Last day in South America and last day of my trip. I would say that I´m dreading coming home and I wish I had another 12 months, but I´m not. I would like another year off uni, but I´m pretty excited about getting home and seeing everybody. (experience tells me that I´ll get home and within 2 weeks I´ll wish I stayed away)...

My last post (not including the rationalisation of skipping machu picchu) was from Arequipa which was a very beautiful city, and a really cool hostel. Its unbelievable how much of a difference a good hostel makes to your enjoyment of a place. Took a couple of days out of Arequipa to venture to the Colca Canyon (the second deepest in the world - the Grand Canyon is not the deepest), home of the Andean Condor. Was told before that at this time of year seeing the condors is a hit or miss deal. We were lucky enough to hit. As we were walking along to the viewing area (with the hundreds of other bird watching enthusiasts) a couple came up out of the canyon and flew back parallel to the path we were walking along. Lucky we saw them though, cause the tour i did up there was pretty shite up till then - not really the tour´s fault but the weather´s. Got back from the trip and went out to dinner with some of the group - had a very peruvian dinner of alpaca salad and cuy (guinea pig)...

Got the first class, deluxe overnight to Cusco the next night with a couple of people from the hostel which went without hitch - was almost a hitch when the dinner they served tried to fight its way to the surface. I won that battle though. Had a cool first day in Cusco - met a couple of guys from melbourne and we all went up to these ruins about an hour walk from the centre. Not wanting to fork out the 40 sols ($16) entry fee we commandoed our way up the side of the mountain and then over a few inca walls. Got busted at the top but the guard was happy to accept our bribe of 5 sols ($2) to let us stay. Next day got to the train station and had my epiphany and then booked rafting for the next day. Was very cool. Fun rapids and amazing scenery of massive mountains and inca terraces. Didn´t end up getting around to doing the paragliding, and have basically just been fucking around in Cusco with people I´ve met since then.

Flew to Lima yesterday morning (christ it feels so much longer ago than that). after my alarm played up and I woke up an hour late. Very lucky to make it. Left my bags a lima airport and essentially spent the rest of the day in various taxis (not intentionally). People kept taking me to the wrong place, and other places were closed (they get a public holiday for valentines day apparently). Ended up getting back to the airport at 6 having spent a fuckload and not really achieved much. And for the record its true what they say - miraflores on the beach is much nicer than downtown Lima (I´m sure you´re all glad i cleared that up). Flight was delayed an hour so ended up arriving in Santiago at 3am - got to the hostel at 4. But I´m here, and not for long.

Just want to thank everyone who´s commented and sent emails and talked on msn and called this year. It does take an effort to keep in touch and most of you have been very good to me. In the end the blog was as much for my benefit as it was for yours, so people are excused for not reading it or just finding shit boring.

Its been a fun year. Thanks also to everyone I´ve left behind along the way who might be reading this.

Well its a beautiful, sunny day here in Santiago so I think I´m going to go out and enjoy the last one of my trip..

See you in about 30 hours!

This post is in response to Tommy's comment below - I thought it deserved a post in its own right as I don't know if anyone actually reads the comments here...

>>How did johnny even know?! I got as far as the train station ticket office and decided that this inca shit had gone far enough.. 100 years (give or take) does not qualify you as a civilisation in my books (Fuck it, I may even live that long - I wonder if they'll start charging visitors to 8 Waterloo Street in a few hundred years?!). Faced with a $100(US) bill for a place "I just have to see" stirred up in me a sense of rebellion. I decided to spend the money on things I'll enjoy more than sitting on a train for 5 hours then wandering around admiring a bunch of (admittedly big) rocks. Today I went white-water rafting down the Urubamaba river - fucking amazing (but equally cold). I plan to go paragliding through the sacred valley in the next couple of days as well... Some people may not consider adventure sports very cultured of me, but at least I'm seeing some cool scenery while doing something fucking awesome. And I'm certain I've thought this through more than 90% of the morons who trundle along to Machu Picchu to take in some 'culture'.

Today I arrived in the lovely town of Arequipa - so lovely that the department of Foreign Affairs has warned against visiting.

In actual fact, it is lovely... Though I´ve only been here for 4 hours and walked basically in a straight line from the hostel to the kebab shop... That straight line, however, took me through the main plaza which is by far the most impressive I´ve seen in South America so far and competes with most European cities (And its even too cloudy to see El Misti, the snow-capped volcano which is supposedly in the background). For the first time since my first night in Santiago I´m staying in a real, live hostel so hopefully now I´ll be able to practise some of that english I´ve been trying so hard to learn over the last 21 years...

Since I last posted, I´ve made my way at a snail´s pace around Lake Titicaca. I mentioned in the last post that I would have the opportunity to meditate in quiet solitude on the Isla del Sol, and meditate in quiet solitude I did. The place was magical. The most beautiful place I´ve been so far. I´m not even going to bother to describe it. Plenty of tourists, but all argentinian, hence the quiet solitude... On my last day there I was walking back along the path from the ruins and after struggling to find my way through the fields to this secluded cove, stripped down to my jocks and went for a swim in the lake.

After returning to Copacabana for a night-in-waiting for the bus the next day, I made my way around the lake to Puno in Peru. The last country I´ll visit before coming home. I was told Puno was the poor-man´s (though its more expensive) Copacabana and I only really stayed there so I could go out to Los Uros - floating, man-made reed islands. The guide openly told us that the only reason the islands were still inhabited was to make money out of tourists. At least it gave me a chance to take some photos of some native people (they hadn´t really let me up till then).

I´ll be here for a few nights (including an overnight trip to the Colca Canyon) before going up to Cusco, my last proper stop before coming home via a day in each of Lima and Santiago. People have to let me know now if they want any llama wool products brought home!