So winter means that its actually cold? Who knew?!

hola hola!
since my last post, i have been quite the busy traveler. I made it back to Lima and met up again with Evya and some of his friends. We spent that night in the city, and got up the next morning to head to Ica, about 4 hours south. There was some sort of transportation strike so it took us an extra bus and an extra hour or two, but not too bad. Ica is bascially just desert and massssssive sand dunes. (In general, the geography and landscape of peru is truly spectacular. You leave the city, and suddenly its just sand and the Andes. Very impressive, words cannot do it justice so you all need to wait for pictures). So in Ica we went sandboarding, which is exactly what it sounds like, and is probably one of the stupidest and one of the most fun things i have done. About on par with my waterfall jump. You basically get in this car/truck/strange contraption thing that zooms a million miles an hour up through the sand dunes. Its just like a roller coaster ride! You then have to actually board down the dunes, which are gigantic. Most of us couldnt ever do it standing up, and we did it sitting down and on our stomachs, which was the most fun. I ate more sand than is healthy and almost a week later, i still find sand in my hair, but I broke no bones and made it back onto solid ground in one piece. The next day we wanted to go to Pisco, about 2 hours away for a boat tour, but because of the transportation strike, we couldnt go. So instead we did a wine and pisco tasting tour (pisco is the national drink). Fun day just relaxing. The 9th in the evening we got on our 19 hour bus ride to Cusco. 19 hours and lots and lots of drugs later, we made it. The ride is intense, you are basically winding through the Andes for hours and hours, right on the edge, basically thinking you are going to fall off at any second. Buttt I will admit that it was a gorgeous ride and quite the experience. Now i´m in Cusco, which is amazing and beautiful and adorable and COLD. The days are sunny and warmish, but at night, so so so so cold. I had to buy lots of alpaca stuff, since I have almost nothing warm...my head is still in central america! We spent our first afternoon walking around, and the next day we did the Sacred Valley tour, and saw lots of Incan ruins. This afternoon yana and tito arrived, finally!! it is SO nice to have yana with me! And tomorrow, we begin a three day trek to Machu Picchu!!!! I am so excited and terrified, and cant wait. Cross your fingers that I actually make it.

Heres hoping that my next post begins with ¨I DID IT!¨...