MENTAL

In our crazy bid to get home from Buenos Aires we have had some mental travelling days and nights. From Cuenca, Ecuador we went to Guayaquil to see a park full of Iguanas. If you imagine Trafalgar Square before they got rid of the pigeons then this park was like that but with iguanas. This was one of treats that we used to cope with the tens of thousands of miles we have covered in the past few weeks.

After Guayaquil we got on a 27 hour coach to get to Lima, Peru. In Lima our next treat was to see Natalie and Tom and drag them to see 'Hangover 2'. The plan had been to go for many drinks to see Tom off back to the UK and Natalie (lucky cowbag) onwards in her trip. However, this plan was slightly ruined by 'Ley Seca', the Peruvian 'Dry Law' which is in place for the weekend of their Presidential Elections, a HUGE roadblock in our plans. Although I think that Matt was secretly delighted at having no choice but to go to the cinema.

From Lima we got a wonderful 72 hour coach to Buenos Aires, Argentina. This was a very eventful trip as I managed to succeed in getting food poisoning on our last night in Lima. Matt being the excellent nurse that he is (I hope that no-one else ever has to be cared for my Matt) first believed that bullying me to eat would work. After throwing up all of my forced feed food, he came up with a new plan of mixing three or four different medicines which he had from the pharmacy and vaguely understood together. Luckily something seemed to work enough as I was able to sit on the bus for three days. (Not exactly like I had a choice anyway as thanks to a volcano in Chile all flights have been shut down.)

The trip was fun as we were accused of having stolen ancient artifacts from Peru. Brilliant. The items in question were a cement made replica fossil and a painting. We had bought both in La Paz, Bolivia but that didn't quite cut it with the Peruvian customs lady. Eventually, after a historian on the bus certified that it was indeed a CEMENT FAKE and I had produced the address of the painter, we were given a form stating that we were taking suspicious items that could be recalled to Peru.

It was an eventful few days. Buenos Aires is just as amazing as we remembered and we have been shopping like crazy to replace our smelly, holey clothes and to look like human beings again. Best of all we have been eating many steaks to make up for the chicken and chips and rice trio that is standard in the rest of South America!