The long awaited beach holiday has finally arrived but at the expense of a 48 hour bus journey!! But in all honesty it flew by. Two over night buses with Cruz del Sur (a luxury bus company) was like business class with Virgin Airways but a fraction of the cost! Food, movies and comfortable seating made the trip a breeze. When we arrived at Loki Del Mar (a Hostel chain that we have used before) we were amazed, it was more like a hotel complex. With beach views and a large pool area, en-suite bedrooms and a fantastic bar, it was more than we had bargained for! Oh and the weather was 35+ degrees everyday - Excellent!!

The Hostel had posters up advertising available jobs behind the bar and we seriously considered working there, with most bar staff and residents being English/Australian it wouldn't have been a bad idea but after a few drinks that night we realised that relaxing there wasn't going to involve working and so with our swim gear on we headed for the beach or pool for 10 days of sunbathing and chilling out. We also had many friends staying there too which made the holiday all the more better with fun and games all the time.

The Hostel had entertainment throughout the day and night with the likes of Loki Olympics, Volley ball competitions and ping pong beer games. It was really well organised and we did participate as did most especially the poker night…. Of which I finished 2nd to the coincidence of Matt the Organiser coming 1st! ***FIX*** ha ha. It was excellent staying here, all that you would want from a hot coastal hotel resort. The food was great too with great prices to compensate for us backpackers, oh and the owner Dre came from Nottingham so banter was at a large, especially that when Leicester and Man City played live I had half the hostel cheering on Leicester… he found the funny side.

Peruvians and South Americans come to this resort for the surf too. It has one of the best surfs and has some really good boat trips, but unfortunately Fay and I didn't do a surf lesson or fishing trip but was gutted to have not, it looked fun. We did however skinny dip one night and amazingly the sea is so warm at 4am! So we can now say that we have swam in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. We did find that being around so many beach bums and laid back surfers is that you become one… We felt tired a lot of the time but having sun loungers a near and siestas everyday it helped chilling all the time - easy ha ha!

On our last night we went for a Japanese/Peruvian Sushi (never tried sushi before) with our 6 Aussie friends. It was amazing, with having no inhibitions of sushi I could truly experience the taste of such beautiful food. It was all gorgeous. It was a really nice way to say goodbye to some cracking fellas. Of which a reunion is in order when we travel to Australia later this year. With one more stop in Peru before flying to Asia we booked our bus to Huacachina and with a stroke of luck they only charged us a deposit of 50 soles forgetting all about the remaining 150 soles.. I won't say anything if you don't - quids in!