After an afternoon of doing nothing we pitched up at our sister hotel which is conveniently situated outside where the bus stops, at around 10pm. We were greeted by the stupidly enthusiastic Freddy, who has taught himself English in 8 months. He learns most from the guests who stay at the hostel and has picked up some great phrases, namely ´supercalifragilisticexbealidocious´, ´easy peesy lemon squeezy´and ´I´m hank Marvin...´ We helped with a few choice Manc phrases, i.e. ´Alright our kid´ and ´I´m gonna brain yer´ amongst others.

Our bus arrived a whole ten minutes late, just after midnight, and we were asleep a full ten minutes later...and pretty much slept through til 8am when we arrived in Arequipa. The first thing we noticed was the altitude, it may only be 2,500m here (about 8,000 feet) but for unfit buggers like me it is fun even walking down a street. Obviosuly Macchu Picchu and the rest are even higher so we´re spending a couple of days here just adjusting to the height before we head out on any trips. The current plan (and, as always this is subject to a ridiculous amount of change) is to sepnd tomorrow here, the next 2 days doing the Colca Canyon tour, and then head to Puno for Lake Titicaca for a few days. We should be in Cusco this time next week to allow us to spend a few days doing (hopefully) 2 of the 4 days of the Inca trail, and a jungle tour out of Puerto Maldonado....

Arequipa looks great fun, some nice restaurants, great buildings and enough to keep us occupied for a day or two. Our hotel is great, hell they´ve got cable and we´ve just watched a film in English, and although it was pretty bad (Sliding Doors) it was nice to understand something on telly. We also watched a bit of Brasil Vs Peru (1-1) in a bar and the locals were really mad for it - great!