Olla Everyone!

We safely landed in Beunos Aires on the 1st June after a tedious 15 hour flight. However, we were accompanied by the Fijian, Samoan and Tonga U20 rugby side who were flying to Argentina for the U20 world cup, and chatted to them for most of the way as the Tonga side especially were hilarious. After landing at 3pm in BA we got a short taxi to our hostel in the centre of town and slept for the next 15 hours and made the most of the free breakfast the next morning. We spent the next day exploring the coble streets and soaking up the new culture and language of the city. On the flight over we crammed as much spanish in as we could and just about got by for the first couple of days, with Coombsy picking it up the best. After wondering around the city centre and exploring the shops we went back to the hostel for at 4.30pm where we got involved in a 5 a-side football game against the ´rival´hostel. Unfornately, Jav couldn´t find his Messi skills (clearly still upset by Liverpool´s season) and the realisation that we were unbelievable unfit, we didn´t beat the other team. After the game we went out and got an enormous Argentinian steak with chips and a few local beers chilled out the rest of the evening.

The next day we woke up again for the free breakfast and made our way to the Boca Junior´s stadium. Boca are the Man United of Argentina and unfornutely we were out of season to see a game, so we got a stadium tour instead. In the hour tour we were taken round the pitch, into the dressing room and shown into the museam. The 50000 seater stadium itself is a very courful but very intimidating stadium, with the seats almost touching distance to the pitch and the majority of fans standing. After the touch we wandered round the colourful houses of boca and got a beer before heading back to the hostel. We then grabbed a pizza and napped untill 11pm. We made plans to have a big last night out in BA, and decided to head to a club on the other side of town. The nightlife in BA doesnt start untill 2am, so we didnt get there untill 2.30am and had a great night in a serial club. We got a crazy taxi journey home and got back around 6.30. The next day we checked out very hungover at 11am and chilled out watching movies untill our flight at 5pm.

After arriving at the airport, we caught our 5 hour plane journey to Lima, Peru. After the short, sleepy flight we landed and caught a taxi to our hostel a little out of town. Our original plan was to spend 2 nights in Lima then head to Huacachina, however, the weather was over cast and we were a bit sick of cities, we got the 5 hour bus at midday. Huacachina is an Oasis in the desert, surrounded by some of the largest sand dunes in the world. We arrived there in the dark so didn´t appreciate our surrounding untill the next day. We woke up to prefect blue skies and surrounded by what seemed endless sand. We then sunbathed by the pool all day and at the end of the day we made our way up to the top of one of the largest sand dunes and sat with a beer watching the sunset, which has to be one of the best moments of the trip so far.

The next day we also spent the day sun bathing, but planned to go sand dune boarding in the afernoon! At 4pm we got on one of the 4x4 trucks with our sand boards and raced around the desert going from one dune to the next, throwing our selves down the enormous dunes head first. We gave up on standing up after a couple of goes as it was almost impossibe and nothing ike snow. After 2 hours we headed back just after the sun had gone down and had a really fun night out with Sam (19) and Dickie (26) whom we met by the pool.

We plan to spend 2 more days in Huacuchina before heading to Nazca to see the famous ´Nazca Lines´, then upto Cusco to conqour Machu Piccu!

Love Haydn, Tom, Jav and George C

xx