Hi Guys, Its been a while!!!! We are in South America now if you didn't already know... If its any colsolation it is winter here, and although its pretty sunny its still damn cold especially at night so make sure you enjoy for nice sunny english weather that I hear you have been havin!! Our tans have pretty much gone at the moment, and we are not likely to get them back until Rio in a few weeks! We arrived in Lima, Peru, about 2 1/2 weeks ago now and stayed in the nice safe area of milaflores. Peru is not like we expected... we expected it to be hard to get around and peru poor but really its so geared up for tourism its unbelievable!! Nice Cama bus's (sleeper coaches) that have tvs and toilets... well most of the time, been caught out with a few which aren't so classy but they are generally good. Hostels are good, but a bit cold, they don't seem to have central heating here suprisingly!! The first week we arrived Andys mate Kevin has met us for 5 weeks. We did an organised tour thing for this week so we could get our bearings...went to Pisco-visited the Ballatas Islands....then, Nasca.. to fly over for ancient symbols similar to crop circles that they are not sure how they got there... got the usual myths of aliens etc, went to Ica and stayed in an Oasis in the middle of the dessert.. and went sand boarding and dunebuggy riding which was so much fun!! 120kmph down dunes!! Got sand in Orophis's we didn't know we had!!! Visited the main cities of Arequipa, which is beautiful and went to the Colca Canyon, had typical cusine and on my birthday watched while 3 meter (wingspan) condors flew over my head!!!( We were not lunch for them! - they were supposed to be there!! hehe!) it was breathtaking and very humbling!!! and then on to Cusco another beautiful city with lots going on! We have struggled a bit with the Alititude as its VERY HIGH and makes you feel incredibly unfit.. just walking up a slight incline is hard work!! Elaine even lost her appetite so it must have been bad!! All in preparation for the Inca Trail ( or dooms day!!) Successfully completed the Inca Trail.. although only just... can't say I'd jump to do it again, but it was definatley an experience we wont forget... Day 2 was tortourous for Elaine it just seemed to go up, up up and then Day 3 was horrendos for Tara and Vicki as it was down Hill. ( Elaines mate Vicki has met us for 2 weeks to do the Inca trail...!! so there is 5 of us!!) Andy and Kevin, muscle men that they are where way ahead cheering us girlies on! - no suprise there!!! Macchu Picchu at the top was stunning at made the whole thing worthwhile.. I assume its a bit like child birth.. you quickly forget the pain as soon as you see such beautiful babies as myself, Tara and Andy!! hahahah The tour guide was great though, couldn't have been better!, the food was the best we had since weve been in Peru and the nights were not too cold although we were well prepared after suffering in the Grand Canyon, I swear we will never let ourselves be that cold ever again!!! Since the Inca Trail w have been white water rafting...and have headed down to Puno and visited Lake Titicaca.. these are floating reed islands that Pervian Families Live on... we then went and stayed with a Pervian Familiy in their house..stayed overnight and sampled typical Peruvian cuisine made by the host families... They then got us to dress up in typical dress and go to a 'Discotecque' to dance!!! (more of a village hall) The dresses were like corsets and they are just fed us a massive meal so they were pretty uncomfortable!!! We were going to go to Boliva next, but they have had some major political issues of late with many road blockades and protests etc.. this is nothing to do with Tourism but the government dont rekon to go there at the moment as we couldn't get stuck...so we are skipping out on that idea and heading straight for Chile!!! Anyway hope you like the piccys.. unfortuantly none of sandboardind as we didn't want to ruin our cameras!!