I screamed as I got out of the van and Freddy and Luis were laughing their heads off! Of course Freddy was filming me walk into this flash hotel beaming ear to ear followed by Alex doing the same thing. We were shown to our room and it even had a BATH! We had been ruined already by Luis and his ‘scheming’ with restaurants, fuel, hostals and now this! It was unreal. How do you thank someone for so much? We had, as we arrived in Peru found a Piggy bank in the shape of a pig in a shop. The lady was decorating them to sell and we had asked her if we could buy an undecorated one so we could do it ourselves as a gift to Luis. We planned to put little pictures of the roadtrip on it as a thank you gift so as the trip went on we had been adding more and more but still, there will never be thanks enough! Luis laughed at our faces as we jumped on thebed,tried the bath taps and moved in. The four of us went out for Pizza and finally crashed after Alex, Luis and Freddy’s long long hard day. We slept like babies in our feather duvet and the next day prepared ourselves for more Peggy fun.

We took her BACK to the mechanic and left poor Denys with her while the rest of us along with Jazmine Cahaus (a photograpaher in Arequipa) went to do a shoot at the wonderful Santa Catalina. The monestary is STUNNING. Built in 1580 for rich women who wanted to become nuns (who paid upward of, in todays money $150,000 for the privilege) and more recently to house 20 nuns and the rest of the buildings are open to the public. The colours are fantastic and every single corner begs for attention from the camera.
We changed into our weddng clothes, Alex tapped the sand out of his shoes from the beach shoot and pulled sand out of his trouser pockets from being in the ocean and we strolled the ancient streets. As the sunset around us the colours grew warmer, the orange the perfect reflection of the evening sky and the blues changed from clear sky blue to hues of evening fall. The lights came on and it was like a fairytale. the cobbles, arches and old worn tiny doors, it was so beautiful. As we left the monestary the outside walls were lit from the streets and looked magnificent, the best part was that the lights were in the floor. I stood ontop of one and it lit up my whole dress! People oohed and aahed as they passed us and asked us our story and offered us¡Felicidades. Once we had a few shots there we all piled back into Luis’s tiny car (still in my dress WITH hoop) and headed back to Hanan where we took more shots in the beautiful hotel. The decor there is fantastic and a complete contrast to the monestary. Modern stripes, bright colours and HUGE lights (coincidentally designed by Paolas (whom we met in Lima) daughter!) and patterned glass everywhere. By the time we had collected Peggy, locked her up for the night and got back into our room we were so worn out we shared an avocado for our dinner and collapsed into our amazing bed.

Once we had taken Peggy to the mechanic the next day we hibernated in our beautiful room and worked online for the day. The only time we left was to go for some food and then at the end of the day to collect Peggy.
Luis gave us a knock just after sunset to take a few more shots on the roof of the hotel and then we jumped into a bath to warm up (we were making the most of it after not having had one for almost a year).
We were just carrying on blogging still wrapped in bath towels when there was a knock at the door and it was Luis and the gang! They all came in looking sheepish (apart from Freddy who had the camera rolling) with a large parcel. Luis dropped it onto the bed and said “we got you a gift”.
A GIFT!
They had all done so much for us already, how could we accept another thing from them? We ripped open the package and found inside thousands of postcards printed with Luis’s pictures of us in the Ocean and in the desert, with our story on the back, our website details and a map of the world. They were just perfect. Tania from boxperuna had designed the cards for us and Luis and the boys had had them printed for us! I of course held back tears and almost lost my towel several times in the hugs and thank yous. They all filed out again and we arranged to meet the next day back at the mechanics. We were gobsmacked at the generosity of these people. They had given up their time, travelled away from their homes and families, paid for their meals and accomodations, arranged us free food and lodgings, run around taking pictures and video footage of us and they STILL bought US a gift! Such warmth is rarely exerienced for some people and we have been so lucky already with all of the people we have met and love we have been shown, we couldn’t be more grateful for our lives and the paths we had chosen to take as they had been the paths that lead us to Luis, Freddy, Alejandro, Denys and Tania!