We set off from our hostel in Huacachina at 5pm (our bus being at 6pm and we wanted to get there early). Our first little qualm we had was when our taxi driver asked us which bus company and when we told him "Cial" he merely laughed in response......okayyyyy......The bus compound (and I mean compound - they lock the gates inbetween people entering and leaving) was in Ica, the nereby town and it didnt take long to get there so we arrived at 5.25ish. The woman in the ticket office told us our bus wouldnt arrive until 7.30 d{oh! and there{s us being all early.

Turns out, 3 buses came and went and ours didnt arrive until 8pm. The only view we had was of the toilets and entertainment by way of a french girl clearly not looking at the signs and going into the mens bathroom....closely followed by a man and her coming out 5 mins later looking quite shifty and embarressed hehe.

So we set of on our bus and what a bus it was....the seats were decent-ish enough, air con didnt work, and we were given what I think was once a ham sandwich wrapped up in cling-film and was now looking more like a dead animal wrapped up in clingfilm (skipped that delight). The bus was horrific. The journey was long, slow, windy and bumpy. We managed to sleep a little during the start of the trip but at about 5am illness struck and we were really really travel sick. I spent a good part of 3 hours next to the toilet and Tom felt so sick he couldn{t move. It was one of those times you had to keep thinking "this is worth it, this is worth it". We had a couple of stops in the daytime - one was at a cool little building where Peruvian women were baking corn on the cob on a huge hand-made wok. Tom bought some mangoes, which was fun to watch because one of the ladies seem to find him really interesting/entertaining (in a nice way).

The sceneery was absolutely amazing, we were driving through mountains, across raging rivers, precarious bridges and also through tiny little villages (on the road-side and built into the mountain, seemingly in the middle of no-where). SO 19 hours later we finally see Cuzo and man that was a happy sight. Its a fabulous looking city sprawled into the basin between surrounding mountains.

The next four days consisted of me being really quite ill (on the 4th day when I woke up crying, Tom went to the chemist for me and used Google translate with the woman to get me some drugs haha, wonder of technology and a plus of having a cracking boyfriend - he also bought me some soup too, you{know, cuz thats what ill people eat). However, it was intersperced with trips to the market and bartering with locals, exploring and getting used to altitude.

Cuzco itself is very pretty and has lots of winding streets full of markets and street stalls - much of it hasn{t changed in centuries. There are millions of touts "paintings sir? paintings? only one sole, you know my name Michealangelo?" (to which I replied - Mucho Gusto Michaelangelo, Me llamo Mandonna, although my singing is probably better than Madonna{s I decided not to give him a sample as he laughed and walked off). You also get hounded for everything under the sun, massages, beauty treatments, trips, food, clothes, taxi{s and Tom seems to attract people trying to sell him weed or cocaine!! As long as you are polite and say No everyone accepts it (apart from one annoying boy trying to sell us Poncho{s, I didn{t know the Spanish for "b***** off").

The last two days have been our hightlight so far - MACHU PITCHU!!!

It really is as amazing as everyone says. So, we{re waiting outside the travel place for the bus to arrive and we{re sent off around the corner with an entire Chillian family (no english people at all but the Chillan mother still looked after us which was very sweet). Our bus arrives at Ollytaytambo where we buy afew biscuits and board the "Peru Rail" train. No probs. We arrive at Agus Callientas and potter off to our hostel, which turned out to be lovely - private double room with hot shower and breakfast in the morning. Score.

We explored A.Callientas - it{s such a small town and only really used for Machu Pitchu. It{s got a crazy river running through it and bridges throughout the length of the town. It{s comprised of hostels, hotels, a big craft market, resturants, and erm...more resturants. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day - we had high hopes for good weather the following day.

5am 12th of Feb.....torrential rain. Not even run-through-the-rain-screaming rain. This was soaked-to-your-bones rain. After getting the bus up to the Machu Pitchu site (so glad we did), our tour started at 7.30am. We had our rain jackets but hadn{t bought a poncho so safe to say we looked like someone had chucked a bucket of water over us. The tour was quite grim and we couldn{t even see Machu Pitchu because it was raining so much. Spirits were not high. (include stupid Americans "like, oh my god, like, I wouldn{t mind the rain but I wish this fog would go away".......love, those are the rainclouds. However, I did let this guy off because he sounded like Kermit the Frog)

However, at 10.30ish we decided to climb Wynapitchu - the neighbouring mountain. It was amazing! Crazy climb and scary in some places but absolutley spectacular. Plus by the time we reached the top the rainclouds disappeared leaving blue skys and lovely hot sun. We even put on suncream! (definately a good idea - Kermit the frog{s friend had a bright pink face by the time we finished the day). I was slower than Tom at treking and at one point on the way down Tom thought I was behind him so he turned around with gusto exclaiming "In your face poncho people!!!".....yea it wasn{t me behind him but a surprised little chinese woman hahahahahahaha.

We spent the rest of the day walking around sunny machu pitchu, pretending to be Inca{s and taking LOADS of photo{s. It was fab.

When we got the bus back down we grabbed something cheap and nice to eat, had one last saunter around the market (Tom got a rambo headthing and I got a lovely ring), we went to the station to catch the train home.

Now, the station at Machy Pitchu is really small and there seemed to be a lot of people milling around but we didnt think anything of it and qued up at 6.15 like polite english people waiting for our train to leave at 6.45. Well, after 20 mins of waiting and lots and lots of people crowding around the doors we knew there was something up. A spanish announcement stated something that made the crowd boo, hiss and whistle. We started asking around and it turned out a land-slide had blocked the path of the trains and there were people there who{d been waiting since 2pm. Crap. People were trying to run through the gates and get onto the one train somehow. The coach that held Peruvians had faces squished up againist the window! Noone knew what was going on and noone was handing out information.......

Anyway, we were lucky and got on a train at 7.15! Everyone on the train was tired and just wanted to get home. Unfortunately one American liked the sound of his own voice and decided to project to the whole coach the much of his life story to the entire coach - I wish someone had told him where Thailand was - he kept saying it was next to Japan.

Once off the other end, back in Ollytaytambo, we couldn{t find our bus back. oh man. However, the dad from the Chilean family was waiting for us at the enterence to guide us to where we needed to be! So sweet, he didn{t have to do that. He held up his arm in the crowd so we could follow him (very helpful as he was quite short). We were all then lead to minibuses where the Peruvian drivers tried to divide us up........not their best at organisational skills I must say. We were put on one bus then hauled off and other another - this one smelled, had snoring people and Tom was squised next to a fat man and I next to a Peruvian lady who didn{t have a seat and so nearly slept on my lap the whole way back. This driver was mental - it was dark and raining hard but that didnt stop him from overtaking at blind bends and driving on the wrong side of the road. Mental.

So we finally got back to Cuzco and into our hotel at about 12.30am. What an adventure.

We{re chilling out today and getting the bus to arequipa tomorrow night.

As always, miss you and love you all xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx