The journey from Cuenca to Mancora, on the coast of Peru, was quite a mammoth one, but not the worst so far (more details to come). Once we'd spent five hours on a bus from Cuenca to get to this little town that bordered Peru and Ecuador we had to take pick-up trucks out of town to the Ecuadorian immigration to get stamped out of Ecuador (a new passport stamp, woohoo!), then take bicycle rickshaws in the blazing heat through the town to the Peruvian immigration to get stamped into Peru (another new passport stamp, woohoo!), before taking a tiny cramped minibus (with our backpacks all strapped on top...hmm, dodgy...) along the coast for another two hours before we finally arrived in Mancora. The beach though made it worth it - lovely and clean and deserted and white and sandy and hot, with our hostal right on the edge of it. Hurrah!

After a lazy day in Mancora we went further down the coast to a dead one-street town called Huanchaco, which was right in the middle of the desert. Unfortunately though I didn't actually get to see any desert, as we arrived and left by night bus, and the one day everyone else spent visiting the Chan Chan ruins (the largest mud city in the world) I spent in my room throwing up. Hmph. There were a couple of others who came down with food posioning with me at the same time, so I suppose at least I had some company. I didn't really warm to Huanchaco though. And so the night bus out of Huanchaco to Huaraz (back in the Peruvian Andes, which is where we are at the moment) wins the title of worst journey so far. The last thing I wanted to do was get on a bus.

Huaraz is one of the least developed towns we've been in so far in the Andes, and I really like it. It's got character. There's loads of women around wearing traditional dress, clashing spectacularly with each other. It's also I think the highest place we've been so far - at about 3000m - which makes the altitude really quite noticeable. We certainly noticed it this morning when we went on an acclimitisation hike for our trek which begins tomorrow - one of the most unpleasant walks I've ever done, as I spent most of it trying not to throw up again. Yum. I'm slightly worried about this trek - four days of hiking at altitude carrying tents, food, stoves, everything in our rucksacks, and it's blatantly going to piss it down every afternoon...But the scenery is supposed to be absolutely gorgeous (apparently we will be passing the 'most beautiful mountain in the world'), and I'm looking forward to that, and the adventure, and getting out into a bit of wilderness. Sort of.

Today in the supermarket I found a brand of marmalade called 'Fanny', which amused me greatly.

More photos - from the start of our expedition - here: http://aol.photobox.co.uk/album/2800453