And that's a wrap

And so our journey comes to an end. Many stories remain untold in this forum - in the last couple of weeks alone we've ridden horses in Butch and Sundance territory, driven across a salt plain that covers 1200 square km, felt the heat of geysers in the freezing cold of an early Bolivian morning and bathed in hot springs surrounded by volcanoes. But we can bore you with all that next time we see you.
We had a simple plan for the last few days - lounge around a pool in the kind of hotel we would never normally allow ourselves, soaking up our last few rays of sun and reflecting on all we've seen and done. We were exhausted. Bolivia is a country that is long on extraordinary natural beauty, but short on oxygen. There's no heating, and we've been sleeping in temperatures as low as -15 degrees. It's hard work.
But "sweltering" Santa Cruz in the lowlands proved to be windy, rainy and not warm enough that I could allow my sole remaining pair of trousers the laundering they so desperately need. We had to spend most of our last few days on the phone attempting to ensure we actually had a flight home after the two airlines and Expedia got their wires well and truly crossed. Add in a farewell case of food poisoning, and you don't have the greatest note to end on.
But that doesn't matter. The truth is that we are ready to come home - and that's the highlight we're waiting for. This has been a life-altering experience in many ways. We're happier and we're healthier. We have hundreds of memories and thousands of pictures to take with us, we've made new friends, we've learnt a new language and discovered a new passion in diving. We feel better than we have in years. And now we want to come home, feeling good, and to appreciate what we have there - the friends, the family, the future that we're going to share together.
Thank you for waiting for us - we'll see you soon.

Marmalade sandwiches

At least, that´s what I´d been let to expect we´d get to eat here. But perhaps that´s only in deepest, darkest Peru. We´re in high, bright and slightly chilly Peru right now, and here they apparently have Jam for breakfast instead.

So this is Cuzco, Peru - jumping off point to visit Machu Picchu, an allegedly stunning set of Inca ruins nestled in the Andes. Unfortunately, Montezuma´s revenge has struck once again and Lizzie has yet to leave the hotel we checked into yesterday morning. But she´s doing better today, and hopefully we´ll be able to make it in the next day or two. Meantime, I´m soaking up the local culture - as ever an uneasy mix of traditional, tourist and American modern. I´ve had a overpriced shoe shine from a young boy, bought a replacement Swiss Army knife and persuaded a restaurant specialing in grilled Guinea Pig to do me spaghetti and pesto.

South America has been friendly, and with slight differences in flora and fauna. The pigeons, for instance, are often brown and white rather than grey. The trees seem to have enormous blooms, almost as if a parisitical species has set up camp on their branches. Subtle changes, but a little unsettling. FYI - we´ve worked out that we´re currently at somthing like a 90 degree angle compared to the UK. Look over at the wall, and imagine having to walk along that instead of the floor. Welcome to our world.

We spent a day or so in Lima, which is shrouded in fog for much of the year - quite alarming when we landed there and lost visibilty about 100ft off the ground. But we found a brightish day to wander the streets and tick off a series of closed attractions in our tourist leaflet. Apparently bank holidays are for everyone and everything here, and tourism is either not expected or not welcomed.

Lima did provide an tremendously exciting supermarket, however, with decent red wine, and lots of nice bread and vegetables. Having been used to the Central American style of ´White or yellow´ cheese, it was quite a shock to encounter Brie, Gorgonzola and Edam again.

So more to come when we get out into the mountains, so far only seen from a distance.