There is the almighty embarrassment associated with being the whitest girl in the whole of Queensland, and then the God-awful, could somebody please shoot me, sticking out like a sore thumb-esque feeling of being the Whitest Girl in Peru. My legs are so glowingly pasty that I literally stop traffic. My tour guide has commented on it, the other tour members have commented on it, and a complete stranger said to me, after I refused to buy his miscellaneous item for sale, "You are very white! You should go to the beach."

Yes. Thank you.

As well as this, there is the travel sickness. And you don't know whether it's from the tasty lomo saltado you ate last night, or an aversion to the water (even if it is all bottled), or maybe you just don't like the air around here, but all of a sudden you can't toss up between crapping and spewing, and just pray that both don't happen at the same time. I believe it was Baldrick who said something along the lines of, "My stomach feels all squirty."

This is Peru! It is way cool. Mucho bueno and all that.

So hey, I'm not dead, though I'm sick and hot and will probably get altitude sickness tonight after being transported to 2.5kms above sea-level, and I'm hungover in general, but yes. Not dead.

Interesting things discovered include: pretty much nobody speaks English, so I am pretty well screwed, but picking up the important words mucho fast; there's not many (any) llamas around here (so far); and pretty much everyone here is super lovely, except for that punk who made the comment about my blindingly white thighs. Interesting things discovered during my chats with my experienced tour guides include: Danish girls are, and I quote, the "dirtiest bitches in the world"; there barely seems to be enough gay boys in each Peruvian town we visit to keep our main tour guide's sexual appetite fulfilled; and tour guides play really shitty tricks on people (which will surely be covered in more detail at a later time).

But now I am pissing off. It is dinner time and I have to try and digest a meal and hope desperately that it doesn't rapidly spray out of the nearest orifice.

Oh yes. You wanted that much information, didn't you.

Hope all blogfolk are well, am completely ecstatic about having an entire month's worth of blog entries to catch up on once I get home, and I'm bringing home a llama and a colourful poncho for everyone who wants one. Ciao! Or however the hell you spell it.