From the window, the urban sprawl of Mexico City appears through the dense cloud. It is not a rain cloud that we break through, but thick pollution. Welcome to Mexico City, the largest city in the world. The wheels screech as the pilot seems to forget that this is a million dollar piece of equipment. I remove the wheel arch from beneath my seat and make my was down the jet way. After the 11 hour layover in Lima Peru and the 6 hour flight, it was nice to finally stretch my legs. The memory of the last two hours of our flight came flooding back as I remind myself to write a politely worded email to Lan Peru. Unsure how to word the email, the starting sentence keeps flashing before my eyes, “Dear Lan Peru, Thank you very much you bastards for giving me food poisoning and making me throw up for two hours solid before landing in Mexico”. Maybe I should just sit on that email for a while. Lan Peru are a subsidiary of Lan Chile, which is probably one of the best airlines I have ever flown, I am not sure what has happened when Lan Chile purchased Lan Peru, however to put it into perspective, it would be like riding an Arab horse then climbing straight onto a three legged donkey. To say that Lan Chile is the Arab horse of South American Airlines and Lan Peru is the Ass of the company is probably the best comparison I can make.

It was time to make our way south via Inca Express, destination Puno, Peru's gateway to Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is the highest body of water in the world and the largest landlocked body of water in South America. As we struggled up the staircase of our hotel, due to Puno's high altitude, we felt somewhat old. Having to take a break at just about every floor we found our room at what seemed like the top floor of the hotel. It is important to make a note here before you jump to a conclusion that we are still unfit after all our walking, that all hotels in Puno must have oxygen on the premises due to the altitude.

The sky burnt with an orange glow as the sun reflected off the mountain peaks of the Andes. Our view of the Andean sunrise was blocked by the towering mountain spires. It was apparent that somewhere, somehow a god of some sort, be it Incan or not was watching over us today. We made our way to the KM 82 checkpoint, however, something was not quite right. JAYDE'S CAMERA!!!!! After telling the rest of the group to keep walking and a frantic 1 hour search, we finally managed to find Jayde's camera by fluke. As a porter passed with our duffel bags strapped to his back we just about tackled him as a last ditch effort before filling a police report. Apparently, somehow, Jayde's camera had managed to roll off the bed and land in one of our duffel bags.

The overnight buses in South America are always an experience. It is often whispered on these buses that if you have not boarded a night bus with “Eternal Flame” blaring from the on-board television system then you have not lived. As our overnight hostess handed out our “night survival kits” we received more than our fair share of strange looks as our group sung at the top of their lungs... “Is this burning, an eternal flame......” Given that most of the group at this point were deliriously tired, it was not long before we are started counting z's.