Hi

We stayed longer in arequipa than inteneded. partly to get andy well again and also because of strikes! it wasa chaos, all th teachers were marching about and we had to leave at 3 in th morning to th canyon to escape some of th blockades.

Coming out we manged to meet 9 other travellers wh owere getting a minibus together to sneak out at night. we were all bit nervous got to th first blockade which had fire across th road. after some negoiating and a bribe of about 20 soles in total only about 3 pounds (shows how poor th people are) we got thro. the next blockade we bribed them with afew beers from our stash! we did pretty well as some travellers got stuck in th stirikes for 28 hours!!!

cusco is great, were in a very social hostel camping out th back. Went to a good club and are off to see some inca ruins today. Weve booked out inca trail for wed, its 5 days and is one of th hardest, but looking forward to it alot

hope all is good

love ruth