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Favourite country: Bolivia. Just a bit more traditional than Peru and Ecuador, and so a bit more interesting and eye opening and far-removed from what I know. A bit more character. And although we didn’t get to see a great deal of the country, I loved everywhere we passed through.

Favourite places: One would be Huaraz, at an altitude of 3000m in the Peruvian Andes, a lively, colourful little town with women in traditional dress all over the place, surrounded by gorgeous green mountains. Mostly I’ll remember Huaraz for freezing nights and pissing rain and being able to eat nothing but bread, recovering from food poisoning, and trying to do a half-day acclimatization hike without throwing up. But also for my favourite hostal of the whole trip, ‘Jo’s Place’, run by a slightly eccentric Englishman with a terrible stutter called Jo, who invited people into his kitchen for mugs of tea and cooked us all fabulous English breakfasts.

Another was Potosi, the highest city in the world at 4100m, a truly fascinating place full of narrow winding streets, colourful old buildings, red-tiled roofs, beautiful churches, and loads of character. And Cuzco, gringo capital of the Andes, with its beautiful white colonial buildings and Inca stonework and cool little cafes and restaurants and bars. Mindo, in the cloud forest in Ecuador, green and wet and lush and because it was just so different, and also the Bolivian Altiplano, for the most surreal, psychedelic Dali-esqe landscape I’ve ever encountered.

Least favourite place: The Peruvian coast. Far too much desert.

Three ‘life’ realizations made on the trip: Firstly, I’ve got to be a city-girl, even though I don’t like most cities, because nothing much, quite frankly, seems to happen outside them. Secondly, I would miss music too much to give it up, and so will have to find some way to continue with that one once I leave University, properly continue. And thirdly, I want to see more of the world.

It’s not a huge start to go on, I suppose, but it’s better than what I had before, which was nothing.

A few first times for: A proper tan, hangovers, rainforests and deserts, dancing on bars, fireflies, peeing in a pot, building a greenhouse, living with a family that couldn’t speak a word of English, getting up to an altitude of 5000m on foot, food poisoning, shooting stars, a 4-seater plane flight, swimming with dolphins (and possibly crocodiles and piranhas, who knows), really making use a foreign language abroad, and pulling randoms.

Favourite night out: Rurrenabaque, in the Bolivian jungle, when we all went out to Moskkito bar for Becky’s 23rd and managed to haggle a new happy hour, drank a lot, danced stupidly like no one was watching us, had some great conversations, threw bits of candle wax across the bar and wrote all over each other before stumbling home at about 3 am and collapsing in the hammocks.

One depressing thought: The fact that there are so many breathtakingly beautiful places in the world, and they’re just not going to last because of what we’re doing to them. On the Inca trail there are some ruins, hidden, incredibly peaceful and quiet, called Winay Wayna, a little Inca village almost intact with steep agricultural terraces rising above it, set into the edge of a valley with stunning views out over tropical mountains to snow-capped peaks in the distance. The whole place was so overwhelming that I was almost in tears walking around it, and it still brings a lump back into my throat to think about it now. We sat with our legs dangling over the edge of the terraces in the sunshine marveling at the view and our guide Henry pointed out the snow-capped mountains to us and said that a few years before they weren’t just snow-capped, they were completely covered. After that he told us that the Inca trail is in danger of being closed, due to the increasing number of landslides happening on it, which has probably got something to do with global warming (most things do, it seems)...And I felt so sad to think that somewhere that beautiful and humbling and magical and inspiring might be shut off to the world forever, and that it might be all our fault.

Things to miss: Ecuadorian fruit juices, which I could drink by the gallon, and their pineapple, much whiter and sweeter and juicer (and generally superior in every way) than the stuff we get back here. Their moon, visible by day and so much brighter by night. Being able to look up in the dark and see the Milky Way. Banana chips, thin and salty, almost like crisps but not quite, and completely addictive. Coca tea. Ridiculously cheap prices (to give some idea, in Bolivia the average meal out was about 2.50, and for the same price per night I found a hostal in Cuzco with private bathroom). Sitting in restaurants and cafes playing cards with no guilt or worries or nagging feelings that I should be doing something else. Doing something to write home about almost everyday. Speaking Spanish. The mountains.

Things not to miss: Living out of a backpack with only five pairs of pants and one jumper. Uncomfortable bus journeys. Dripping/cold/temperamental showers. Eating out all the time. Un-British poo. And no access to a piano, a choir, or much in the way of classical music in general.

A few highlights: White-water rafting down an Amazonian tributary. Cycling across the driest desert on Earth to watch the sun set from the top of a sand dune. Entering the silver mines in Potosi. Swinging on vines in the rainforest. Paragliding over the Sacred Valley near Cuzco. Crossing the Bolivian altiplano, and the salt flats. Sitting round a campfire in the Bolivian tropics watching the fireflies sparkling, with more stars in the night sky than I’ve ever seen in my life. Trekking in the absolutely stunning Cordillera Blanca. Getting to Machu Picchu. And the drunken evening spent dancing on top of a bus with a brass band and our Spanish teachers round Quito.

Most surprising things about returning to England: Understanding everyone - being able to converse in English with the money exchange cashier in Heathrow airport I actually found really disconcerting. Using the words ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ again, having been entirely replaced by ‘hola’ and ‘gracias’ for four months. How much everything costs. Being able to drink tap water. English money. And being able to put toilet paper in the toilet.

Next destination: Nepal and the Himalayas.