I realise that the last blog i left everyone was from Arequipa in Peru and so i thought it might be time to fill you in on the mountain of things ive been doing- Ill be brief.

When i left Arequipa i headed north and my first stop was huacachina, an oasis on the edge of ICA. When i say Oasis i mean a tiny little lake|pond that is surrounded by some backpackers and restaurants and massive sand dunes as far as the eye can see. Its quite beautiful. i spent only a few days there, swimming and sandboarding in the dunes. There was no drinking done as it was elections for major and when there are elections, drinking and selling alcohol is illegal the day before and the day of. Apparently they want the nation sober when it comes time to vote.

From there I moved to Lima. I stayed working in a hostel there for two weeks. But i didn't like it very much. Lima is a beautiful city with buildings that are reported to match many of those in Europe. Miraflores and Baranco which are on the coasts edge of the city are in my opinion even more beautiful with garden walkways and parks along the cliff looking out towards the ocean from where you watch beautiful sunsets and the shadows of later afternoon surfer. The only issue with Lima is the lack of sun. Air from the ocean mixing with air from the mountain creates an overcast setting ALL THE TIME. Although this allowed for the beautiful sunsets. I didn't do a whole lot in Lima, saw central, catacombs and a very old monastery and a beautiful fountain park in central. For the size of Lima it was a very easy bus system to get around in and i mastered the bus system within days...If it has a blue strip it goes to Central and on hand out will slow it down sufficiently to jump on...with the help of a few friendly men I never missed one.

When i left Lima, i went to Cusco with two australian guys id met and spent a week with in Lima.

Cusco is a beautiful city with cobbled streets and buildings made of stone, churches that look ancient and then a whole s*** load of people selling you paintings, massages, jewellery, marijana, and THEN a s***load of tourists. This kind of ruined the beauty of the city for me. I did have some photos but accidently deleted them making space for others. Cusco is a lot smaller than the other cities - or maybe it just had that feel - but for its smaller size, the night life was doubled. Every night there was a club full of people. Locals trying to pick up tourists and tourists trying to pick up Coke. Because of the party scene alot of tourists tend to get stuck there. I was happy to get out. For me it has lost any authenticity by pandering to a tourists many wants.

I decided to do Machu Pichu myself. There are quite a few options. The official 'inka trail' you have to book months and months in advance and is very expensive...the government heavily taxes that trail and it is illegal to walk it without a guide. You can also do the jungle trail in which you ride a bike a bit, raft down a river and walk a bit but it ended up being about $200 AUS. Its relatively simple to do it by yourself and cheaper.... There are villages in the jungle along the way that you can stop at and walk between so i did it that way. I caught a 'taxi' to the first village Santa Maria which happened to have an aniversary that night and so there was a party and soccer matches between all the villages in the province. The next day i caught another 'taxi' to the next town santa tereasa and from there walked to the next village - Hydro Electrica - with a german couple... and on the same day walked to Aqua Calientes. Agua Calientes (hot water) is at the base of the mountain where you´ll find Machu Picchu and the walk to there from Hydro Electrica follows a path along the river surrounded by huge deep green mountains. Agua Calientes is beautiful but, like Cusco, lives for tourists now and so is very much spoiled. I walked up to Machu picchu the next morning, I walked the stairs which was really f***ing hard because the mountain was really f***ing big. So steep stairs for an hour and ah half (the man at the bottom in true peruvian style completely under exaggerated the time up at 40 mins...maybe i looked superfit)...it sucked but was worth it. That afternoon i walked part of the way back but was exhausted so stayed at what i think was a spare room in someones home rented out to people heading to MP in Santa Tereasa and the next day managed to get a free lift back to Cusco. (It certainly has its advantages being tall and white) My legs were sore for days. I had a joint at the top of machu picchu though and so forgot to get a photo of myself there. Whoops! everyone.

NEXT...from Cusco i went to Puno and Lake titcaca which is on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It was just a brief stop off to break up the journey to La Paz. I took a little boat to see the floating Islands which were beautiful....a very simple life...man made islands out of reeds on a beautiful lake, eating fish and birds and taking boats to visit your neighbours on their island. Bliss. The women all wore traditional dress or as i like to say the skirts of many colours and they were all huge! Apparently swimming isnt a popular sport amongst them haha. Puno was not the prettiest of towns considering it was on the edge of a beautiful HUGE lake. But I was not suprised. Funnily enough at night the streets were roaming with hundreds of students, so much so that I could get around. It was an annual celebration and the next day I was lucky enough to watch a marching competition that involved all kinds of people from the town, music and even lamas. They take their marching very seriously and they were quite good as far as my marching knowledge goes.