One of the best museums we visited in Peru was the Museo de Larco in Lima. As well as gorgeous bowers of blooms draped over the building, it had the most amazing collections of gold, silver, quartz and turquoise, as well as art, textiles, pottery and the occasional mummy.
It was great to get some context for all the exhibits we saw in the Highlands, plus some insight into what life was like for Peruvians before the Spanish arrived. One section explained the Incas' obsession with silver and gold: when you think about it, nothing else in those people's world made such a noise or shone so brightly. So when Incan leaders covered themselves in the metals, they really would have seemed like supernatural beings or demi-gods.
After an immature tour of the erotic pottery exhibit, I was inspired by the gardens to go get a bouquet for G's mum at the market. It was so lovely being able to put together a beautiful bunch for under two quid!
A rather vintage-looking taxi ran us to the market, which was full of the smell of chicken cooking and ripe fruit.
For years G has been bemoaning the quality of fruit and veg - avocados and mangoes especially - in Britain. Up until now I kind of thought he was just being a half-Italian food snob, but now I see what he means. Every morning in Peru we ate and drank the biggest, juiciest, most colourful fruit I've ever seen! we didn't just go food shopping either: as you can see, in some shops you can find everything from religious icon costumes, flags, and (what we were rummaging through) boxes and boxes of vintage glasses frames.
I didn't manage to capture a lot of things we did in Lima - catching a matinee of Pulp Fiction, cocktails with Uncle Memo at Peru's most prestigious gentleman's club, drinking Cusquena and eating cancha salada in tiny hipster bars with surfers, taking £1 taxis all over town to meet friends in the warm nights, walking G's dog Maya around the park.
I was happy I could take some pictures of G with his family, after the most amazing seafood lunch of my life down at the sailing club.
After lunch, some driving around town with G's brother and an MRI scan (poor G slipped a disc!) we spent the evening walking around Lima's 'Magic Water Circuit' and eating candy floss for 1 sole a stick.
It's a grey February in St Andrews and I'm missing those Lima afternoons!
After our Highland travels, it was pretty good to get out of Lima and to G's Uncle Memo's beach house in Assia - and to swim in the Pacific for the first time! We swam, ate a lot and played with the kids.
And saw some pretty incredible sunsets.
I found it pretty different from what I'm used to: driving from the city, we passed swathes of desert punctuated by tiny straw huts where whole families clearly lived. The house and the gated community it lies in couldn't have been more different, with nannies accompanying children everywhere and all our meals and snacks prepared by the housekeepers and cooks. The wealth disparity was something I'd never experienced before and made me feel both lucky for everything I get to do and see, and overwhelmed by how much needs to change.
On our way back to Cusco stopped for the night in Ollanta again. We were so happy to get back to the quiet, non-commercialised town and our lovely little hotel garden! After the usual Peruvian breakfats of eggs, ham and cheese with warm bread, freshly squeezed fruit juice and black coffee with brown sugar, we did some more climbin and wanderin.
Soon it was time to taxi back to Cusco through the tiny mountain towns, and to enjoy some pretty crazy national costume, music and dancing.
Needless to say, I quickly decided that I need a similar job involving singing and prancing round in amazing skirts.
Llamas everywhar!
We spent the next few days in Cusco seeing ruins, art and museums during the day, and meeting up with G's Brazilian musician friends in a crazy hostel for beers, smokes and some live sets.
Aguas Calientes is a strange place. Look up, and you're surrounded by misty green mountains, pushing up to the sky like mossy teeth. Look down again and you basically have a building site plus too much tourism. We arrived in the evening as the mists rolled in and had a nice evening bathing in natural hot springs and having a gorgeous Chifa infusion meal and Pisco sours at The Tree House.
What followed was not so great, and involved a tiny hostel room with a hole in the door and a loud TV in the hall, food poisoning, and a tiny corner cubicle bathroom with a door that wouldn't close. It's fair to say we bonded as a couple in new and interesting ways. BUT. The next morning we rallied and, fueled by Sprite and crackers, forced ourselves onto a bus and up the mountain road, to this...
And this...
I couldn't quite believe I was there all day. I am now spoiled for mountains for the rest of my life. The Incas managed to keep this a secret from the Spanish, and it stayed tucked away until some European stumbled upon it and promptly began carting off things to museums back home.
Oh, hai, alpaca!
And then... the rain came down.
We found a handy boulder and settled back in our rain ponchos to watch rivers stream over ruins and lightening crack over the misty mountains tops. We were so glad we stayed and got over how weak and faint we felt... the smell of a thunderstorm on Machu Picchu has got to be pretty hard to beat. Everyone else scuttled off home too, leaving us to enjoy the ruins practically alone!
G holds on to his trusty staff.
We left as the mists kept rolling up the cliff sides, thoroughly awed... and ready for a big cup of mate tea.
We spent the next few days in Cusco seeing ruins, art and museums during the day, and meeting up with G's Brazilian musician friends in a crazy hostel for beers, smokes and some live sets. 
