Arequipe, southern Peru

We got to Arequipe late last night, and had a proper lie in this morning, and great breakfast. a total luxury after all our early starts and truck breakfasts! Arequipe is further south in peru, but high up, so we can acclimatise before the inca trail. we head back north on sunday, first to colca canyon to see the condors, then to cuzco, stay there two days, and then we´re off on the trail! my mobile works here, but reception has been sketchy the last few days becuase we were in the nazca desert, first to do a bit of sandboarding and dune buggying at Huacachina, then to see the lines and the famous Chaucilla inca cemetery. the new people on board are settling in, and most seem ok, though there are some issues about who is willing to pull their weight, and who is not! we´re all also wrecked from constant driving, so this stop in Arequipe is good to de-stress a little and lose the others. we still have a bit of pack mentality, for our touristy bits, but at least it´s not 22 people traipsing around getting grumpy! This morning we went to see Juanita, the sacrificed Inca girl, who is in the museum here, and wandered the markets molesting Alpaca blankets and the like. we have to invest in some serious wool for our inca trail camping and beyond - just found out we´re going to be camping in minus 20! erk! and when we get to bolivia, possibly minus 35! just as well we´ve been stuffing ourselves with junk food on the long drives - the fat will be good insulation!

Arequipe has totally changed our minds about Peru - it´s a really beautiful colonial city, and a total improvement on the rest, which has just been guano, guano, guano, rubbish and pollution. really, it was kind of getting to all of us. we´ve had some great things here though - beautiful phosphorus on the sand at punta sal, which we danced through in the dark, stunning desert at huacachina, and amazing drives through it yesterday, particularly at sunset. we had a bit of an adventure though because we were just stopping for lunch when we got stuck in the sand (no joke with a truck like Carmen), and had to spend 3 hours digging her out! it was a long drive day anyway - we left at 7am, and didnt arrive until 8pm last night - but no harm for the bit of team building it gave us!

last night got round to trying cuy (roast guinea pig), not that impressive, though not totally offensive. better with ketchup i thought!

just going to try and upload some photos now - its been hard enough to keep up the diary the last week! it´s so hot here that i think i´ll take the afternoon at the hotel´s swimming pool instead of sitting in a darkened internet caff!