Surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Couldn't quite resist sneaking back to England and surprising everyone with my uber-tan (which turned out to be mainly dirt) at Sandy's 30th birthday party.

In retrospect, perhaps it is better to announce these things in advance, especially as most of my friends are now around the 30 mark, and perhaps will soon get to a stage where their tickers will not take the level of shock I inflicted on them this week!

After everyone regained the power of speech, we had a nice time :) ....now what?!?!? Argh! How much are flights to Buenos Aires again....? To be continued...............................................

Cordillera Blanca

I'd wanted to go to Huaraz and the Cordillera Blanca ever since I the last time I was in Peru and didn't quite make it far enough north. In fact, I wanted to go sooo much, that i subjected myself to the embarrassment of advertising myself on various hostel and cafe notice boards. Something along the lines of "loner without friends requires travel partners"....yes, my phone was ringing off the hook.

Luckily I bumped into Dave, who i'd met before in Ecuador, and was able to convince him that the Santa Cruz trek would be the most fun he'd have on his whole trip, and that he should immediately abandon all other plans and make me look less like a person who has to advertise for friends.

The hike was a lot of fun...snowy mountains, pretty flowers, high-altitude passes and glacial valleys carved out of the rock. It was a relatively easy trek (especially with mules to help!), but beautiful. Though give me a tent and a large enough supply of oreo cookies and i'll be happy almost anywhere :)