We arrived in Cusco after our 12 hour night bus, which was interesting. We were sat at the back of the bus. An hour into the journey, just nodding off to sleep, we hear the loudest bang ever. The window behind us had been smashed! Kerry thought someone had thrown a rock at the bus.. Jonho thought another car had crashed into us, neither of us were right. The driver had driven the bus into a building. And then just carried on the rest of our journey (stopping about 3 hours later to put some tape on it).

Once we checked into our air bnb and had a siesta, we headed into the main square where we did some ‘balcony hopping’ basically.. we went drinking in a few bars/pubs sat on the balconies overlooking the square for the day. We went for a nice meal later on… We ate Alpaca which was delicious! We then got a taxi back to the air bnb.. the host had given instructions not to lock the bedroom door and also didn’t provide a key for the door. Jonho didn’t listen to him saying this and locked the door. When we got back the host was not in so his Partner rang him and he told us to kick the door down. We attempted this and it didn’t work. So, Jonho ended up on a ladder forcing the bedroom window open.

On the second day, we had breakfast cooked by another guest at the air bnb. His name was Daniel and he was a bit strange.. he went out for a run bare foot, doesn’t own a pair of shoes because in his words ‘they rape his feet’ and tought Jonho how to play a mouth drum. After breakfast we went to San Blas which is a small hipster part of town. We wandered around.. went to a coffee shop before heading back to the air bnb to make our first home cooked meal… spag bol!

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Jonho breaking into the air bnb

We had to get the bus back to Arequipa as there are no buses from Chivay to Cusco. We dropped our bags off at the hostel we stayed at last time and we went for Chifa and didn’t do much because we had seen everything already. So, Chifa is chinese food in Peru and there is pretty much one every street you turn down. We’ve had quite alot of these. Basically you get the biggest plate of chinese food for £3, the peruvians love it… and so do we. Anyway, next stop Cusco.

We arrived in Chivay after the trek and were absolutely shattered. We went for food in the centre and headed straight back to bed and was asleep by 8pm. We woke up nice and early (too early) at 6am to go to the hot springs which didn’t open until 8.30. We went to the thermal baths instead and chilled out with lots of peruvian people. They stared at us alot when taking selfies..

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Day 1- We set off from Cabanaconde at 0700am for a 4 hour downhill hike to the bottom of the Canyon at San Juan. We set off early to avoid the mid-day sun. We were the first ones there so claimed the luxury room with the balcony. We went to the restaurant but didn’t have a choice what we were eating, as everything was made with natural ingredients so everybody had the same. This meant that we had set meal times. The owner really tested our Spanish too (we are trying to learn as we go). For the rest of the day we chilled on the balcony, sunbathed, played cards and had warm beer. We met another couple and a girl in the evening so had drinks with them… There was no lights so everything was lit by candles.

Day 2- We started our hike at 0630am after being fed pancakes and an egg sandwich from the Owner. On our 3 hour hike, both up and down hill we had the dog from San Juan follow us the majority of the way. We named him Benji. Benji nearly got attacked by 2 vicious looking dogs as we walked through another village so Kerry chooed him off, Jonho was not happy about this. About 30 mins towards the end of the hike, Jonho decided to apply some suncream and whilst sat waiting, Kerry got stung by the biggest mosquito ever seen and screamed so loud Jonho thought a Scorpion had attacked her (Arm swelled up twice the size but is okay now). We finally arrived at Sangalle Oasis which was amazing. We had a pool and just chilled out all day.

Day 3 – This was the hardest of them all as our legs were already aching (especially Kerry’s). We started at 0600am and had a 3.5 hour trek from the bottom of the canyon to the top (remember, it is the deepest canyon in the world). There is not much else to say about this day other than….painful….tired…. Currently lay in bed writing this at 6pm. We took a bus to the other end of the canyon (Chivay) to go to the hot springs in the morning and hopefully ease our tired legs.

We arrived in Cabanaconde after our horrible 6 hour bus from Arequipa which didn’t even have a toilet on. We were only here for a few hours so went out for some food. It is a very poor village, no street lights apart from on the main square, which was quite scary (we felt as though we could have been robbed here purely due to how much poverty there was). They had horses instead of cars and the houses had tinned roofs. There wasn’t much to do so we had an early night in prep for our 3 day trek!

So the 12 hour bus was actually quite nice… We slept for almost the whole journey! We arrived in Arequipa and had a wander around the city, when we left our hostel we bumped into a huge celebration of some kind going on in the main square (lots of children singing and dancing), we got some lunch, had a siesta and chilled out at the hostel for the evening.
On the second day we went to Yanahara which is a different area of Arequipa, a bit quieter and less touristy. Then we went to a park nearby and saw an Alpaca. We went out for some drinks in the evening.. It was happy hour and we got 6 drinks for £9, buzzin.
The next day we had a lie in before our day bus to Cabanaconde.

We arrived in Huacachina and thought we would make the most of the weather, so we drank beer & sunbathed! In the evening we walked to the top of the sand dunes and watched the sunset. The pictures look great, however, the trek up there wasn’t so fun haha. Later we went out for some food to a place that was reccomended by someone in Lima.. Jonho had a fish platter which had Peruvian style fish on it (ceviche)… it was raw fish with a marinade of what tasted like the tangiest lime juice ever. Kerry had peruvian beef which was amazing.

The next day we got up early, hired some sandboards and spent a few hours at the sand dunes, sand boarding… it was so much fun!! Our whole bodies were covered with sand and even after a shower we had sand in our ears/ up our nostrils!! We chilled out by the pool until our first 12 hour bus. Next stop Arequipa…

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After our 12 hour flight from Madrid, we arrived in Peru! On the flight they didn’t have any films/entertainment, they gave us 1 meal which was the smallest meal ever & a ‘snack’ of 3 mini party pizzas. Its safe to say we were starving. We got out of the airport, harrassed by lots of taxi men and then finally got on a bus to take us to our hostel. The traffic was absolutely crazy and it took us over 2 hours and there was a  couple of near misses with other cars, which seems to be normal as most cars have big dents and scratches on them. We finally got to the hostel, dumped our bags and went out and got a big kebab!!!

The next day we went on the walking tour with the hostel. They took us to the city centre and showed us the main square and parliament which we found a bit boring and was set to leave the tour until they mentioned food. Next we went to the central market which was pretty manic and was selling all sorts of animals hanging from the counters. Then we went to China town where we got some food.

Later on we went to Baranco which is the town in the next district, on the coast with lots of bars and restaurants. We had a wander around, walked too far, got a bit lost and then finally made our way back.

Our hostel here was nice, we had a pool and the conmunal area was good. Just a shame the weather wasn’t very good and we’ve had our hoodies on for the 2 days so far!

Next stop Huacachina…

This one is for David

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On the first day we went to Mercado San Miguel (indoor market near Plaza Mayor) for some tapas which was pretty fancy… we had caviar & octopus! We explored Madrid before checking into the hostel and later on, went out for seafood Paella and Sangria.

On the second day we went to the park, had a walk around and did our first bit of battering to get Jonho some sunglasses. Then we went for some lunch (tapas, of course). We did some more exploring (mostly around the bars) and discovered Jonho now likea olives… but thats probably just because they come free with every drink you buy.

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