[Moving right along! Travel shit, Part Three. Part One be here, Part Two be here. Yes!]



I don't know about you, but I love little faces in my bread.

We headed out of Arequipa and went crazyhigh, all the way to the Colca Canyon, which is known for its superhighness and condors. Also, there's heaps and heaps of vicuñas, which are these little wild llama things.



A poncho made out of their wool costs something like $3000 US. Mad! Gotta get me a herd of those bastards.



Here be the canyon. Twas lovely.



Here be a sneaky condor. Condors are real arseholes, because as soon as you travel for hours over one of the bumpiest dirt tracks ever to get up there just so you can have a squiz at the bastards, then they are all guaranteed to go and hide. We spent frigging ages standing there waiting for one to show its face, and in the whole time I think we saw a grand total of two, who came around the corner, saw all of the whiteymcwhite tourists, and pissed off quicksmart. Pricks!

Though I did get a few seconds of awesome video footage which David Attenborough would be jealous of, and as soon as I sort the video, I will show you. Mkay?

We spent a notworthmentioning night in a place called Chivay, and my best mate paid someone five soles to touch a wild, flat-eared, crazyangryspitting llama, and it was very entertaining for everyone involved, except for perhaps the llama.

On to Cuzco! It is the best place we went to in the whole of Peru, and it is also the most touristy, and I can't help but think that I enjoyed it so much because of the spoilt white girl amenities and the number of pubs. There's also drugs galore, and we went into a pub and the girl next to us ordered a beer and was charged about six times what it was costing us, and we realised that she had actually bought herself a nice cocaine snack to go with her tasty beverage. Yum!



The main square.



That really famous twelve-sided stone. Nuts! How much time did these people have on their hands?

Cuzco became our base for the next three days, and we entertained ourselves with various day trips, excessive vomiting and general squirting, and taking full advantage of the many, many pubs. It was also where I drank such an incredibly large amount that I spent the night dancing by myself like a bit of a whore and made an absolute tit of myself in general. But hey, I think I can safely say that I'm not going to be bumping into any of those people any time soon, and needn't be embarrassed. Hooray!

After living the high life, they shipped us off to the Inca trail for some TORTURE. Read about it here. If those Incas were so God damn smart I don't know why they didn't build an elevator up to Machu Picchu. Some pics!



The first site we saw.



Oh! So pretty! It almost took my mind off the pain. Almost.



That's not me. The easy way to tell this is by noticing that that person is wearing a rain poncho, and I was not actually that clever.



The stupid effing nipple mountain! That was our target for getting over the highest point of the trek, and it took us three days to get there. Oh, how I hate that nipple.



Ahhh. Close up is here.

Coming in Part Four: I'll finally finish this bloody thing. Hoorah!

Bleurgh. Right now I have about as much motivation as a fatty in a cake shop who's thinking about starting that diet. I feel like making myself a tent using a bedsheet and the back of the couch and tucking myself in, nice and snug.

I don't mention everything on this here blog, would you believe. Yes, shock, horror, gasp, etc. In fact, there's a fair few subjects I consider Off-Limits. In-depth worky things, for example, because I am ever-fearful of the omniscient Google. Also, I don't post pictures of my naked wobbly bits, and I think that we are all better off for this exclusion. I generally try and stay away from the realm of Too Much Info*.

(*Excluding stories involving bowel movements, farting and/or vomiting, because I need something to post about.)

What I am gradually alluding to here is the subject of Relationships. Yes, Relationships. Can I get a collective 'SPEW'? Come on, all together now. I stopped blogging about the in-depth John stuff back when he discovered my blog, even though he said he wouldn't read it, and I believe him.

And I'm not about to start the heart-pouring right now, but I will just say that changes are afoot, and that I do quite fancy chucking a sickie tomorrow and curling up in front of some trash TV while I shove my face full of sweet things like jam and cakes and lard pies.

So, hey, the conclusion being: Relationships can eat my shit, and sugar is great.

Why can't life be all sunshine and lollipops? Eh? EH?!

I have been stopping and starting, deleting and retyping, for the past week. I haven't had the time to finish a blog post, and I think it might be partially to do with working for a million hours and then falling asleep by 9:30, only to be staggering to work in the pre-dawn darkness the next morning, over and over again. I was planning to go to the Supanova Expo today, to go and talk anime with the other anime nerds, but now my plans have been blown away.

I have been talked into applying for a job.

That is, I have been talked into applying for my OWN job.

Eh?

You see, instead of a manager pulling you aside and saying "hey, would you like a payrise?" which is what happens in everyone's wildest dreams, the way these wacky government people work it is they will tell you that there is a higher-paying position available and open to anyone who wants to apply. And if you get it, you actually do exactly the same job, but at a higher rate of pay.

So, essentially, I am applying for my own job, but if I don't get it, I'll still have my job. Unless I do such a poor job in my interview (another panel interview, bleurgh) that they decide that not only am I not worthy of more money, I should be booted from the department altogether.

Knowing my ability to make a complete tit out of myself at the most important and pivotal moments of my life, it is quite likely.

So I'll be working on my application today, and hey, if the Bullshit Hat decides to fit well, maybe I'll whizz through it and can still go and talk about nerdy things with the other kids tomorrow. The zitty teenage boys never seem to quite accept me, though. It's so hard to fit in.

[Boring travel rubbish, Part Two. Part One be here. Aiiii!]

First of all:



Ooh!



And, ahh! Check out all of those sea lion babies. Sea lions are busybusy.

So, after all of those stomach-churning activities, we checked into a hotel which was lovely, and completely deserted except for a couple of German men in shorts. The hotel had a couple of llamas, it's own cock-fighting ring, and the most mango-laden trees I have EVER seen.



Check that shit! South Americans sure know how to do their fruit.

I went to bed while everyone else drank and made merry. But all of that sleep hit the spot, and I was tip-top the next day. Hurrah! Speaking of the next day, we checked out a gold mine where the person presenting started SQUIRTING MERCURY around the place, and HEY, that's mercury right there, could you please not squirt it at me, kthx.

Also on this next day, we checked out how the local folk made pottery, and the guy showed us how they made it shiny using the oil from their skin. This involved the rubbing of his nose on some pottery. Whacky! We all then went and bought some of this pottery, and there's now a pot thing hanging on our wall which has been glazed with a man's nose. Are you jealous?

Open graves!



Man, I don't know about you, but I have seen enough skeletons to last me a lifetime.

We stayed the night in Puerto Inca, which is basically a pretty cove which was purchased by a German man who turned it into a resort for gringos and rich Peruvians. There's lots of ruins around the place if one fancies a walk, and about a million open graves. These ones aren't in the least bit protected by any inconvenient barriers, so hey, feel free to grab a handful of bones and wave them around, send them home, whatever floats your boat.





We had a Sangria Party, which basically consisted of getting a lot of campfire smoke in our eyes, getting burnt when we tried to toast marshmallows, and playing cards until the wee hours. It was followed by a trip to the discoteka, where we were the only people there (this is a bit of a theme - the joys of visiting in the off-season) and they actually went and got the DJ out of bed so he could play us a Queen megamix, while two of us danced and watched the whacky light effects (strobe, anyone?), the tour guide danced while he watched his own reflection in the mirror, and about 20 locals stood off to the side and discreetly watched us.

We slept off our hangovers the next day on the journey to Arequipa. Well, we tried to, but those crazy Peruvians have built the windiest, twistiest, most stomach-churning roads you have ever seen, and the driver was doing lots of overtaking on blind corners. There was little snippets of sleep, mixed in with nausea, and a bit of fearing for my life, etc.



Arequipa had:

• Most excellent coffee.
• Three cuba libres for 10 sol. Translation: three reallysuperstrong rum & cokes for $4.
• Lovely architecture, see above, etc. etc.
• A zillion churches, and a convent.

This is a nun's toilet.



Those crazy nuns also keep making outfits for Mary and Jesus, which is a lovely gesture, though I'm not sure when they're expecting them to drop by to try on their new threads.

Arequipa was also where we met up with another chunk of our tour group, because the tour company had decided that our tour would join up with another group half-way through, and then lose some people a bit further on, very confusing, pain in the arse, etc. We settled into our musty hotel with doors that sometimes refused to open and tried to prepare ourselves for some major altitude.

Coming in Part Three: Everything that I said would be in Part Two. Ha!



This is a tin of Peruvian tuna. Would you like some?

News from the warfront:

• The government have quite foolishly offered to extend my contract by another six months, which means that they will be dealing with my crap until December. Yes, they really are THAT desperate.
• I recently signed up for the Borders mailing list, figuring that I spend so much bloody money in there that I may as well try and get a discount or two, but I have now found myself more out of pocket than ever. You see, every time Borders sends me a new voucher, I have to use it. So I am buying a book every week (at least), whereas I would normally buy a book just on a whim, or if it was something I specifically wanted. I think that this could perhaps be part of the Borders Grand Plan to lure people who can't pass up Good Value.
• Why is the radio continually playing 'Suddenly I See' by KT Tunstall? I know for sure that this song is about two years old, because I distinctly remember playing it on my guitar and trying to emulate the huskiness with my whiney voice back in 2005. This is very peculiar indeed.
• Who's going to the Supanova Expo? I am! Hooray for being a 23-year old female with the interests of a teenage boy!
• I am not the girliest of girls, and I never wear make-up never ever never, but I am constantly wearing stuff on my lips. It is normally bog-standard chapstick, but when I was in Priceline the other day I saw that they were selling off a 'lip-plumping' gloss. So I bought it. Wouldn't you? Oh, you know you would. I put it on and waited a while, and then my lips started to sting a hell of a lot. It felt like I was having an allergic reaction. And apparently I had done a shit job of staying within the perimeter of my lips, despite the gloss's stern warnings, because all of the skin surrounding my mouth went all red and irritated and I looked like that kid at school who always had windburn. But the most important thing to note here is that there was NO lip-plumping to speak of. My lips were non-plumped. I think my body was just reminding me how absolutely shite I am at this Girl Stuff.

My latest Pedestrian Pet Hate is the people who swing their arms when they're walking, like they're marching. It is particularly inconvenient when their arm is flailing so wildly that they punch you in the crotch. Do you agree?