Birthday Photos and Lake Titticaca

First of all some special photos from Eleanor´s camera at Machu Picchu...

Seeing as we were in an Irish hostel in Arequipa for my birthday (Wild Rover)... it was of course AMAZING. They played loads of Saw doctors, and we unfortunately took advantage of the "shamrock bombs" drinks deals!!



Car bombs....



"Doing the Llama?"

After saying our Goodbyes to the boys we headed towards Bolivia- with a pitstop in Puno to visit Lake Titticaca... The highest navigable lake in the world. On the lake there are lots of floating islands (made from water reeds) called the UROS islands, which we visited on our tour.

They let us dress up in their traditional dress purely to laugh at us Gringas, and we got to go on a boat made solely of reeds.

We have made it to Bolivia where we will be staying only a very short time as we need to get to Buenos Aires in time for Eleanor´s flight home
More updates very soon!!

Machu Picchu and Colca Canyon

Since Shauna´s departure Eleanor and I have had some hardcore exercise!
We met up with our Gap Adventures group in Lima and then headed off to Cusco, to get used to the altitude. On the 17th we started the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. It was a beautiful day and it was a relatively gentle 12 k walk that day. Our porters carrying our tents and food ran past us and set up camp and it was a pretty chilled night´s sleep.

However, the next day was hardcore...with pretty rubbish rainy weather to start with we bumped into a ginger-bearded Dan Carroll and SpongeBob pyjama clad Tom Sumner. Pretty awkward when everyone in our group realised we knew them. From there we trekked 6k uphill to Dead Womans Pass...where it snowed at the top! And then 4 km downhill on some killer steps.

The 3rd day again was a killer having to walk 16km including 7km of "gringo-killer" steps down to the last night´s camp.

On the final day we were woken up at 3 am to get in the queue for the gate-hoping to be first we were only beaten by Dan and Sumner!! We made it up to Machu Picchu in about 2 hours and it was absolutely spectacular.

From Cusco we all moved onto Arequipa. Unfortunately I think my body was not quite prepared for the Inca Trail and so was a bit ill for a couple of days but today we went to the Colca Canyon- the 2nd deepest canyon in the world. It was incredible and we watched Condors fly less than 2 metres away from us.

Its our last night altogether tonight...plus my birthday tomorrow so PARTY PARTYYYY

White water rafting in Banos and onto Peru.

 So, on our 3rd day in Banos we manned up and went white water rafting!! We had THE coolest guide called Eduardo, and while everyone else's raft was really civilised and doing some strict army style rowing we were made to do some crazy stuff. Keelin was made to sit on the very front of the raft going through loads of rapids which proved quite difficult and ended spending most of the time on the floor of the raft!! Eduardo made the raft do a "wheelie" and played titanic with Shauna. Oh...Keelin is looking a bit orange, unfortunately NOT a sudden change in her ability to tan but a result of "monkey poo" being spread on her face.
Eleanor somehow managed to escape her bad luck that day and it was both Gavs that fell in the river. Shauna's was pretty slow and to be honest I sort of just let her fall in!! But it seriously came back to bite me on the bum when going through the most massive rapids Keelin went man overboard and had to do my best not to swallow litres of water.

Keelin unable to sit on the front (look at Shauna's face!!!!!!!)

TITANIC

Shauna being rescued!!

WHEELIE!!

From Banos we did a mammoth journey that involved 4 buses, about 40 hours in total. and finally arrived in Lima, the capital of Peru. Its been a fairly chilled couple of days but we have had a wicked time in our hostel, making new friends and playing drinking games and pub quizes, obviously gavs on tour won!!

Today was Shauna's last day and after making the most of the food festival we rushed back for her to pack and head off to the airport, her flight is literally due to take off this minute so from me and Eleanor we'd like to say we hope you have an awesome freshers week, you'll be absolutely fine...but maybe leave the playsuit at home for a couple of weeks...??? Birmingham, I hope you're ready.