papa john

we are now in lima, flew here yesterday from cuzco in the morning. lima is a bit of a dive, but we are only here for the day so going to do some museums and churches etc.

we are now just 2 - me and abi, we delivered laura to the airport this morning at 430am for her flight home via atlanta. the group has dispersed and people have either gone home or are staying in lima for a few more days, so it´s quite sad and strange. i miss having a tour guide, i always like a bit of guidance. i think we´ll be used to it in a few more days but it´s quite a strange feeling. we are missing laura a lot already, hopefully we´ll be able to cope with just each other, we´ve always got our ipods after all. to make ourselves feel better we had a burger king meal and papa john´s pizza yesterday. both were great. and tonight we will go to see batman. we found a mall down by the sea. the sea, incidentally is rather strange and depressing, not very blue, quite misty and lots of waves, and a black dirty beach. it´s different weather here, bit cold but humid at the same time. sorry, my disorientation has made me spiral into boring weather chat....

so our last night in cuzco was great fun, we went to the fallen angel (remember it sarah/siobhan/harriet?), then to a bar called roots, where we danced like idiots, then to a club called mama afrika (ditto sarah/siobhan/harriet), where we stayed for most of the night. suffered slightly the next day, but it was worth the fun that was had. i really miss cuzco and am planning on going back there after my mexico course, i´ve been investigating what volunteer work there is, and there are lots of teaching/general helping out jobs at either schools or day centres for the really underprivileged children, so i think i will do something like that.

for the sake of posterity i thought i should write who our group has been for the last 26 days or so, and write one interesting sentence about them all. so, the first group from buenos aires to la paz was:

me: also known as questions, due to the amount of questions i like to ask. potentially going to end up in prison for trying to steal cute peruvian children. so far, has lost: pair of glasses, nice pen, necklace (lost on same day as purchase - impressive).
laura: we wanted to call her inti which means the sun, but this might be asking for trouble as the sun god might have struck us down. laura discovered she is allergic to horses on this trip, but would like to carry on horse riding in england, perhaps wearing a mask. left her bank card in 2 different cash machines, but got it back each time. so far, has lost: baseball cap on a bus, and kept thinking she´d lost lots of other things but then found them again. did you ever find your buff inti?? buena suerte laurita for returning to work on monday, we will be thinking about you and your classroom and your cats marley and jack. don´t forget us, and i think you should try speaking to everyone in huddersfield in spanish from now on. don´t forget to try out the quechua on your class.
abi: also known as packamama, as she likes to unpack and repack her bag constantly whenever we arrive somewhere. (this is a pun, as pachamama is the andean mother earth god, it made us giggle a lot). also known as mackenzie minute, as we realised her idea of getting ready quickly is quite at odds with ours - a mackenzie minute lasts approximately 10 normal minutes. has a bad reaction to mosquite bites and currently has a deformed wrist and arm from these. has lost so far: flip flops in rio, some makeup (but still looks beautiful ha ha), sometimes the will to live from hanging out with me and laura for too long.
jen: previously mentioned for calling someone a bogey. speaks spanish, french and german, is starting a pgce when she gets home.
charlotte: jen´s friend. also speaks spanish, french, german and is also going to do a pgce.
kate: from birmingham, is a primary school teacher, i danced tango with her. she took lots of photos, and is generally bonkers (in a nice way).
sophie: went to the toilet a lot, was sick after eating a steak and a toblerone one night, is now back in england and works for microsoft.
ursula: from germany, works in paris. juan called her barbara streisland as she had curly hair and looked a bit like her.
carol: from germany as well. abi mistook her for an english person at first as she is so fluent.
aswin: married to carol. has a very good camera. his horse went off in strange directions when we were horse riding, but he said he was used to it being married to carol.
hanno: carol´s brother. likes drinking flamboyant cocktails. is a psychologist so i asked him about my dream i´d had about finding my own death certificate, he said it was a good dream. i wasn´t convinced.
natalie: from french canada, a teacher. swam in the hot springs with me while i did handstands.
marie: from french canada, also a teacher. also swam in the hot springs.
mark: works at linklaters, which is opposite where i used to work - he was there the day the old fire station burnt down so we discussed that. is moving to dubai. he didn´t like my taste in music driving across the salt flats
justine: also works at linklaters, is also moving to dubai, with mark. had a similar eye problem to me, which is interesting as i have not met anyone else with this.
juan: our leader for the trip, from patagonia. likes lady in red by chris de burgh, and wanted to know if listening to this song would be seductive for us english people the same way it is for him apparently. is going to open up his own hostel in patagonia soon. i would ask him for a job but i don´t think he´d want to employ me since i spent most of the time practising my spanish insults on him. was a really good leader, especially on the burger king and cinema day.

in la paz, sophie, mark, justine, natalie, marie and ursula left us. and we got 3 new people, who were:
corey: from canada. likes the film napoleon dynamite.
hui: also from canada. had a good camera, which was also waterproof. likes asking questions, which is a quality i appreciate.
dena: from california and iran. bought lots of peruvian clothing, including stripy trousers. has a masters in brain technology.
rod: our leader. he owns 121 hats apparently, 17 of them came on the trip with us and to our joy we discovered one of them was pink on day 2. he´s from lima and was previously a teacher. he has done the inca trail 12 times, once without porters so carried everything himself. was a really nice leader to have, and knew a lot of good places to go eating and drinking.

and on our inca trail (which was all of us except dena, hui and corey) we had 4 others who were:
luke: on a gap year before starting university at cambridge to do natural sciences. asked him my question about the moon, but he wasn´t sure. climbed wayna picchu with me. liked garlic bread and ate it all one night.
andy: on a gap year before going to study music. had some chat about thomas tallis with him, nice to find someone who appreciates early music whilst on the inca trail. was reading captain corelli´s mandolin (not mandarin, that´s a type of orange lucy). did a really nice speech to our leaders on the last day. (not in spanish).
wilfred: from germany but lives in australia. told me i talked too much and that´s why i was always the last person to finish their dinner. was 52 but looked younger.
marie lou: from mauritius but lives in london in highgate. and is a teacher. was very brave going downhills on inca trail as had a bit of a phobia. well done marie lou!
alex: a leader, from cuzco. was very handsome and knowledgeable. had nice fluffy soft hair which we all stroked. was good at football. mentioned hiram bingham (the explorer who discovered machu picchu) 28 times whilst telling us about machu picchu, thus i won the bet on how many times he would be mentioned. we told him he was a fat condor, and that he reminded us of bart simpson. if you´re reading this alex, sorry, obviously this was a joke.
victor raul: another leader, also from cuzco. was also good at football, and knew lots of stories about things, including macchus, who are inca trail bad spirits who come and impregnate you in your tent at night. i don´t think this happened to any of us, but will keep you updated. he had other stories about some other spirits called pistacos, but wouldn´t tell us the stories, perhaps they were too scary. he gave us a lovely massage on day 2. was very caring and sweet and carried charlotte´s bag when she was struggling. we took a photo of him that made him look like a giant. he gave us some rum one night when we were playing cards.
eveylene: another leader, also from cuzco. had very nice long hair. was very good at walking fast. used to work in a hotel and has only recently started doing the inca trail tours. she was very uplifting and positive to us all, and also a very good footballer.

so, that´s that, i know the parents reading this like to know details like this, so i hope that is vaguely interesting for you all. to any of the people mentioned above, if you feel you have been misrepresented here, please contact my lawyers (mark and justine, help!).

we´re off to learn about MORE inca history and look at churches and potentially eat more fast food (if abi allows it). bye for now, next time will be from guatemala, i think there are storms there at the moment, but we have booked a nice hostel with pancakes at breakfast and a games room, so will shelter in that if necessary.

hope everyone is well in england which seems very far away right now. xx