Finally we made it to Lima.  What a relief. We arrived at about 9.30pm but by the time we dealt with everything it was midnight before we got to the hotel.  Thankfully Nina went down ok and only woke up once before she got up at 8.00am. I am especially thankful as my body has collapsed and I have come down with a terrible flu.

Lima is busy, busy, busy and very noisy.  Martin and Nina have been catching up with family and friends and I am mostly trying to stay in bed and rest.  I did make it up to go to a meeting with Ruth from an NGO here called “Paz y Esperanza”.  She is also the coordinator for Micah Challenge South America.  It was great to chat with her. I also went for a little walk around Miraflores where we are staying.  It’s near the beach and while it’s not great for swimming and I am not up to that anyway it was good to smell the sea air.

We were going to stay in Lima one more day but have decided to head to Piura today.  I just don’t think I am going to get well in Lima.  It’s pretty full on.  I also need to stop travelling.  I want to have a home again.  That does mean 15 hours on a bus though.  I keep telling myself this journey does have to end but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.  It’s all pretty overwhelming.

We are currently at Buenas Aires Airport.  This journey has been epic.  It’s now been almost 48 hours since we got to Sydney Airport and we are still going.  I am so tired I can hardly string a sentence together and I think I might be coming down with something.  I don’t think I can go into how many stuff ups we have had to endure in these two days.

But we are almost there I suppose and I am looking forward to getting some sleep.  Please pray Nina has the same thing on her mind.  She has been exceptional really.  It all must be so hard for her and she’s a little bit unsettled but mostly she’s her usual curious and funny self and she’s giving us lots of big, big hugs.  All the people around us have been very friendly to her as well and understanding so that’s been a blessing.

For those wondering Nina didn’t sleep through again last night but that’s okay.  I wasn’t really expecting it would be that easy.  We are all having a nice time in the mountains though.  Gem and Jem have a lovely home and they and their lovely housemates have been very hospitable to us.  Nina is really enjoying some auntie time and so am I.  Martin and I had a little nap together this arvo while they cared for her.

I am missing Alice tonight.  Martin called Libby tonight and just hearing her voice through his phone made me long to be there.  And my mum wrote a post about how Mallie prepared her a little meal on the night we left to try to cheer her up.  This post reminded me of the big and small ways our lovely little community on Honeymoon Gap cares for each other in hard times.

Saying goodbye sure is hard.  I am dreading it all the farewells still to go……

Last night something amazing happened.  I am very excited.  Can you guess what it is?

Nina slept through the night!  She went to sleep around 7pm and woke up at 6.30am.  It was amazing.  That’s the first full nights sleep that I have had in 15 months.  And I don’t think she could have timed it better really.  I was so exhausted yesterday.  Martin has been working as a bush regenerator again this week so he has had to leave early and gets back very late and I am not really used to that.

She is probably very tired from all the stair climbing that she has been doing.  She is up and down the Frenchs steps all day.  Thankfully their steps are very child safe.  Her obsession with steps was much more stressful when we went to Tom’s place and when we were on the train.  And there were also the very, very hard steps at the cafe I was in with Marlene.

Unfortunately parenting isn’t always totally linear so I am trying to keep in check that I will now be sleping through every night but one full night does make a difference.