Lima and Valentine's Day - February 14th to 16th

Hello,

Do after a pretty long bus journey to Lima we arrived in the Capital City of Peru. The first night we spent in the Look Hostel a local haunt for party goers but after spending the long, overly hot night in one bed, we decided to move to another hostel called Kokopelli. Whilst in Lima, Gee and I shared a lovely fish themed meal for valentine's day in a local restaurant and also looked round a local popular mall.

Here are a couple of photos!

Lots of love,

Clementine x

My date!

Scallops

Swordfish steak!

Sandboarding (a sport I'm actually good at!!) - 13th of February

Hello,

The day after our beautiful sunset we went sand boarding. This consisted of getting into a dune buggy (with the resort's craziest driver!) and heading into the dunes! I thought i was prepared for the journey...but the driver genuinely seemed crazy! We were speeding over the dunes and not slowing for drops, edges, rocks etc. Gee ended up with bruises all over her neck from the seat belt. Then came the actual boarding - we started by going down the dunes on our stomachs on the board using our feet as breaks which was great fun, although my eyes may beg to differ as getting sand behind contact lenses is not fun! Then we were allow to sand up - it's pretty much like snow boarding but landing on your bum on the sand is a lot more painful! Towards the end of the evening we watched another beautiful sunset before heading back home over the dunes!

Here are some photos!

Lots of Love,

Clementine x

Huacachina - 12th of February!

Hello,

After Arequipa we travelled further North to the town of Huacachina next to Ica - I say town it's more  like a few houses in the desert. It was blazing hot! We spent our first day recovering from our travels by the pool - well I hid in the shade! That evening we decided to hike up the sand dunes to watch the sunset and as advised by our friends we set off at 5pm (still burning heat!) and started to climb up the sand dunes - they were a lot more difficult that we first assumed! I felt as though I was running a marathon! Even Gee struggled! But the view was worth it! As was the run down the dunes as night started to close in!

Lots of Love,

Clementine x

White Water Rafting - 11th of February!

Hi,

So whilst in Arequipa we decided to try some white water rafting - we thought that it would be pretty hardcore and Gee was a little apprehensive but in actual fact it was mostly very gentle! But the photos look cool so... here we go! Some photos of our rafting experience!

Lots of Love,

Clementine x

Colca Canyons and The Condors - 10th of February

Hey,

So whist in Arequipa we decided to visit the Colca Canyons which are the canyons of the Colca River in southern Peru. They are one of Peru's biggest tourist attractions as they are 13,650ft or 4,160m in depth - twice the depth of The Grand Canyon! They are also home to the Andean Condor - a species that is the focus of a worldwide conservation effort. Their wingspans can range up t 3.2m across - so they are huge!

On this trip we also got the opportunity to see many ancient mountainous villages and the thermal pools which lie at the bottom of some of the canyons - though the suffocating heat meant that Gee and I heading for the cooler river rather than into the pools.

Here are some photos!

Lots of Love,

Clementine x

Arequipa, Peru - 9th of February

Hello,

These are some random photos of our first day in Arequipa back in February...

Lots of Love,

Clementine x

Leaving Bolivia - 8th of Feb

Hello,

So on the 8th of February we decided to leave Bolivia and head up the West coast of Peru until we reached Ecuador. The bus journey from La Paz to Arequipa wasn't too bad at all. However, we did have a laugh at the border control between Bolivia and Peru. Our bus essentially dropped us off on one side of the border with no instructions and drove off. We then entered a ramshackle building where there were many queues of people and slowly managed to work out which was the correct one before having our passports stamped and be ushered out of the door. We were then at a loss of what to do but decided that we were obviously supposed to walk across the border which was essentially a crumbling bridge until we reached border control on the Peruvian side where we had to declare ourselves by having our passports stamped again. All very bazaar!

Here are some photos...!

Lots of love,

Clementine x

Bolivian border control...

The Bridge/Crossing.

Peruvian side!