hannah

Well, despite all previous plans, we've found ourselves in Bolivia! Started In Copa, Copacobaaaanaaaa do do do do do do do do do do (get it, the song?) anyway, great place on Lake titicaca. We climbed a hill to watch the most spectacular sunset over the lake, looked as though everything was on fire. We then waited outside the quite moorish (not hungry, north african) cathedral for a fiesta that a nearby town had decided to celebrate in this town. Great to see huge wooden frames covered in fireworks, lit by a man with a cigarette in his mouth literally one metre from the crowd. I had bits of gunpowder or something landing in my hair! Crazy! I did however get to drink some yummy alcoholic egg nog kind of drink cooked by a lady on the street yum!Unfortunately we cant stay anywhere long as this is just a thoroughfare on the way to northern Chile, so moving on. We're now in La Paz, a huge, crazy, great city surrounded by the Andes. We're in a hostel near the witches market where they sell Llama foetuses among other things...mmmmm! Great shopping here, am struggling to fit it all in. We are off toward the Uyuni salt flats tomorrow for a few days, so speak from northern chile.
love to all, Hannah

Hello all,
Back from the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu. It was absolutely fantastic, a lovely group of 11 people, not to mention the 14 porters, one cook, his wife, and two guides! These days you have to do the trail with a tour, as it is sooo touristy. The porters however outnumbered the 'hikers', each of them running half the time carrying up to 35kg. Felt wierd walking along the track and having to stop because there was just too many damn people. Despite that, once I learnt to deal with this fact, the trail was unbelievably beautiful and interesting. The scenery over the 3 days walk was so impressive and there were archaelogical sites all along which provided a welcome break from the really difficult walking. I took an appropriate number of photos to match the great time I had. Come the final morning, we all got up at 340 in the morning, packed up, breakfasted (fruit salad and pancakes! I love the walking here!) and walked the 45 minutes to the sun gate to watch the sunrise over Machu Picchu. I was the first person there out of hundreds which nearly killed me, but was worth it for the brief moment I had to look over the city in peace. Cool! The ruins themselves were amazing, such a beautiful setting. Spent hours wandering round and climbing the peaks nearby, getting away from the sweaty old europeans! Anyway, for some reason I always get onto the internet when I need to go to the loo, so must go. Hope all are well and will write again soon. Off to Lake Titicaca tomorrow...
Love Hannah

Anyone hungry!
We're in cusco at the moment, the most beautiful but very tourist town. The main square looks like somewhere in Germany, and the view from our hostel, over the rooftops of Cusco, reminds me of Italy. We've spent the last few days acclimatising before the Inca Trail, doing walks to less visited Inca ruins around the place. All pretty amazing and the weather has been fantastic to boot. Im actually getting a tan, however apparently the locals dont think so, often picking me out in order to have photos taken with the white giant with boy hair! The other day I had a whole class of school children line up to kiss me on the cheek as I sat on a park bench. Anyway, we walk to Macchu Picchu tomorrow, which takes 4 days. Cant wait. So there'll be news next week.
Love to all
Hannah

Random Strange Food Brand Labels in South America:
Fanny Tuna
Hornimans Tea
Plop Lollipops
Bon Bon Bum Lollipops
Choco Bum Biscuits
Bimbo Bicuits and Bread
Snob Jam

Heya,
Im in Lima at the moment, a massive city most travellers try and avoid because of muggings and what not. I nevertheless ventured into this mammoth place and found a pretty amazing city, once beatiful and still grand, however quite run down. The place did make me hold my bag that much tighter but we were fine and Im gald to have seen it, you cant miss these places. We are here after a trip further south to Pisco (Angie - home of the Pisco Sour!) where we went out on a speed boat to a rocky island. Here there are heaps of Sea Lions and penguins and boobies and bird poo, which is the main industry on the island exported as fertiliser. Was good to head here, particularly because we missed the Galapagos Islands. After Pisco we headed to ica to meet the rest of our travelling group. We stayed in an oasis - literally! Huge Sand dunes surrounding a little Laguna at which theyve built a little tourist town for us to really appreciate this natural wonder! The water is now brown and filled with children and paddle boats! Our hostel however, backed onto a massive sand dune which took half an hour to climb. Two steps forward and one step back! Well worth the effort though to see the most spectacular sunset over a very Laurence of Arabia style view of the desert. The following day we went sand boarding, which I looked forward to but got very excited about when I saw our transport was a massive 12 man dune buggy. In we hopped and absolutely roared off over the mountain like dunes to our destination, being a 'small' slope for us to begin on...hmmmm, this slope would have freaked me out on skis! Off we went though, was heaps of fun and didnt hurt too much when I stacked! We gradually went on to steeper and bigger slopes which was ace, the best bit being we didnt have to walk back up the hill as we all jumped into the buggy when we reached the bottom. The ride on the buggy was amazing, the vehicle reaching about 80km on the flats, but then going straight up sand walls and straight down... what a rush! After about 6 runs of boarding, we were taken to watch the sunset, one of the greatest Ive ever seen. Felt like I was in africa or something, the sun was sooo big and red. We then returned to the hostel, not before convincing our driver to do another run of one of the biggest dunes, on which he went up so fast that the whole buggy flew into the air...sooo cool.
So back to Lima in a regular old bus, and we head to Cusco tomorrow to start the Inca trail. Cant wait.
Hope everyone is well wherever you are
Take care
Love Hannah