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Well to cut a long story short, we made it to Peru. It has been a looong road to get to this part of our adventure. Packing up our lives in the UK was epic, to say the least. It amazes me that even though we are not people of wealth and had only a small flat the sheer amount of “shit” we had. Multiple art sales, two car boot sales and lots of giving away of things we had in our lives, things we thought we needed but when it comes to it we just did not need it! It has been an amazing process.
We have shipped a total of 9 boxes, 1 painting and two average suitcases to NZ. All together that amounted to 40 cubic feet or 1.13 Cubic Meters in volume shipped, costing £390 = quite a downsize and it feels good.
Besides the physical work, there was a huge emotional work in clearing out and saying goodbye. I will just say this was also epic and I felt so much love. I really feel loved by the people I feel lucky enough to have spent time with and I really enjoyed loving you back, that is all I can say about that right now.
I had a great time traveling Ireland saying farewell to friends and family. I also really got to say goodbye to the land of home. For now, that is all I will say about that.
Getting to Peru was a long journey also, what should have taken 18 hours took over 30 but that ends well…… We spent two days in Lima. It is a very vibrant and busy city, Gabby and I were pretty exhausted and after all the time planning and preparing it still does not really feel real. We are on a pretty grueling schedule to get to the Inca trail by the 14th of October, so we have very little time to rest. After Lima, we had a night in Ica (Crazy little town). Gabby has a bit of upset stomach so we try our best to rest up. We do head out to Huacachina, it is an oasis about 5k outside of Ica, a tourist trap but good fun and we indulged in sandboarding, buggy tour, and sunset. That night we did our first overnight 12-hour bus journey and it was actually fine. We arrived in Arequipa and I have to say I finally feel like we have arrived a bit now.
Arequipa is much more relaxed and quiet compared to Ica and Lima. People do not lean on their car horns constantly and it is dusty but the air feels clean and fresh. It is a really beautiful city (voted one of the coolest cities in the world). We have walked, eaten and viewed all over, we are not ones to really sit around but exhaustion is still just over our shoulder and creeps upon us whenever we are not looking.
Today we ate in the market, the local food is so full of flavor and so far I have found the people to be really warm and welcoming. The touts are not too pushy and I really feel a warmth and care that is part of their culture.
As for this blog, I am still unsure of how it will go. It might just be a random collection of ramblings by me. I will try to add some photos. I seem to be enjoying instagram so you can follow me there @lsdltd. I will not be doing much facebook and I will try to email updates to this blog if there is any. Gabby is keeping a travel log with an app called Polar steps.
Here is a few images of our heads with things in background
Lots of love,
Les
