Trip, trip, trip to Peru!

Welcome to 2011 everyone! I am not going to ask you how your New Year was as I am SURE it was fantastic,fab but probably vague experience. So I will simply assume you all had a great long week of celebrations - but feel free to email and indulge me with your escapades if you feel the urge to share.

I have finally edited my Peru photos! Yaaaaaay! I spend so many long hours editing photos every week that I always neglect my own! So this is the start of my 2010 personal work featured on this blog. 

Peru was absolutely amazing! Loved it! The people, the food, the sights. An added bonus that my sister speaks fluent Spanish so I didn't have the usual problem of umming and ahhhing and pointing... I simply said "Sis, can you ask how much that is?"or "Can you ask if it comes in blue?" I did ALOT of shopping! I was rather scared of getting stopped by customs for smuggling blankets. Nine may be simply too many for any girl, but they were just SO pretty!!! And I wanted one in every colour!

I went to Peru to not only take photos, explore ( and shop) but to also experience the super duper Machu Picchu trek. My sister (who LOVES the gym) was rather concerned about my fitness ability (as I HATE the gym) and I was equally concerned about the older sister glare when I failed... You know the one! But, despite my miserable attempt at training by simply walking the Angel escalator three times and an ill executed Step class that left me with a dodgy knee... I did extremely well!!! Plus I had a chest infection the whole trip so deserved an extra gold star for that! And choosing to carry all my photographic equipment instead of warm clothing was a decision I didn't regret! Well... I did! But I don't now!

After the four days of walking MANIA, I was relieved but also disappointed to finally reach Machu Picchu. Not only because it meant that fantastic part of my trip was over, but also because there were loads and LOADS of day trippers at Machu Picchu. It was more like a day at Kew Gardens. The souvenir shop and restaurant at the entrance also failed to contribute to the sacred, hidden world we'd walked all that way to see...











If I could only give one... no two... no THREE tips for Peru... It would be to see Puno (shoppppping), the Uros floating reed islands on Lake Titicaca and Hunacachina - an oasis surrounded by sand dunes. In fact, I have uploaded a video of me going down the dunes on a snowboard - prepare to be astonished at my coolness...

If you managed to watch the whole of that, well done! As it is LONG! 

Yes I am COOL!!! All the kids will be doing it this time next year. Thankfully my sister didn't film the following attempt with a group of tourists standing at the top and laughing at me. Anything to entertain...

Now there are far too many photos to put on here (although I will try...) but I have uploaded my favourites from the trip to my personal website: HERE!