I will get some photos up on here as soon as possible. I tried before but its estimated time for 3 hours, I didnt have that long to hang around on a computer to load them!

After sandboarding in Huacachina we went on a winery tour in Ica. It was lss about the wine and more about different types of pisco. Was a nice day out nonetheless. That night we caught a bus to Cuzco. This was a nightmare. It was really uncomfortable, in 16 hours all they gave us was a very bland cheese and ham sandwich, and some idiot dropped a glass bottle of pisco down the aisle so there was glass everywhere and it stank of pisco for 16 hours. Not nice.

Eventually made it to Cuzco, had some food since my stomach had started to eat itself and went out to a few bars. We met up with the Americans again from the coast so had a good crowd with us there. Unfortunately after the night out I woke up to what I thought was the worlds worst hangover. After consulting the guide book it turned out I had altitude sickness. This was truly a terrible day. I feñt really dizzy, everytime I stood up it felt like I was going to collapse, my body went numb, I felt sick all day, I couldnt eat anything and had insomnia so had to stay awake throughout all of it! The people in my room where really helpful though and suggested I drink "mate de coco" I think its called, just coco leaf tea. It helped a bit.

The next day I think I got a stomach bug because I spent the day on the loo. So the first coupl of days in Cuzco were pretty crappy. On the sunday we booked our inka jungle trek for the following day.

Trek Day 1:
Up at 6am to get a minibus up a mountain (4000m plus). It was freezing up there and very cloudy. Anyway today was mountain biking downhill for 4 hours. I really enjoyed this and the scenery was stunning, just seeing all the huge mountains around us and picking up lots of speed on the bikes. Some of the roads of a bit dodgy with landslides taking up much of the road but all good. We had to cycle through parts of river which was fun but wet! When we got to the bottom it was boiling hot again and tons of annoying bugs around. We stayed in a hostel this night after a standard peruvian dinner of chicken and rice.

Trek Day 2:
Up at 6am again today. Had pancakes and banana for breakfast and then began a LONG trek. It started out easy until steps and uphill got involved. We walked until about 2pm with only a 30 mins break at "monkey house" on the way. Some of the paths were really sketchy with it being maybe half a metre wide and a very steep drop beside you. I think the tiredness overcame how scary those paths were! Eventually after a lot of sweating we made it to out place for lunch. Ate, then fell asleep on a hammock. After this it was another 3 hours trekking which wasnt as difficult as the morning and included a cool cable car across the river that was basically a pulley system and only 2 people could go on at a time. Finally we made it to some hot springs and relaxed in their for a couple of hours going from a frezzing waterfall to a really warm bath. On the menu for dinner that night was Alpaca, so I tried it for the first time. Tasted very much like beef but much chewier.

Trek Day 3:
Up at 8am, lie in! Today we spent 3 hours waling down some train lines. This got really boring after a while and my ankles really started to hurt. We made it to aguas calientas which is the town closest to Machu Picchu and had lunch. In the afternoon we were meant to climb a mountain but it was chucking it down with rain so we went to the hot springs here instead. These springs were crap, in fact they just looked like (excuse my french) pools of piss. We didnt do much that evening because the alams were set for 3am

Trek Day 4, Machu Picchu:
Really early start, had to walk in the dark. Dont know how many steps we climbed but its was probably one of the hardest things ive done in my life. The steps were uneven and just rocks which made it hard and because of the altitude I found it hard to breath. 45 minutes later and we made it to the top. We got there early so we could be one of the 400 people allowed up Wayna Picchu next to MP to get some great aerial views of it. Our trek guide gave us a tour around Machu Picchu. It really is an amazing place and I just couldnt believe I was actually there when we were waling around. At about 10am we started the steep and I mean steep climb up Wayna Picchu which is the mountain in the background of the classic MP photos. This was knackering but felt like we were standing on top of the world and had such a good view of MP that really put in into perspective that there is this city perching on top of a mountain. We foolishly decided to trek round to see the "great cave" which we names the "dissapointing cave" when we got there. This was a band idea because it took about 2 hours there and back and we ran out of water and had barely eaten and felt like we were constantly climbing. Anyway. Made it back to MP, wandered through it again and then back down to aguas calientas. Waited for a few hours, caught a train then a bus and got back to Cuzco. By this time we had pretty much been up for 24 hours so went straight to bed. Had a lazy day in Cuzco the next day. Went out that night, which for me was my first proper night out with everyone since I had to stay in bed for Halloween the week before.

Today as I write this I am in Puno after an overnight bus which got in here at 5am. Going to see lake Titicaca today and probably move into Bolivia tomorrow.

Hope everyone is well, I cant believe I only have about 4 weeks left in south america! Need more time!! See you soon xx