Hi finally!!!
Hope this finds you all well.

OMG do computers ever suck in this country! We've tried in every city so far and still the blog is not updated. Hopefully this time it worked.

Lima
Only there a couple of days and not all that amazing. At least what we saw. We did walk along the coast and that was beautiful with the sunsetting and everything. Had fun there though walking through a nice area called Barranco.

Pisco
Met some great people there and saw some neat things, such as:
Islas Ballastras
lots of penguins, seals, and cormarands. and oh yeah the guana rock! So many birds, so much poop!
Desert/Cathedral Rock
Absolutely amazing and truly vast. We walked for some time along the desert overlooking the coastline. Stunning.

Nazca
Of course the Nazca Lines. It`s amazing how small a 6-seater plane really is! The lines were a bit hard to see (at least for f) while we flew over, but you can really see them in the pics, which hopefully you can see.

Necropolis
WOW you can actually see open graves and the mummies within. They have done quite a bit of archeological work on the displays, but all the real stuff.

Arequipa
Love this city. Stayed longer than expected but loved every second. We booked a great trek though the Colca Canyon there and it was amazing.

Colca Canyon 4-days/3-nights
This is the second deepest canyon (3200 metres deep) in the world at twice the depth of the Grand Canyon!! and we hiked up to about 3500 metres. En route to our start point we passed the "High Point" called Mirador de los Andes at 4900+ metres. One of the woman we were with actually fainted.
The trek was amazing though, along steep, steep cliffs and quite scary. Scarier still were some of the places we stayed in. OMG they were scary. But only on the inside. Outside the scenary was astounding. The last night we stayed at the "Oasis" right in the bottom of the canyon, with a spring-fed pool and everything.

*** the pics for Cuzco and Machu Picchu are coming soon....

Cuzco
Very touristy, but definietly the entry point to Machu Picchu.
We went on a short horseback ride to see some pretty cool ruins. And then we walked back to town, about an hour away with a stop for lunch in a ruin. Very sweet. We finally booked to get to Machu Picchu - an Inka Jungle bike trek!

The Trek
The 5-hour bus ride up to our bike start point was terrifying. Don`t know how many of you have seen that email about the death-defying roads in Bolivia, but they're like that in parts of Peru too. And to make matters worse (if that's at all possible!) the road was under construction! The tour bus itself took up the whole width of the road, but then it had to squeeze up close to the bare cliff to let the construction trucks pass. Absolutely insane. Hope you can see the loco-ness of it all in the pics. (thank god for gravol.)
The 62km bike ride was awesome - even after the previous morning's horseback ride! we rode downhill most of the way on the same treacherous rode we drove on the bus, but it was way cooler. Once we passed through the cliff-edged part, we were surrounded by the jungle on both sides. Banana trees and coco crops abounding. And the flowers were awesome. true to all expectations, it rained periodically and was exceedingly humid. Amazing.

Santa Maria
Our first stop. Not much to it, probably all of 200 people tops. Ate, showered and slept in the most basic of all accomodations. The next morning we began our nine-hour hike to Santa Teresa. The hike was amazing. Because of recent landslides destroying the bridge we had to take cable cars across the river! Crazy despite all height fears. The first one was manned by two guys on each side, so we basically just sat there. The second one was a bit more self-propelled. The terrain was amazing as we generally followed the river (the Rio Urumbambo,).
LOL one of the so-called "high points" was the hidroelectrical sight. Yep nothing but rushing water and power towers. Ah, but there was a great reward after our nine-hour hike - HOT SPRINGS. They were fabulous and true to their name. Perfect after our long day. Luckily we didn't have to walk to our next stop. We packed in with a whole lotta locals and got into an open "passenger" pick-up truck.

Santa Teresa
Pretty much a repeat of Sta Maria, but it was Friday night so the town was a`hoppin. Sat outside for an hour or so with our guide, Ricardo. Then he went to the "world's smallest disco" or so he says. Heat stroke (poor j) and exhaustion were our excuse for getting to bed early. The next morning we headed on to Aguas Calientes. Because some of our group were sufficiently hung over, instead of hiking we took another open "passenger" pick-up truck to Aguas Calientes.

Aguas Calientes
If it's at all possible this place is so much like Banff: total tourist city and really well taken care of. And muy caro (EXPENSIVE!!). We walked through town and the markets and it`s beautiful. Great dinner of pizza with our group - a great group they are too. lots of fun for sure. But it was early to bed again as we wanted to get a 4:30 start to Machu Picchu.

Macchu Picchu
WOW! Not much more can be said as words and our pictures do not do this justice. We got there just as the clouds were moving in, but after our hour-long lecture on the history of MP, they miraculously lifted, showing us what could easily be the first wonder of the world! We took hundreds of pics and hopefully we`ll be able to show you the best of the lot.
We returned to Cuzco late last night and so far have spent 4 hours in this internet cafe just trying to get this all out. Hopefully it worked this time! :P

Sorry for the lenghth of this blog. Despite that, hopefully it gives you some idea what we've been up to so far.

Future highlights:
Our flight to Iquitos - the Peruvian start of the Amazon and its nearby ungle/rainforest.

More soon, F and J