Catastrophe!

So the much awaited string of disasters has at long last happened, and not a moment to soon to brighten up this blog. Things started going downhill during our 15 (more like 17) hour so called luxury coach journey to Cusco. The main problem being that as seems to be the case in all buses temperature control was schizophrenic to say the least, plunging us into icicle inducing sub zero temperatures during the night, only to awaken us into a sweaty sauna and dripping wet windows and seats. Things were not helped by a dominatrix style attendant who insisted on blaring peuvian "music" into our ears from around 7am without letup.

However eventually we got into Cusco and it was by far the most attractive place i´ve seen in peru so far. Both Lima and Pisco were in my humble opinion a bit of a hole, so the old architecture and little cobbled streets of cusco made a welcome change.

Now for the disaster, upon arriving I left the hostel to withdraw money at an ATM, long story short, after 2 incorrect tries and contacting home to check exactly what the pin for my new card was, i was left with two possible correct answers, turns out i choose the wrong one and the ATM dutifully swallowed my card. I then returned to the hostel, to find all my friends had left, taking with them the key to our room. 2-3 desolate hours later, after discovering my phone was as useful to me as a dog turd, and begining to freeze in my t-shirt i was left sitting in the courtyard of the hostel with the owner telling me there was no way to get back into my room without the key. Eventually Aaron arrived back, and i made it into the warm comfort of a room!

Since then things have been on the up, and the hostel owner has been slightly less moody towards me. We are headed off on a 4 day trek to Machu Pichu tomorrow morning, with the first day on mountain bikes. So that should be a bit of an adventure.

I´ll try and get a few pictures or possibly a video up sometime soon, hope everyone is enjoying the blog, the hostel owner keeps trying to throw me off the computer so i better get going.

lots of love to everyone,

Harry

Hello followers!

Im in the sunny oasis of Huacachina at the moment. We´ve spent the last few days meandering down south from Lima, although tonight we have a gruelling 16 hour overnight coach ride to cusco, from which we start our attack on the one and only Machu Pichu.

Last night we stayed in pisco which had been hit by an earthquake a few years ago and really doesn´t seem to have recovered yet, plenty of half-built, half fallen down brick buildings. We did however get to see some penguins and sea lions on local islands "a poor-man´s galapagos"

Sorry there hasn´t been that much to write about, although im sure our bus trip this evening will be suitably horrific. We did have a minibus we were in yesterday nearly catch fire, when steam started bellowing out of it in the middle of a highway.

I think we will probably be in cusco/machu pichu for about 5 days, before we head off to Lake Titicaca.

Hope london is suitably muggy,

lots of love to everyone

Harry

So its 6am, feeling a bit jet-lagged.. blog time.

The 11 hour flight over was pretty unventful, neither Iberia´s very questionable decision to classify a film with zac efron in it as entertainment, or the man across the isle sitting with a dog on his lap, helped to make the hours fly by.

An early lucky break for two of our travellers (Hanbin and Mo) who were given an upgrade to business at check in, threw the rest of the group into chaos, with an insistant demand that if they had that, so should we. A demoralising 4 hour campaign later, and we boarded the flight in madrid, our understanding of the spanish of no "non" vastly improved and our dignity in tatters.

Anyway, we are now in Lima, Peru, the sun is just about to rise, and we havent been mugged yet so things are looking up. We´re heading off down south to pisco today, then wending our way to cusco to see macho pichu, with a few 15 hour bus journeys inbetween.

will check in later, and prehaps give a video upload a go.

Arrived

Just a very quick message to say i´ve arrived.

no energy for wit

off to eat

Pre-trip build up

So while the night before a 4am start, and a transatlantic flight is probably not the best time to begin a blog, i feel in the mood to write to you all, sitting with baited breath to read about my every move.

I had planned on doing a video blog, or vlog as everyone loves to call it, but after trying to upload a 30 second video clip today and finding it took me about 30 mins to load, im a bit dubious. Hopefully my written word will suffice for the timebeing (although i already know my spelling won't).

So where am i going? The grand idea behind this trip is to fly to lima Peru, spend 8 weeks meandering through peru, bolivia, possibly brazil, and argentina before flying back from santiago chile.

I'll try to steer my blog out of the mundane and keep my posts short, sweet and hilarious, so to that end i shall sign off now. I hope someone out there reads this at somepoint, and if you do any comments or emails will be greatly appreciated.

Much love to you all, and fingers crossed something goes disastrously wrong tomorrow so that i have some good material for my next post