Thunderstorm in the Andes

Cusco at last! 10 hours of driving through the Andes, which are stunningly beautiful, to get here.

Driving through the Andes is an experience! You have sheer cliffs on one side, and beautiful towering mountains on the other. In places the peaks are so high that you cant see them for the clouds, in others, there is quite evidently snow on them there hills, and further along, it gets so green that you could swear you were in Scotland! We stopped at a lake on the way, just shy of 4500m altitude- which is where we all got a bit out of breath, the air is so thin- and one of the Australian girls who had been living in Scotland said " It looks just like Loch Ness, does´nt it?" And, it did!

We are staying in a Hotel, with BEDS and a private SHOWER and TOILET!! Luxury!

We set up the lunch tables, the food was laid out, and then it started to rain. Then it started to rain HARDER. We had to put the lunch stuff in the truck, and we all sat there in the rain, eating our lunch, when the thunder started, the hailstones started to come¨down. At one point the thunder was right over our heads, and it sounded immense! I loved it, even though there was no lightening. The noise of the thunder echoed all around us because of the hills!

Eventually, we started moving again, and got to Cusco around 530pm, where it had already started getting cold! We are staying in a Hotel, with BEDS and a private SHOWER and TOILET!! Luxury! The cathedrals here are beautiful, we are going to get a tourist pass which gets us entry into them for 10 days- there are museums and other places we can go, so it should be good!

Today it is still cold, and I stupidly came out wearing shorts. So did Bry, but he is complaining more than I am! He has plenty of trousers or jeans he can wear- I threw my jeans out in Lima thinking I wouldnt need them, and my black trousers have bleach all down them from the day when we wre on clean-up duty TWICE in one day!! So i have one pair of trousers so we are heading to the market, if there are any open today, to buy a new pair!

Oh, and I had an amazing brekkie this morning- Pancakes with caremalised bananas! Oh yeah!! Place called Jack´s which is a touristy-type Aussie place that only does brekkie and lunch.

In 3 days we start climbing to Macchu Picchu, and in 7 days we arrive at Macchu Picchu!! So exciting! We´ll be sure to update you with pics as soon as we get back to a computer!

Hope everyone is well! Much love, Lou and Bry.