're pretty much the same everywhere, just different colours and levels of dirt on them ;) hehe. Eventually, the church was opened and we went in for a look. This town is tiny, no idea what the population is, but the church was enormous and the altars were actually gorgeous. There were mirrors all over every altar and our guide said it was for added light...

Next stop was in Chivay for an early lunch. We were on the opposite side of town from yesterday and went to a lovely restaurant for a buffet. I tried a load of stuff I probably wouldn't normally, including alpaca, guinea pig (yes!! guinea pig!), different potatoes (they have 3000 types here in Peru!), corn (there are 57 varieties!) and cactus fruit for dessert! Go me :)

The drive to Puno was a long one! We played a couple of games along the way... One was a quiz and my team (Ana, Julie, Steve and I) won! Woo hoo! Go Alpaca Knowledge - Llama Gonna Win!! (Our team name and slogan :P). We stopped at a lagoon too. Each tourist stop (even if not that toursity!) would have a load of local people selling anything and everything.

We passed through a city called Juliacca - this was more like what I thought Peru would be like. Dirty, busy, primitive. I was glad we were only stopping for a moment to collect our local guide, Jose Louis. He was quiet funny, although a times for the wrong reasons. He was asking where we were from and we were adding Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US to the list. He looked at a guy on the bus who was of Chinese ancestry, but from Canada, 'and Japan? China?'. Oops! Hehe!

The hotel is quite nice here and only 1 block from the main square and entertainment street. We went to a nice restaurant for dinner and I had a local cocktail, Muna Sour. Half the drinks here are a variation on the national Peruvian drink, the Pisco Sour. I had no idea what made the drink a Muna, but turned out it was an endemic version of mint (and it was very nice!). After dinner, we headed back to the hotel as a big day tomorrow on Lake Titicaca.