Hello all.

Steve and I are about to pack up our things and get in a cab for the airport. We are both really excited to be going home and feel ready to tackle New York again.

We had a wonderful last week, and I'm going to just tell you a few of the exciting things we did.

Steve and I left by "local" boat to go to Taquile island last week. This is an island in the middle of lake Titicaca. There are no roads, so no cars, or electricity, or plumbing or hotels or anything at all like this. So, a really interesting adventure for us. On the boat a very nice man offered that we could stay with his family for the night. We took him up on this immediately as we had no idea where we were going to spend the night, and he seemed very nice.

We got to his house and the sweetest, most adorable, good natured, and dirty three year old came running up to give his parents a hug. He was instantly smitten with Steve and they played lots of games together. I was instantly smitten by the baby sheep and spent lots of time cuddling with that. The family couldn't be nicer. The grandparents were amazing, and our new friend's wife was an excellent cook. Steve and I went for some long walks on the island, and for the most part only encountered sheep. It was very peaceful and quiet. There was even a real live beach on the island which we spent an hour or two on. And, despite the fact that the water was ABSOLUTELY freezing, Steve went for a swim. And then spent 30 min recovering...

One of the best parts were the stars at night. Because there is no electricity *well that isn't entirely true anymore. A lot of the families now use solar panels...but it is basically true* it is so dark. And we are in the middle of a huge lake, so you can't see the lights from the main land at all. Anyway the stars are like NOTHING I've ever seen before. We just stared at the stars for ages totally swept away by how immense it all was. And we saw a bunch of shooting stars, which is always really exciting. I think the family probably thought we were a bit nuts as they would come out of their house and we'd be standing in the same spot staring at the sky for a long time.

So, our next adventure was in Arequipa. This wasn't so much an adventure as as wonderful, beautiful place to relax. It was WARM *I can't tell you how excited I was by this...I don't know if I've stressed in my emails how cold everywhere is...* We were staying at a very nice hostel, and we basically drank beers in the afternoon at beautiful outdoor restaurants, and went to museums and other sites. There was even a dance festival while we were there so we saw two different dance performances. One was very good, and one wasn't great, but there you go.
The most interesting museum was the one that holds "Juanita", a little girl who was sacrificed to the mountain gods by the Incas hundreds of years ago. She was totally buried in ice so remained incredibly intact. They were able to learn all sorts of things from her, like what the diet of the time was, and what people wore, and things like this. Very interesting.

Now, we went to this place called Huacachina. It is bizarre. It is LITERALLY an oasis in the middle of the desert. Seriously. You should google earth it if you know how. This one little pond is surrounded by fancy hotels about two streets deep, and then as far as the eye can see is just HUGE sand dunes. Some are as much as 2km high. Crazy. We did a dune buggy/sand board trip and it was INSANE. The dune buggy driver went up and down the dunes at hair raising speeds, and would do sudden stops and turns, and go hurtling over the edge of dunes and you had no idea what was on the other side. It was, no exaggeration, exactly like being on a really scary roller coaster. FOR HALF AN HOUR, NO STOPS! As fun as a roller coaster, and also as neck jarring, and totally scary.

The sand boarding was fun *looks like snowboarding, but on sand* but I wasn't very good at it, so it was more fun to lie down on the board and go hurtling down the dunes on your tummy. This was great except for when you hit a bump. My hips are very sore. We came back to the hostel totally covered in sand, but very happy and exhilarated.

Lastly we went to the islands of Islas Balletas. This is sometimes called the *poor mans Galapagos* because there is a lot of wildlife. We saw a ton of sea lions and penguins, and many many different birds. We even saw dolphins!

And now we are in Lima, and I better go pack.

We will be home Sat and I look forward to seeing you all really soon.

Signing off the Central/South American adventure,

Love
Alaina and Steve