Today had been a manic busy day! Found out that I am starting back at work tomorrow but luckily only 2 days then 3 days off Did a lot of sorting this morning and went and bought a new bike popped into work to get some new t-shirts then rushed into town for a very nice Revs lunch with Silling, Spenny and Lilley. After we departed went and met Polly and family in Varsity to find out that Polly had already bought 2 dresses!! Went and met Sarah (H), Sophie and eventually Emily and ended up… yes you guessed it… back in Revs! Also popped into Republic to say hi to friends and organise a night out with them as well Was very nice seeing everyone and didn’t feel like we had been away for nearly 5 months!

Went for a bit of a run this evening when I got back.. that didn’t exactly go to plan as I felt like I hadn’t run for about 5 months… so was very slow Then went out for dinner with family and grand-parents to our favourite restraunt La Piazza where I actually tried something different for a change that was very nice

The final photos are just uploading atm so will be all on Flickr by tomorrow morning for you to look at. Afraid I went a bit overboard with the Machu Pichu shots so feel free to skip through them quickly… A big thank-you to everyone for reading and commenting on the blog (mentions have to go to Savannah, Sarah and Polly’s dad for supreme commenting) , has been very nice to know that people are reading our long droning blogs

Adios

Love Polly & Toby xxx

Yesterday we were up early to sit on our last bus! Took about 5 hours to get us to Lima.. In the evening we went around the markets the intention to buy lots of things, but ended up buying very little as it was all rubbish tbh and more expensive than other places we have been. Had an early bed as Polly still isn’t feeling 100%, think her body is a bit tired.. This morning we had to sit through the England game which was exciting in the first half, then embarrassing in the second.. I’m sure you all watched it as well.. Luckily not too many Germans in the hostel! Then quite a while spent packing and showering before checking out for a massive Pizza for lunch. Caught bits of the Argentina game and currently have a load of Argentinians out in the square celebrating like they’ve won the cup!! Did a bit more wandering round Lima went down to the coast and saw the sea. Lima is constantly covered in cloud during winter (now) so no sun unfortunately and now have come back to do the finally blog abroad. Apparently we have heard that Iberia who we are flying back with are terrible so not exactly looking forward to the flight, but its only 11ish hours so nothing!!

SO Adios from Peru we’re coming home!!! Xxx

In the evening we had a bus to Arequipa, so after some emotional goodbyes & facebook swapping we set off in a taxi to the station. Our bus overnight was ok, (I think it actually wasn´t that good, but compared to last nights, I´m remebering it fondly; but I´ll get to that in a min..) We arrived at Arequipa at 4 45am (!) and had a stressful time booking onto the 6am bus to Colca Canyon. The ticket desk didn´t open till 10 to 6 and there wsa a big rush of locals wanting tickets and very few left. Polly was getting completly ignored by the male ticket man who seemed to scan over women to the next guy wanting tickets, so I pushed my way to the front and got us a couple of the last tickets. The 6 hour bus wasn´t too bad and we managed to avoid paying a 35 soles (8 pound) entry fee. An offical looking women got on the bus and was selling the tickets which she said were compulsery.. Some tourists bought them straight away, but us and a few others refused as we´d never heard of the fee and thought it could just be a scam and when the women said there was a checkpoint we said we buy the tickets there then. With a humph she got off the bus never to be seen again, and the bus was never stopped for a checkpoint! REsult We did read in the bran new lonely planet this afternoon that the fee is genuine and they have just introduced it – obviously having some teething problems Anyway we arrived in Colca Canyon to some awesome chicken sandwiches and dropped our bags at the hostel that we were going to stay at the next night. After lunch we set off on the walk down the canyon to the Oasis. Took us around 2 hours to get down which wasn´t too bad, but you could see the pools all the way down hich was tantalsiing!! The place we were staying in was only 10 soles a night and had a very nice pool with a big rock to jump off (I´m easily pleased ) Another footie match followed in which the locals were easily defeated! The meals weren´t bad at the Oasis.. but they were quite simple (Polly wasn´t a fan, but I thought they were ok) The next morning we had the Oasis to ourselves as tour groups left early and the new group didn´t arrive till late so we had the pool and sun loungers to ourselves! Finally managed to drag ourselves away at half 2 for the 3 hour hike back up the canyon! Polly managed to keep a good pace going up the canyon and comprised with our music blaring out loud (we are totally wanna be chavs) the journey up wasn´t too bad. We got in to the hostel about 30mins before it got dark and as we had paid an extra pound each we had an en-suite with hot water ! so some nice showers before our epic meal! Probably went a little crazy with our ordering… Started with Alpaca Kebabs and chips, followed by a large pizza, followed by another bowl of chips finished off with a big plate of Nachos! Saved loads of money though as we just asked for glasses and made cocktails of Vodka, Inca Cola and Lime Juice!! The next morning we were up to suffer through the England match glad we got through.. not fancying our chances against Germany though..  Watched Italy get beaten by Slovakia(or was it Slovenia I can´t remember) this moring which was a great match if anyone watched it

We had another epic bus day yesterday to get us to Huchachina. Had to ride the 6 hours back to Arequipa then an overnight one to here. The overnight bus was horrible, was very cramped and I slept terribly. Although turns out it was mega cheap. We paid 30 soles to get here and someone travelling the opposite was was offered a ticket there for 140 soles! So feeling a bit better about it now. Polly had spent today in bed as she has been feeling like she would like to chunder everywhere.. although she perked up a bit this evening. Huachina is a vey small oasis town in the middle of huge sand dunes, which I climbed up today.. Hoping to go dune buggeying and sandboarding tomorrow as long as Polly is better. Put a load of photos onto DVD today as had a mini memory card scare and don´t want to risk losing them all (think some virus is in the camera and I don´t have the cable to plug it in and get rid of it grr) Only got to last a few days though so I think we´ll be ok

I heard back from my uni and have got my first choice accomadation which is very nice.. Have to come back at christmas and easter but it saves me 900 pounds which I thought would be worth it as I wouldn´t spend much time there anyway! Looked at Pollys tonight and she thinks she knows where she is going to apply to.. Bristol do it differently so it doesn´t matter when she applies. Also have confirmed that I am going back to cycle heaven this summer which is great although I emailed to check I was starting on the 1st of July and they though that I wasn´t back till later, but its great that I can start then; so I guess its straight back to work!!

Anyway kinde hard to believe that in 3 days time we will have taken off just under an hour ago to fly home! Have got 3 very busy days ahead though so it´s not over yet!! Xx Polly probably would say hi, but she is in bed!

We went for a meal in the evening with the tour people and found out about our 4am leave the next morning and that we wouldn´t be able to get home till saturday now as the strikes had been extended for the friday as well! Had an earlish bed as it had been a long day and also the fact our alarm was set for 3 30am!! Gutted for us! Especially when we found out what the walk was the next morning. Assumed a nice gentle strole up to Macchu Pichu, instead got a 2 hour hike in the dark up about 1000 steps! Was not much fun and aches hadn´t healed from the previous day. I was doing it in flip-flops which was much comfyier than shoes, but I did pay the price by losing the skin off my big toe :s We were about the 10th people to the top and had to wait  30 mins for the gates to open – 30 mins that would have been spent better in bed imo… When we did get in, it was pretty awesome seeing it there on the hill and is a lot better than photos/postcard pictures. More the setting of the buildings than the things themselves. Got some obligitory photos that basically everyone takes then had to go on our tour guides very dull tour in which we found out very little inca history and more that the rocks are grey and granite… He then left us to enjoy the rest of our day We had tickets to go up Huanapichu (which overlooks macchu pichu) but not for a couple of hours so we sunbathed and most of us fell asleep! The advantage of the strikes was that Machu Pichu was completly empty – there are usually around 3000 visitors a day, when we were there apparently there were only 300… So you hardly saw anyone! The climb up Huanapichu was even more steps, but the view from the top was completly worth it. My photos dont do it  justice at all, but you could see right out to Salkanty, which looked a very long way a way considering we had walked from it!

We left Macchu Pichu around half 1ish having had our inca fill and came back down to the town for a rest and some beers We had quite a big group of nine of us so went up the main street untill a restraunt gave us a good enough discount and ended up eating there! The day was kinde lie in, (Pol did better than me, I naturally woke up at 6 30 ) Went for coffee and watched some football. The rest of the morning was building up to the football. I don´t think Englands performance needs to be mentioned in detail… We ended up having to argue with the restraunt after as they put up the beer price (we got it back down after about 5 mins) then feeling very deflated we decided to go to the hot springs. They were nice a bit overcrowded and we decided against getting a drink as they were over 3 pounds!!! Scandalous!

Today we were back to the early start as we had a 2 hour walk followed by 8 hours on a bus to get back to Cusco.. due to all the trains being sold out/the company being to cheap to pay the increased train fares. We were told the first, but found the second reason to be the true reason! Has been quite a long dull day, but we are now back in Cusco! Yaay Was an awesome trek, just a bit annoying getting stuck, but all part of the experience. My card got delcined from the cash machine as I´ve used up the 3000 pounds that I put on it so am going to have to load some back up funds onto it to get us through the last week!! Thought the money would make it as well! Have put up 44 photos just now as we have fast internet So you have up to Copacabana in Bolivia to look at Going to go back to the hostel now for some drinks with our Salcanta trek then we move on tomorrow!

One week to go!

Day 1: Alarm goes off at 4:00am- ewww. We didnt get too much sleep, probs coz we ended up chatting in andy and charlottes room for far too long. oopsies! Anyways, bags were packed and we huddled by the courtyard door thing waiting for someone to pick us up….4:30-5 was the specified time, and to be fair 5:15am wasnt too bad going. Turned out the guy who was also waiting at the hostel was with the same company as us whoop. Got on a bus to some random place (slept) and then had what was (according to the itinerary) a delicious breakfast… stale bread and jam. And we had to pay! 1.75 pounds! ridiculous. Toby paid a little bit more for some eggs so his wasnt sooo bad, and in the end i didn´t pay for mine as i happened to sneak off to the toilet just at the right time. hehe! We then were told about a train strike which basically meant we couldnt do the 5 day trek it either had to be 4 or 6. Apparently some other people had been warned about this, but apparently our agency didnt think it was too too important :S after some important deliberation (would we make the england match on the 6 day?!?!¿¿) toby decided we would go for 6 day, as did basically everyone else.

And then we were off! there were 10 in our group, 5 english, couple of aussies, usa, swiss and german. All really young and cool… basically we were very relieved we werent´with a bunch of aging rich tourists, many of which seem to be lurking in the cusco area. We walk up hill (groan for a few hours maybe 4) before stopping for lunch with an awesome view… and now for the test of food… after the salt flats we were anxious…. but they passed! spag bol with garlic bread and soup for starter! waaahay. In the afternoon we did more walking (apparently thats what you do on a trek!) and arrived at the campsite at 5 something. Our guide marco said we were very fast compared to normal groups… and the other group from the same agency arrived like an hour later! we got piles of popcorn for a snack :) followed by beef casserole and more soup and constant hot drink offers (great for me…not). We managed to stay up til about 8:30 before crashing in the FREEZING tents (we were at high altitude).

Day 2: awake, 5:30am – crazyness. Apparently this was the hardest day of the trek, climbing to the highest point of 4,600m altitude i think…. We got given a snack pack  for the morning after a pancake breakfast and headed off… freezing. About half an hour  later we were all boiling from walking uphill and i changed into my short shorts which i didnt think would see the light of day anymore on this trip. They looked well good with my llama pattern leg warmers! The walk up was tough! especially the last hour. Toby didnt seem too fazed by it but i had to stop every 5 seconds for breath (i blame the altitude) he was very encouraging and eventually we made it took some pics (v impressive snowy mountain, the salcantay one the trek is named after. From there it was about 2-3 more hours downhill until lunch but we made good time which meant after lunch (yummy healthy stuff) we could have a nap by this stream. It was boiling and i got a stupid tan line on my leg which im still trying to get rid of!

More walking, this time we crossed from snowy mountains into the jungle. SO weird, we literally walked through this arch way thing and you could feel the humidity hit you and the plants started to change. It was a nice walk but we were told around 4 ish one hour to the campsite and it was soooo much longer. EVery corner we hoped we would be there, but werent. The campsite again had an awesome view, and beer for sale! awesome times! More popcorn, more beef casserole and half the group went to bed straight after again. the rowdy five english stayed up and made our own rave with ipod speakers, prodigy tunes and flashing torches and lighters. A-MEZZZZIN!  Especialy as the other group were on the other side of this sheet thing getting a lecture from their guide on inca history. <hopefully the lights were very distracting for them

Day 3 : After a lot warmer and nicer nights sleep we got up at 6am (lie in!) and as a special treat on this day we only had to walk 7 hours! I cant even remember the walk on this day to be fair, but im sure it was very jungly and hot and nice, not too uphill as i recall. WE finally made it to the village of la playa for lunch around 2… and they managed to tune in the world cup for us, cant remember what match. more beer, amazing buffet lunch and an actual toilet for a change. OOPS, forgot to mention that on this day we switched guides to the rubbish inca history one so it was a bit of a snore fest after marco the original awesomely chilled one… henry was just not up to scatch. That afternoon the boys all played football… peru against the rest of the world. I was tempted to play, but it got pretty serious and i quickly decided cheif supporter (and entertainer of all mosquitos in the area) was my job. The game went on far too long (like 2 hours… and the peruvians kept cheating and disallowing our goals because we were too good. But we won like all the many games. Henry did chat to me later though and said i was very lucky because my boyfriend was a very good football player…. rightttt. More beers and popcorn obviously followed as did another earlyish night 5:30am wake up again.

Day 4: Last day of walking (or so we thought…) It was a toughy! especially as we had to carry all our stuff as the horses that had been carrying them had sensibly turned back as they didnt wanna walk the ridiculously tough walk. I did quite well out of it as me and toby shared one huge rucksack (which obvs he carried ) and i had the small day pack, which was almost breaking (thats what you get for paying 3 pounds) so sadly couldnt have much weight in it.  We powered through the walk uphill, walking ahead of the guide, mostly so he couldnt make us do unnecessary stops….I suppose you could say it was worth it though as we good to this look out point where we had a really cool view of macchu picchu in the distance so we stopped and picniced our lunch (it was 10am but we were wellll hungry from the uphill). Then it was downhill. Really steep really horrific far too  long. At many points i felt like jumping of the dangerously close edge but there was an end like 3 hours later where we came to this “village” (a couple of shacks along a railway line) with a really massive waterfall… stopped for a burger with chips in it and then yet another 3 hour walk along the railway line. the guide had left us by this point but that was for the best and we powered through and at last made it to the town of aguas caliente at the bottom of macchu picchu late in the afternoon. It was a euphoric moment, although the town was a bit of an ugly monstrosity. We marched through (the four of us at the front anyway) on a serious hunt for beer. 20 soles the first places tried to charge us (5 pounds for a litre… rip off!) so we continued… bargaining our way, still no luck. We turned a corner and all of a sudden had two places battling for our custom…. 15…..12….10 …. free nachos included-… sold! so we sat there desperately in need of showers filthy smelly feet in this actually quite nice place with actual posh tourists in it … and a beer had never tasted so good!!

ANyways tobys turn to report xxx

So we finally managed to leave Copacabana, tres sad, especially considering the deilghts of the twelve hour bus that lay ahead. We knew it was going to be long and to be fair the bus was pretty comfy but i got 10 pages into my book before deciding i actually couldnt continue it was that rubbish so had no book, music we´ve now heard far too many times and a toby tucking into some 800 page fantasy beast book. fun times. Thank god for the packed lunch we had picked up the night before otherwise we would have been starving! as there was literally no food options on the way, plus we had no peru money to buy any with.

We arrived …finally! grrr it was long.. and then we had to get a taxi to the hostel becauase the bus station was in the middle of nowhere… we have barely taken any taxis in south america and the stories and the guide book (r.i.p) make it sound like everyone is a potential scammer/ criminal. So we checked the id of our official taxi and headed off. And by the end i felt meanish, i was all, how much,…. how many minutes, and he was like good evening, check out the plaza and stuff. Oh well, we survived and got to the hostel, which is probably the first one we´ve booked ahead that hasnt left me feeling slightly disappointed in some way… except for the really loud live music right next to our dorm, good times!

Woke up the next day watched a bit of the world cup with our amazing breakfast… dry bread rolls, jam and butter (people just do not understand the concept of breakfast!) and then randomly ran into our friends andy and charlotte who we met in Santiago turns out they had just got back from the inca trail and were staying in the same place. whoop. We immediatey went out for lunch after the delicious breakfast ( it was about 11ish by this point… lil early oops. And we went to this realli nice place they had been to before… like places we would want to go to at home but cant afford… to be fair, couldnt realli afford it here, but it was treat day! (everyday….) was YUM and there was even a queue outside.

Checked out cusco. Very nice, sunny, plazas everywhere, tourist LAND but pretty and colonial. And there was a festival thing on so we got to see some cool costumes and dancing and about 2 fireworks in the evening We also booked our trek to macchu picchu, which leaves tomorrow at 4:30am! ewww. for any geeks that would like to research it, its called to salcantay trek, 5 days 4 nights, 3 of which are camping… no shower!Not entirely sure where it goes, apparently there is lots of uphill mountain walking and then it joins up with the inca trail for the last day to go up to macchu picchu for the sunrise.  Toby is proper psyched! and i am proper psyched to be able to say ive done it when we get back :p little concerned about the fact we have a full day 9-5 of free time at macchu picchu after a three hour guided tour … may be a little too much culture for us to manage perhaps will take the books

Last night we went out with charlotte and andy and there friends from the inca trail, started at an irish pub with happy hour (prices werent THAT happy) and stayed for actually quite a few hours, then moved onto a club with was wayyyy crowded but free drinks and music we had actually heard of. Toby would like to point out that flip flops are a poor choice of club attire, especially when their are people with heels around. Lasted pretty late realli like half 2 whoop! but woah, was not a fan of the headache this morning. I had to leave the hostel in pyjamas and no shoes and last nights make up to buy a big bottle of water from the nearest vendor who totally ripped me off but i was too tired to care.

Then we chilled in the sunny courtyard of the hostel for a tan sesh, before heading out for the football, early… needed to get a good seat obvs.  Went to the irish bar from the night before, got the last free table and ordered a mammoth but expensive lunch. Shepherds pie and burgers It suddenly struck us just before the match started that as we werent actually in england, there may be some american fans. Far too many ( more than 20! for our liking). We had some good banter, some quite vicious but they deserved it. Every single time america got the ball the chants of usa would began. GROAN! one word…. starts with knob…. ends in heads but we survived, and thankfully we didnt lose or we would have had to sneak out under the tables at the end to avoid the harassment. but yeah, lets hope we play better in the next match… which is strategically placed the day after we get back from our trek.

And thats pretty much it… no internet for six days!!! arghhhhhh

Toby says hola xxxx

So what have we been up to?? well sunday didnt even seem to exist because between us i managed to get out of bed for a couple of hours shopping and tea in the evening but apart from that i mostly felt like i could just chunder everywhere… and as for toby, when he wasnt in bed, he was chundering everywhere! well not everywhere. thankfully we have our own bathroom.  Sadly it seems suspiciously like our fav restaurant from the night before may have given us a lil bit of food poisoning ,… whooop. But we are consideraby better now. We did watch 17 again though in the evening on our own tv… yayyy and obvs bought choccy to go with it.

The next day we didnt wanna do anything too strenous so mostly just chilled, and at some point managed to hire a rowing boat with the most ridiculous oars ever, planks of wood nailed to longer, thinner planks of wood, for two hours. We went out a bit but then spent at least an hour just floating with our music and books working hard on the tan. (toby would like me to point out that he also climbed a hill on this day… i looked at the photos so that as good as counts…) Got back and realised we didnt realli have too much money left and luckily for us the bank was shut for the occasion of it being a monday. SO we couldnt pay for the hostel but just about got away with it. Booked our boat out to the isla del sol, apparently its like this mystical place where the incas came from but to be fair, weñ´ve lost the guide book and we couldnt really read the spanish signs so it could have been anything. After a very uncomfy two hour boat ride, we arrived on the north side of the island and bought two BEASTY sandwiched for 60p each and set off on our epic 4 hours long trek to reach the other side of the island  and the boat to pick us up.

After about an hour we came to some inca ruins, apparently an old temple or summit. We are now slightly worried for macchu picchu just for the fact that it might turn into one big mock fest. For instance over the course of our 10 minute look we came to the conclusion that the incas were in fact actually umpa lumpas (even toby couldnt fit through their archways) and that they had built loads of tunnels for carrying willy wonkas chocolate to the chocolate worshipping table just around the corner. Tres mature.

On a more cultural note,  today we discovered that the incas were actually pretty recent, like the 1400´s so technically we had the minster and they had something less complex than stonehenge. Im sorry if that sounds like a burn. The walk was long and uphill and realli hot and sunny (toby describes it as very nice) and to be fair there were some funky snow covered mountains you could see and the lake was realli clear blue (although way too freezing to go swimming in) I just realized this morning that i look like an idiot because i burned my legs just on the bottom bits on the back from my cropped trousers from this walk and now look rather silly.

Anyways, random people kept asking us for money, not in a begging way but in a , yes 50p to walk through my village kinda way. Well you can imagine how much we liked that…. i didnt  even wanna walk through their village. If only we knew more spanish we could have argued a lot better. but all i could say to the third woman when she asked, was why??? for the ruins she replied. Well im not being funny, but the only ruins i saw were the shambles of the village. ..not to be harsh or anything.

After an atrocious cheese sandwich and hairy portion of chips from a restaurant that wasnt even in the sun, we were off to the islas flotantes.

The floating islands for a few planks of wood together, making room for a table and chairs… yes, some may call it a dock, but not the bolivians.  the driver of the boat was like, who would like to get off and have a closerlook….

No-one was the answer. and it was a full boat.  but that could have been because when i tapped toby on the shoulders, he looked around a nd said really loudly… awww we´re at the  &$%&  floating  islands ….

anyways got back in time to go to the bank and were no longer poor, although this was shortlived as we had to go back again the day after. Went for a nice meal for 3 pounds each (warm bread and butter, salad buffet, soup, beef in tomato sauce with rice and potato and more veg, and chocoalte cake, and a jug of lemonade… was immense!!)

we then treated ourselves to some alcohol (1 pound 50 for a massive bottle of vodka, but im so hardcore i managed about 3 glasses then fell asleep at the grand old time of 8:30pm. Will try harder next time.

Today we didnt do much … for a change… more lie ins, more sun, more shopping, more smoothies which i spilt all over before we had even started so they didnt end up being such a good deal. ANnnnnndd thats about it.

Cusco manaña whoop!¡ xxxx

We have decided to totally lard arse here for a few days maybe rent a boat for a bit today and maybe go to an island tomorrow… but apart from that… eat, tan, sleep, and more of the same, maybe some more souvenir shopping…

Our second day in la paz was the first day in the whole of the travels that we have actually dedicated to shopping (souvenirs) which was awesome. We went to the witches market, which was very lacking in witch-y things, a few plant herby things and lots of llama foetuses yummmm but apart from that it was all for the tourists which we totally didnt mind.

Found a well good place for lunch… we got soup (toby has become my official runny soup finisher (and starter) as i am not so keen…, quarter chicken with rice and chips, and a drink.. for one pound thirty. Good deal! except this random man with a balaclava stood right in front of us on the other side of the window and seeemed to be staring at us for like a full minute, which was terrifying. He then banged on the window and went away, toby reckons he was trying to get the attention of the waiter but i was convinced he would be waiting for us round a corner… he wasn”t.

For the rest of the afternoon we checked out the other parts of la paz, which took like an hour maximum  and then some more shopping! bought the newest series of greys anatomy (yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy) and watched a double bill at the hostel, only to find that we are missing the last 6 episodes (nooooooooooooooooooo).

The next morning we were up super early (missing our pancake breakfast) to go biking on the death ride,,, whoop. got to the ofice for seven and after a non pancake breakfast headed off. It was ALL downhill except for the last five minutes which is my kind of mountain biking as you could basically not pedal at all just make sure you dont fall off the edge and brake a lot. You are concentrating quite hard and if your toby your going so fast you cant even see the scenery but i guess it was quite dangerous-y. finished around one and i wasnt too far behind, even though i had an almost falling in a river experience which left me with a very wet left shoe… and admittedly i did walk all the uphill bit, but only because it was quicker than my attempt at biking.  chilled out after finishing with a buffet lunch and a swimming pool, which i was VERy tempted to go in but didnt quite make it. I also got bitten by the most killer mosquito ever. whoop.

after the LONG drive back to La Paz all we had time to do was eat and sleep not too thrilling.

Then bus in the morning to the copacabana which we like a lot. its basically one road with lots of touristy stuff and not much else. went to the awesomeest restaurant last night with amazing nachos and enchiladas and chocolate cake! covered with fairy lights and a well good jack johnson / reggae versions of the beatles soundtrack and furry rugs on the chairs.  And board games… we played connect four and chinese checkers and battle ships because we are just soooooooo cool.

And this morning, we completely blobbed out and just about managed to make it to the internet place for about half 12…..

and thats it! 3 weeks left!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The salt flat tour was good fun and had some comedy moments. The guy who sold everyone the tour wasn´t the most honest person we´ve met and booked one too many people on the trip. Watching everyone slowly work out there were 13 people rather than 12 was entertaining and when the guy returned (he went out to help get people as apparently a bus had broken down, this meant we set off an hour late) he had quite a few questions to answer!! We ended up getting 4 bottles of wine free as an apology. Tbf we didn´t mind the extra person as it didn´t affect the squisshynesh and was an extra person to talk to! The trip started off slow with the train graveyard (whoop whoop) but picked up as we went to the cactus island with 9metre high cacti and then obviously the salt flat where we took a few comedy photos! We went into this cave that you had to pay a pound to get into and you saw it all as soon as you entered. Wasn´t exactly big but some coolish formations. The first hostel that we stayed in was made of salt and cactus so was quite cool. Got extremly cold later in the evening though and the power cut around 10 so early beds. The sky outside was extremly cool and one of the highlights, as it was super dark and you could see thousands of stars and the band of the milky way! Tried to photo it but ended up with a black photo! Oh well you´ll have to believe me that it was awesome

The next, once they had defrosted our jeep, we set off to visit 5 different lakes in craters. Some were a bit dull but the red one was very cool and reflected the mountains around it! There was also this huge red empty crater at about 5000m metres that after about 30 seconds of running across it you were completly out of breath. When my uncle when travelling round SA 10 years ago he had photos of him doing headstands at various places. I took it a step further and got an awesome photo of me doing a handstand (woah) in the crater! Expertly taken by Polly of course You will see the photos one day, but Bolivia isn´t renowned for quick internet. We paid today to get all our photos since New Zealand put onto a DVD as we had another memory card scare and lost some photos so we wanted to make sure that they are safe!

Anyways, I digress. The third day didn´t start brilliantly as I was sick due to the undercooked chicken the night before. I noticed and stopped eating it, but obviously not soon enough. I did improve quickly though which was a relief as we were in the jeep a lot the third day to get back. The highlight of the third day was the hot springs in the moring, which really warmed and woke you up! Was lovely and hot (in the water, outside was around 5 degrees!) We then drove around an hour to see this supposedly amazing lake that was the worst we have seen all trip, just brown and half empty! We then had to turn around drive the hour back as we had made the detoir specially!

We then had a long drive back with a few little stops mainly for the break. On the leaving the national park the guards wanted to see our passes that we had paid 15 pounds (!) for on entry. We had left ours at the hostel as we didn´t see any need for them! The gurds demanded we paid again, but we stood our ground and said no (to guys stood there with pistols :s) and eventually they gave in and let us pass when we pointed out (well the girl who spoke english and spanish pointed it out for us!) that they could ring the other office who would know we bought them (you had to write down your passport and name etc when you bought the pass) so we got through! Yaaay! Was quite a long drive back, but along fun 4 x 4 tracks and when we got back we had a couple of hours for some super good pizza and chocolate cake (treat day?)before the long bus that got us here at 6am! Got to our hostel eventually and the guy was a bit confused with our booking. Check in was at 2pm so we had booked the previous night so we could check straight in. This had confused him so I think we aren´t paying for the extra night! Yaay Spent today trying to plan what we want to do here. Going to mountain bike down death road on friday we think and doing the witches market tomorrow but haven´t really got much set in stone atm! Trying to organise our 5 day trek that we want to do in Peru around the England games atm!! Anyway getting a bit peckish now so going to go eat!

We checked into a hostel and a mini rest before going and exploring the town as well as withdrawing 3000 Bolivianos (300 pounds) in cash from a bank as cash machines don´t exist here! Despite the hostel womens best attempt to get us to book a Salt flat tour for double the price than in Uyuni we resisted and instead booked onto some more horse riding as, yes Sophie we have decided to ditch the bus and travel via our four legged companions, who were slightly crazy it turned out! Our day in Tupisa was awesome. It was very hot all day and cloudless. We chilled on our rooftop terrace for a couple of hours sunbathing/reading and listening to music as my phone has decided to work again! The horse riding in the afternoon was great fun. We went out to a big canyoney place that felt a little like mars as whichever way you looked was red rocks… The horses were a bit mad and liked to attack one another if they got to close, Polly´s horse was the worse and proper jumped to try and bite other horses! We got to gallop on the horses as well which was scary but immense and the horses jumped over this stream thingy. Overall a very good afternoon.

Today we had an all day bus to Uyuni which wasn´t the best as they don´t have roads here so it is a very bumpy ride with huge drops down cliffs either side of the road.. Pol shut her eyes for bits of the journey! Took all day to cover 200km so wasn´t exactly speedy travel. We have been very busy since we arrived as there isn´t actually a whole lot to do here apart from the salt flat tours, so after listening to the agents tell us how good their tour is we booked one to start tomorrow morning! We also booked our bus out of here a few hours after we get back! Some fun shopping times followed so we now have super cool hats, gloves, socks and even leg warmers!!

Our trip lasts 3 days and then were straight up to La Paz so will be a short while till the next post, but don´t worry we haven´t died (unless our jeep breaks down and we get stranded…) We´ll keep our fingers crossed xxx