I left off in Cusco and from there we took our last overnight bus journey to a place called Huacachina, literally a little oasis in the middle of the desert. On first arriving and covering the whole "town" on foot in less than 10 minutes, I was wondering what all the fuss was about but that evening we found out: sandboarding. Huacachina's main attraction is the opportunity to take a twilight trip into the enormous sand dunes in a dune buggy (appropriate), strap a wooden board to your feet and attempt to slide down. The buggy ride already got our adrenalin pumping with the driver racing over the peaks, hurtling round corners and throwing in a few doughnuts for good measure. Our few attempts at actually sandboarding were not particularly successful (there's a lot more friction than on snow so you end up stopping after a few metres) so we switched to lying down instead which was insane - we were flying down sand mountains at a ridiculous speed. It was probably one of the most fun things we did on the whole trip and a totally unique experience to have the view of the dunes for miles around and the amazing sunset. Unfortunately it claimed our camera screen and we had sand everywhere for days but it was totally worth it!

Next day we took a trip into Ica for some wine and pisco tasting... Not quite the same as in Argentina but we did get coached on how to drink neat pisco without getting drunk - apparently it's all about keeping it in your mouth and breathing out the alcohol... I was sceptical.

Our next stop was Paracas and the Islas Ballestas, lovingly known as "the poor man's Galapagos". We took a super touristy boat trip and saw lots of birds, sea lions and penguins as well as a Nazca-esque candelabra on a cliff; all very lovely but nothing that made me regret not having shelled out for the real thing. More fun was stuffing ourselves with ceviche and pisco sours while we still could (generally in a string of tiny plastic-table establishments which is a good reflection of how far our food standards have dropped over the last 4 months!)

We continued that effort when we arrived in Lima, having nothing in particular that we wanted to do there except eat. The city is widely regarded as the food capital of South America but unfortunately an incident with a churro (is that the singular of churros?!) filled with some kind of caramel that was hotter than the sun left me unable to appreciate much of the food we sampled.

So after 6 countries visited, 300 hours spent on buses, 25 days of trekking, and the mysterious disappearance of 4 hats, 3 pairs of sunglasses, a pair of jeans and an iPod (all of which were Gerard's which makes me question why I still entrusted him with my passport for the majority of the trip...) - our time in South America has come to an end. Feeling sad but also ready to leave and excited about New York, New York!