I think on reflection that now I'm back in the UK with the majority of my friends here, that I'm going to put the blog on ice until I go somewhere interesting next year. Thank you to all those who have made kind comments about enjoying reading it and I'll let you know if I go live with it again! But to sign off, here are some of my favourite photos to finish with:

Macaws feeding on Colpa 1 (eating clay with minerals in it) in June:

"Drunken hacienda owners" in Pisac for the Festival of the Virgen del Carmen in July

And in the next post there's a load of archaeology for those who like that sort of thing!

My Favourite Bits of Archaeology

3000 year old sculpture from the Chavin ruins near Huaraz (I have no idea what we were up to then!)



















Moche Temple Art, a northern coastal civilisation that flourished in the desert around AD 100 to 700 (Imperial Rome to Saxon)













The fortress walls of Kuelap, a Chachapoyan fortress in Northern Peru. This is half of one side. (Around 1100 AD, or William the Conqueror and his sons here).












Inca terracing, a true wonder of the world and contemporary with the Tudors in the UK. Below is Choquequirao, a royal Inca site built in a classic position on a ridge at 3000m with a commanding view of all it surveys. Why build there? The views, the sacredness of mountains, to show they could? Who knows, but they are breathtaking in their execution and position.