EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE In the quiet little hostel, with its cute patio, we sleep soundly until 11:00am at least. After the intensity of the past month, we not only felt we deserved a little rest, we also really needed it, physically and mentally. However, we weren't going to do nothing either, so after taking it easy a few hours, having a huge home-made breakfast with eggs and a siesta in the hammock, we took a couple of bikes and went for the Valle de la Luna--quite different from t [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE As Karine and I arrive in Copacabana, we both wonder why on earth our Argentines friends said they literally loved the place and would have wanted to stay a whole week. Apart from the extremely touristy strip, where all the restaurants are serving the exact same food for the exact same price, the rain, and the dodgiest hostels I have seen in all my trip, the only thing the town has to offer is a hill, from where the views to the Lake Titicaca are breathtakingly [View Full Entry]

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MANY MORE PHOTOS HERE On our way back from Aguas Calientes to Cusco, we stop at Ollantaytambo (I would love the place just for its name). We are weary of stairs, and visiting any Inca ruin after the Macchu Picchu is like looking at the water flowing from your tap after visiting something like Iguazu or the Victoria Falls... All the same, the stones of the altar to the sun are impressively big and we can't help but wonder if it was indeed aliens who put them up there... As French travelers had recommended, [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE DAY 1 5:30AM Beep Beep. Hhmmmm. Snooze. 5:39AM Beep Beep. Hhhmmppphhh... Pfff... All right, all right. We get up in the dark to finish packing. It's cold. Karine, falsely victimizing herself, starts: "But why, oh why are we doing this to ourselves? Waking up at ungodly hours to willfully go walking in the cold and rain for four days, when we could be warm and cozy at home, watching TV with a sweetheart, just like all of our nor [View Full Entry]

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MORE PHOTOS HERE Thin Air 19 hours and 4562 curves later, and 3400m higher, I set foot in sunny Cusco. The air is crisp and clear, so different from the stifling and dusty humid air in Lima, and the sun feels definitely closer to my skin as I wait for Karine, a friend from Paris, in front of the amazing cathedral. As we both go hostel-hunting (couchsurfing is tricky in Cusco), we understand the meaning of "thin air". After only a couple of steps, we are breathless, as though we had just run a [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE Peru is the reason I added South America, and five months, to my original itinerary idea. I had always wanted to go, but ever since my friend Yamil had gone and come back with stories and pictures of the Macchu Picchu back in 2003, it was a very definite dream, and a compulsory stop on this adventure. The stench outside the Lima airport is hardly bearable, a mix of rotten fish, black waters, and chemical discharge, but my CS host is real sweet, picking me u [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE To reach Panama from Mexico, I have to go through Miami and overnight there. Originally I would have wanted to go through Central America overland from Mexico to Panama, but I would have needed at least two months, and my travel agent did not recommend it. Ìndeed a Chilean girl I met in Mexico reported being abducted by a guerilla group in Nicaragua, and though nothing happened to her in the end, it was a good scare. Other travelers havent had any problem at al [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS I had the unfortunate idea to make the trip from San Cristóbal de las Casas to San Juan de Chamula on horseback, but the horses were poorly maintained and hard-headed, the guides were nothing short of rude and uncooperative with poor Miriam whose first ride it was; her stirrups were way too long and she felt understandably unstable, so we ended up taking the combi back to San Cris... San Juan de Chamula was worth the trip though. It is a community run independent [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE I thought I needed to be pinched in Valladolid because it looked so much like Old San Juan, in Mérida also, especially as Carlos was there, but I had not seen Campeche yet... Not only could I have easily been mistaken, all with its cobblestone streets lined with brightly colored colonial houses, but the fortress walls and its "garitas" were also similar to San Juan's, and even 20th century buildings, like the exact twin of San Juan's Departamento de Hacienda... [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE Arrived early morning at the archeological site, recently sacred amongst the New 7 Wonders of the World, before the hordes, I spend more than four hours absorbing the atmosphere of the place. Unfortunately, the climb to the main pyramid is now forbidden, but the site is huge and impressive enough to fill my head with vivid images of Mayans playing pelota, the clapping of the excited audience, loudly echoing in the field, chopping the losers' heads off, or thr [View Full Entry]

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