We rolled up at the Cruz del Sur bus station in Lima for our impending night bus, excited at the prospect of travelling on the best company in Peru. This journey varied little from our other night-buses....it was freezing, Laurie and Tom would sit freezing wearing 2 jumpers, hat, gloves, and curled up in a ball trying to get whatever sleep possible. Meanwhile, Teo "the battery" Lopez-Bernal would somehow recline in just a t-shirt, radiating heat to all those around him!!

At first Huaraz didn´t meet our expectations, our bed´s had close to a wigs worth of hair in, and Tom´s had what we swear were blood stains. However things looked up when we switched rooms, and ate our memorable yoghurt breakfast. Teo and Tom thought it would be a bright idea to buy a large milkshake, a large yoghurt and some chocolate milk... each. This error was compounded by the windy taxi ride to the top of a nearby mountain, where we disembarcked feeling remarkably peeky. We balanced the small girl´s bike-helmets on our heads, took a few token poser photos and set off on our 30km trip downhill. Highlights include Tom and Laurie somehow both going over their handlebars at slow speed and an epic no pedalling race, periodically broken up by various lorrys (of the mechanical variety, not our fellow bishcrew member) going in the opposite direction.

We tumbled into a restaurant, cut, bruised, tired and fired up for the much needed meal (we hadn´t eaten since the chinese the night before). Afterwards following the spanish tradition by retiering for a siesta that afternoon. Our day was completed by an eveining of table tennis where Lauire beat Teo...will Teo ever hear the end of this, although it can be called revenge for when Teo beat Laurie at pool (both claim to be superior at the respective sports).

We were up early the next morning to visit a glacier at 5000 and something meters. The tour company drove us from Huaraz to 1km away from the glacier, stopping off at gripping sights such as a blue pond and some natrual fizzy water which tasted like metal. We surprised ourselves, being so acclimatised to the altitude that we were able to have a 5000m snowball fight, much to the annoyance of the other "glacier goers." Back in Huaraz the idea of a warm, virtually equatorial beach where we could surf and sun ourselves sounded appealing. Tom and Teo thought they would get into the world-cup, English hooligan spirit before the nightbus, by shaving their heads. Teo removed his swarve 70´s style locks for a number 3, while Tom thought he would inflict a mowhawk onto the innocent peruvian public.

The three musketeers racked up in the beachside "resort" of Huanchaco, to be met by so much fog around us that the sea was hardly visible from the beach and the only good hostel full. The other alternative in the guide book turned out to have not had a visitor for nearly 2 weeks and the beds appeared to be made of a 6 by 4 plank of wood! Our misery was compounded when we were informed that we hadn´t arrived on an unlucky day and that the weather really was always this bad. After watching England scrape through AGAIN, against Trinidad and Tobago, we thought our footballing talents would be better, and embarked on an expedition to buy a ball. The bus back from the shop proved to be the highlight of the day when Laurie pointed out the the man sitting opposite was infact a carbon copy of Tommy in 70 years time. The looks from the other passengers at our mirth made us think that maybe we had insulted a village elder...

Maybe travelling had turned us into masocists but we thought that Huanchaco was such a dump and we couldn´t bear to stay any longer. Despite our sleep induced state, we had the intelligance to take our 3rd night bus in 4 days. No good bus companies went the route we wanted, so we settled for a second rate bus where the conductor gave out free English toffee. Afterwards, he kindly informed us that we had to pay for it. He then proceded to talk animatedley to everyone about fathers day and played what appeared to be a toilet roll wrapped in silver foil with a straw in for a good 10 minutes, much to the laughter of all the passengers. The only downside to this experience/journey was the constant battle of the Peruvian passengers over Tom´s window, whether it should be opened or closed, whether Tom and Teo wanted it open or closed was besides the point....to this day we can´t work out what was so special about that particular window.