edit Jan 5: OK so I’ve ordered another pair. £16.99, wow. Well, I guess I listen to enough music to make them worth it. Hopefully they’ll be waiting for me when I get back to London. Fun, this internet ordering business.

I am drowning in pictures of the past few days. My laptop’s poor hard drive can’t take them all so I’ve had to manage them in batches. But here are some of them to illustrate my trip to what is arguably the main objective of any traveller to Peru: the Inca citadel Machu Picchu. It was a breathtaking journey and a wonderfully mystical place. I can see why it retains such a magnetism despite the droves of tourists that ascend the mountain every day. With the clouds swirling around the mountaintop, momentarily descending to blanket the entire ruins, it was pretty amazing.

The location of the city could not be more spectacular: hugging a mountaintop, surrounded by cloud forest-covered hills on all sides. For a people who worshipped the Sun and the very Earth as gods, it was a place that provided proximity to both. The Incas wanted to build with and out of the Earth, not changing it, and in many ways Machu Picchu does feel like an extension of the existing mountain, the agricultural terraces following the natural contours and the shape of the city dictated by the shape of the mountain and not vice versa. Though it started raining, I sat down in the grass at the end of a flight of steps at the side of the mountain and just absorbed the view and solitude for the better part of an hour.

Machu Picchu was, when abandoned, still a work in progress. The massive granite quarry gives clues to the methods the Incas had for handling stone, and of the ultimate purpose for the site still covered in these massive rocks. Apparently, it was to be extended by terracing and be used for buildings. As it stands now, it is an eerily desolate scene, with rocks strewn every which way.

We were lucky to be able to catch an early train through the Sacred Valley (on which hopefully later) and arrive among the first groups of tourists. Sure, there were people around when we got up to the city at around 9:30am, but not nearly as many as there were by lunchtime. Maybe the foggy morning kept them away. In any case, the relative peace of the place just added to my appreciation. By the time I’d reached the central plaza after visiting the various temples and astronomical devices, I came face to face with a scene straight out of a nature documentary: A male llama aggressively pursuing and mounting a female (who seemed really disinterested in the whole huffing and puffing going on behind her throughout the mating). The scene drew a round of applause and cheering from the top, where the intihuatana ritual stone is located. I got around two minutes’ worth of video because, well, what else are you going to do with your camera when a llama couple decide to start fucking right in front of you but let it document the entire thing?

The llama episode was in stark contrast to the ponderous feelings I’d had until that point. I kept wandering around afterwards, both with my brother and by myself, snapping pictures like crazy. I guess I could have stayed for longer, but the rain got pretty intense at around 2 o’ clock. I didn’t get wet but both my fingers and toes started to get a little cold, so we decided to have our box lunch at the tables outside the main gates and board the buses taking visitors to the town of Aguas Calientes down in the valley.

The town of Aguas Calientes is actually a pretty dismal place. Growing much too rapidly to be managed, it feels like I’d imagine one of those informal settlements springing up around Chinese growth centers to be like - filthy restaurants, rickety rooms for hire, market stalls… everything oriented toward selling to the visiting public, but seeming like it provides nothing sustainable for the local community. I could, of course, be wrong, my impressions having been taken throughout a few hours in the afternoon waiting for my train back to Ollantaytambo.

There’s a lot more to the past few days, this having been the obligatory centrepoint. I won’t bother with the little details, but will hopefully manage to post again with pictures of scenery around the Sacred Valley.

I probably won’t be able to post until early next week. If you are bored over the holidays and come and view this, I wish you the best possible Christmas should you celebrate it or any related holiday, and a peaceful time during the holidays.

This is a weird, weird drug to be taking, but if it helps combat the effects of altitude sickness, I’m all for it.

“Most of you probably think just about Incas when you think about Peru,” said the guide, “but Pucllana was built before them, by the Lima people”. The remains of their temple complex, smack in the middle of Lima, was discovered only recently. He described how as a boy he used to cycle on the gravel mound that hid the masses of walls and courtyards. Much of it has been lost to development, but archaeologists are continually unearthing more discoveries in the preserved section. On first sighting, it looks like a load of sun-baked clay, and though that’s what it is the historical context makes it absolutely fascinating.

Pucllana contains burials as well as sacrifices, both material and human. Curiously, as the Lima people built their stepped structure, they filled the previous levels in order to build on them. Eventually, the entire pyramid was covered by gravel brought from the cliffs surrounding the coast, which, despite its proximity to the sea is still a formidable achievement for people of 400 AD with no wheel. The scale of the original Pucllana site is immense, as the fractional remainder already towers high as well as wide. The walls the Lima people built were trapezoidal in shape, made with vertically aligned bricks. The alternating trapezoids of the wall sections allowed for massive strength during earthquakes which were then, as now, an ever-present threat in Peru.

It practically never rains in Lima. The desert-like conditions are actually a reason for the preservation of Huaca Pucllana, as any rain would begin to erode the simple mud bricks. The guide commented on the rare sunniness of the day, and I do think I managed to burn my neck in the sun. It’s the only part still tender to the touch, and I’m thinking it’s a good idea to avoid the sun today as much as possible. Hopefully it won’t start to peel. Our guide was really friendly and knowledgeable, and urged us to keep up to date with the continual discoveries at the site via the Pucllana website. But I could not help but feel he was debasing himself as a professional archaeologist and Peruvians in general when to bade us farewell with “and remember, dos pisco sours mas and try the guinea pig!” I don’t know, am I going off the mark?

I got a chance to go clubbing with some local expats which while not the totally authentic experience was still cool. We started the evening at a shared house run by Hare Krishnas where the atmosphere seemed really immediate and friendly, but I was a little concerned about how the philosophy of the house would go with a bunch of studenty types sharing beers and a bottle of pisco. I was told not to worry, though, so I didn’t. I like how guys and girls meeting for the first time here kiss on the cheek. I was told to expect an upset stomach at Cuzco when we head there next week, but that it is apparently worth all kinds of discomfort. That’s reassuring, I guess.

Eventually we made our way to the club, Sargento Pimienta (Sergeant Pepper), all six of us piled into a normal-sized taxi. “Oh it’s normal here” the Dutch girl commented as she sat folded in half in my lap. We sped through dark Lima streets down to Barranco, where club touts tried to direct us to stop at their specific establishment. It was pretty cool - at that moment I did think that I’m experiencing something memorable.

The Sargento Pimienta is really big. It’s also one of the few places in Lima where they play rock music, I was told. The crowd was pretty varied, from the really young (as in are they of legal age at all) to thirty-something ex-pats dancing away in circles next to our group. The beer they sold came in 1.1 litre glass bottles which were shared around in plastic cups. The music was incredibly loud and the air thick with cigarette smoke. I had forgotten how much your clothes smell after a night out where people smoke indoors. We were there for a few hours, deciding to leave sometime around 2am as people needed to get to work the next day. As we made our exit the place was just beginning to get packed. This Finnish girl told me I should stay because I would make all the ladies swoon being tall and blonde but I think my lack of dancing ability would counteract that quite effectively. So, I decided to head out with them. Quick best wishes and thank-yous later I was in the lift to the flat. What a day.

I guess a surefire way to know you really are on the other side of the world is when bird calls sound like nothing you’ve ever heard. I bet it’ll be even more apparent once we get out of Lima and the scenery is less “generic urban with exotic overtones”. And speaking of that, this glorious dinner we had was pretty impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much (raw) fish at once in my life.

(Sorry about the picture quality, I only had my phone camera on me)

There is a party we’re invited to later on tonight to which will be interesting. It’s in the district of Barranco at a club. The invite says 11pm start, which is pretty late for me but completely normal here. Well, at least I won’t have to be anywhere in the morning. We were offered a pretty sweet way to finish off the night, too: A set of keys to an apartment (about which more later) that is a lot closer to Barranco than the one we’re staying at currently. You will come to see why this arrangement excites me more than a bit.

I guess I’ll start to make sense of this place soon enough. Yesterday we walked around the local area, Miraflores, heading first down to the sea. It’s surprisingly far down from the cliffs the city is built on. We then walked through Miraflores proper, where I felt a little conspicuous being at least head and shoulders above most of the population. Oh, and blonde. It was funny walking past a shop and bump into two distinctly Northern European girls come out speaking Finnish and commenting on their preference of Argentina to Peru. Standing out is an understatement.

It’s weird but the wonders of Peruvian cuisine had so far evaded me. Apparently it is on the rise around the world, though, and there really are lots of good things about it. I tried a Peruvian salad, which was quite nice. It had fried white fish, boiled egg, yucca (cassava), pieces of giant white corn, as well as lettuce. Peruvians don’t do tomatoes, in general, which I find interesting. And the corn was bigger than anything I’d ever seen. I’ll try to get a picture because I’m sure I’ll run into the stuff again. Oh, and the guy in the next table over was eating Cuy.

My foot is still visibly bruised and gets sore depending on how I hold it but I don’t think all that walking yesterday made it any worse. Well, I hope so at least.

Today isn’t as hot or sunny as yesterday, which I guess is more standard for Lima anyway. I’m looking forward to breathing in some sea air after lunch, though. Maybe take a walk down to the highway snaking down by the beach. I’ve heard the water is cold and not necessarily swimmable so central, but I’ll definitely take the plunge somewhere soon.

Still taking it easy - I think I like it when my only commitment is to “be somewhere reachable” at 6pm for a dinner thing.

This is the view from the place I’m staying at. You can really tell from the lushness that summer is here in the Southern hemisphere from. The air is humid but not unpleasant, though the sky is the flat grey “donkey belly” they promised. All the flowers smell really intensely sweet. It’s a world away from cold, stone-and-soot-coloured London.

I’ve decided to eat well on this holiday. Considering the culinary crapfest the last three weeks’ crunchtime in London was, I think my body deserves some healing. Lots of fish, lots of fruit, lots of vegetables. No fried stuff. God knows what my cholesterol level looks like now. You can see the Pacific Ocean in between the two tall buildings in this next photo showing the view from the place the other way, though it is just a slightly more bluish grey tint around the horizon. I’ll get some real photos of it up soon I’m sure. It really does look Latin American around here, and I’m not sure what it is, especially considering this neighbourhood is modern and I have never been to the continent before.

Speaking of food, Continental weren’t too bad. I mean yeah, it was airplane food and there rarely was enough considering we left at 7am with with my brother with nary a panini in our bellies and arrived at 2am local time. I wish we’d had time to grab something at Houston, but it’d probably have contradicted the paragraph above. Everything on the way to the gate smelled either sweet, processed or otherwise unhealthy. But I did like how the meals came with a salad and they passed around mid-flight snacks of little sandwiches and crisp packets. They seemed to know the way to keep me content. Most of the cabin crew had Southern drawls, and one lady told the person boarding ahead of me “to just go right ahead, darling” and that his seat would be “there smack dab in the middle of the cabin”. Immediate and quite pleasant. Oh, and the seating choices we made but weren’t sure were actually confirmed turned out to have been saved, meaning we sat in glorious legroom luxury. Will have to do the same on the way back.

Adjustment. To the time difference, the climate, the language. I’ll take today easy.

I don’t get it - why have online checkin if it just doesn’t let you do what it’s meant to?

I’m hoping that the configuration of the plane we’re taking to Houston is the new 777 one rather than the old one, but there seems to be no way to tell. To spare you from clicking the links, the new one has power sockets in all seats with no need for fancy adapters. That would make the rush for the check-in to get seats on the few powered-up rows that much less hassle.

Oh, and another interesting thing about the flight. Looking at the one going out today, it is (surprise surprise) late by about 45 minutes. I started thinking - what if we don’t make our connecting flight to Lima? Who’s responsible for putting us up for the delay? Surely they wouldn’t let us book flights without them being manageable transfer-wise? I don’t know, I don’t do this often.

I am getting a little excited now (finally!) about the trip I’m about to take. I’m going transatlantic for the first time to spend some time in Peru, but I haven’t had the time or energy to really devote to expecting it and imagining what it’ll be like. Still have no clue what to expect to be honest, but at least it’ll be (half) a world away from London.

It’s the little things that get me excited: I’ve checked online and the airline we’re taking, Continental, does PC plugs which’d mean I’d get to faff around on my laptop should the in-flight entertainment get boring. Considering we’re spending the better part of 24 hours inside that aluminium tube I’d say that’s likely. The weird thing is they want you to get some sort of adapter, which I’m taking for granted can be bought at the airport itself. Well, I hope so at least, as getting my laptop to charge would allow me to charge my mp3 player which gets a pathetic 3.5 hour battery life.

Speaking of which, I’d need to update my music so as to not skip every third track. If I just had time and the hard drive space to swap stuff around…

As you can tell the sorts of preparatory things for the trip have been on the lowest of low flames on the back burner for the past few weeks. I haven’t thought about packing yet, nor of the amount of reading that I’d reasonably be able to do. I have an academic text and some literature, but originally thought I’d print a load of articles off to do over the break as well. It’s not like the reading is ever done. All of this has come on rather suddenly, though, and I haven’t prepared at all.

I didn’t even realise how completely worn out I am until yesterday, when receiving less-than-stellar feedback from my tutor about something I’d sent him sent me careening into a spiral of tiredness and worry. I’m mostly over the worry with a healthy dose of que sera, sera. I was hoping I’d get a really good night’s sleep tonight as I’ve been tired every single morning. Going to try for 8.5 hours. Not that it’s going to cure anything, but maybe it’ll keep me going through tomorrow.

Plan for rest of week: Work tomorrow, write essay, plan debate for Friday, try and clean this pigsty of a room before my brother gets here. Oh, and try and get this ankle fixed. Damn ankle.

Absolutely exhausting. That’s what university terms are. And to think that in 5 weeks I’ll (supposedly) be ready to do it all again!

I finally got to see a bit more of these misty isles and can happily say that Shropshire countryside is fantastically beautiful.

Despite late trains and impossible-to-make changes we managed to make it to Shrewsbury at 2:30am on Saturday night. The motorway between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury was completely obscured by fog that rolled in from the hills like in movies. The cab driver kept commenting in his funny Wolves accent how he couldn’t see anything in front of him. High beams, low beams, made no difference. I just hoped he would make it back safely once he’d dropped us off at “Shroosbury”.

After a lazy morning and a mindblowingly delicious and calorific breakfast (at 12:30) I got to explore a bit of Shrewsbury’s winding streets which was nice. People were rowing on the river and doing their Christmas shopping and just generally seemd more relaxed than in London. I think I needed that, to be somewhere a bit slower and calmer.

The real objective of the weekend away was a birthday party at the home of a friend of a friend of mine. Snugly set amidst hills near the Welsh border in a charmingly named area called “The Bog” the cottage was awash with warmth and people by the time we made it there. A coal-fired stove radiating heat to the room and warming the mulled wine were exactly what I’d imagined there to be in a house like that. The people were a nice mix, too - from theatre types to old university friends of the birthday girl.

It was also magical to go outside from the clamor of chatter to walk through the garden and listen to absolute silence all round, being surrounded by the frosty mist that obscured all light from the stars above. Being apart from the world for a moment like that felt really good.

A lot of us ended up sleeping on the floor on various combinations of camping mats, cushions, sleeping bags and blankets. Luckily I hadn’t gone too overboard the night before so waking up to a cold crisp morning wasn’t terrible at all. Nine of us went off on a walk over hill and dale to a fabled pub that supposedly only takes 45 minutes to get to. But because we stopped at each ridge and cattle grid it took the troupe much longer than that. I was also really glad to have brought proper warm clothes for the hike, as the wind up there was biting. The food, though - wow. I didn’t mind splashing out on honest grub where the portions are big, and that this was.

Since the entire area didn’t have any cell phone reception, and because our walk had taken just a tad too long getting back in time for the train became a challenge. Thankfully our gracious hosts were willing to drive us back to Shrewsbury in time for our train.

What a weekend. I’m so glad I got to go. Life is pretty good right now.

You can’t say no to being the “+1″ of “Guest list +1″, though. Can you? Makes buying a pint or two plus the inevitable pair of earplugs to replace the perfectly good pair sitting on my dresser at home more bearable to my budget, at least.

But pretty much everything is on the right path, though. I’m doing all right, but somehow I’m feeling lacklustre about the work and my own effort. I’m on top of schoolwork but everything else is kind of behind.