Hi everyone!

I am currently writing from a lovely hotel in Nazca, the town home to the famous Nazca lines. In about 2 hours time I shall be going in very small plane (dragging Tom up with me ...he has nearly conquered his fear with the amount of time spent in the air this week!) to see these many shapes on the ground ,created by the Nazca people, which stretch over 32 miles! So basically it should be a good day and this is only day 4 of the official tour!

Just to fill you in on the rest of our travels so far... Getting here was an absolute trek. The flight across the Atlantic was fine, although we were very glad to reach Miami. However we had a 9 hour wait in the airport until our flight to La Paz which was mind numbingly boring. We then boarded our flight and arrived in La Paz, Bolivia very early the next morning (although to us it was much later in the day). Then began probably the worst day that either of us can remember in near history. Not only were we very jet lagged, but we had to sit on uncomfy chairs in the airport from 5 am till 9 pm at night and the airport was at 4000m so as soon as you walked anywhere the alititude absolutely killed you and it was back to the seat. But that was only one day and looking back now it is actually quite funny how English we must have looked. My lips even went blue!

From there on in however, we have had pretty much all in all a great time. As we arrived at the arrivals area of Lima airport we very quickly found our transfer to our hotel. Reaching a bed that night was literally the best feeling!

Day 1

Although we were meant to meet our group and leader today he was not unable to meet us until the next day so Tom and I spent the morning wandering around Barranco, the area of Lima in which we were staying. In the afternoon we took a city tour around the rest of Lima. It was relatively interesting but is essentially a massive city of 10 million plus so it was rather packed and dirty. The roads were manic though which was really rather scary to begin with. We saw churches, municipal buildings, the catacoumbs beneath the cathedral (containing the bones of 25,00 people -freakyyy). By the end of the day we had located the first member of our group Charlotte, a 22 year old Swiss girl, who is very nice and we invited her to have dinner with. Still exhausted from a travelling though we had an early night.

Day 2

We met our Peruvian Leader, a very chilled guy called Mirko and the other member of our group a Liverpudlian student called Catherine. And yes that´s it! Only 4 of us! We thought that would be odd but actually so far its been good and much easier when getting around. We all set off on a local bus for 4 hours to a place called Paracas. This would be our base to visit the Isles de Ballestas (the poor mans Galapogos islands).

Day 3

An early start today, out on the speed boat to the ballesta islands at 8. It was quite an interesting trip as we saw sealions, Pelicans (which i loved as they were huge and almost cartoon like) penguins and many many birds. It was good but quite touristy as there were so many boats circling the rocks. Back on land, we climbed on to our mini bus as headed off to Ica we were due to go sandboarding. On the way we stopped at a Pisco distillery (Pisco is the national drink in Peru) and were given a tour and a tasting session but a very camp, Borat like Peruvian guide. The tasting was great and ended up in us all buying a little something to take away as the nights entertainment. Personally i was a fan of the Pisco version of baileys which me and Charlotte managed to polish off a good amount of last night at the hotel! But now to the absolute best bit of the trip so far...the sand boarding!

We arrived in Ica in the afternoon. It was a gorgeous place, set around a natural oasis in the sand dunes. We also saw the sun for the first time since our trip began! After a quick lunch we boarded our sand buggy and headed up in to the dunes. The driving around itself was soo sooo soo fun as we hit bump, drove up dunes and down the other sides, turned sharply this way and that all at a pretty fast rate. At the top of a dune we were shown how to lie on our boards (almost like snowboards) and then sped down the dunes. It was such a rush. We did this a number of times down steeper and longer slopes. But the best part was when the driver responded to my request to ´have a little drive of the buggy..¨!´Luckily our leader Mirko was a friend of his and he was happy to let us have a go. We took it in turns and it was incredibly fun...and guess who put his foot down the most, just 2 weeks after passing his test? (Not that he told them that until afterwards!) After 2 hours on the dunes we headed back to the oasis, completely exhilarated.

We then finished our day by driving through the spectacular landscapes to our stop for the night Nazca. The mountains and scenery generally here is beautiful. alot nice than the surrounding area of Lima which was mostly desert and shanty towns. Last night, Mirko took us for Peruvian ´fast food´which is roast chicken, fresh from the spit, handmade chips and salad. Heaven! (And Sam...a lot better than nandos!)

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So it is off to go flying now, either Tom or I will update our next lot of experiences soon. Unfortunately neither of us have a camera leads with us and we have not currently worked out how to put up our pictures or video yet but hopefully they should follow shortly.

Just a few observations of Peru quickly¨...

- Tom and I stand out a mile, me being blonde and him being practically a giant in comparison to the average Peruvian
- The food is actually very good, although they have dominos, pizza hut and burger king here (who would have thought it?)
- It is really very cheap as the average Peruvian earns only 170 dollars a month

Right so that its for now, much love to all. Please leave us some messages as we would love to hear from you. We are a very long way from home!

Sarah x
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