With a day to spare in Santiago we were looking for some sea and sun. Valparaiso (Valpo) and its neighbouring, more upmarket town, Viña del Mar (Viña) are just 1.5h away by bus, so jumped on the bus early in the morning. Valpo is an old harbour town from the time before the digging of the Panama Canal, and as such it was experiencing economic decline after the canal opened. Today it houses part of the Chilean naval fleet and is a destination for tourists, who mainly come there to wonder around town and look at the colourful houses climbing the hillside towards the harbour. We're no different to other tourists, so spent much of the day walking the streets and riding some of the 15 feniculars that run along the hillside. We had also heard ... read more

On the 8th January we set off from Copacabana to La Paz. About half-way we had to cross a narrow part of Lake Titicaca. The routine was for passengers to step off the bus and take a small boat (Bs 1.5/person) across the water while the bus went on a separate "ferry". Well, it did have room for the bus and one car. Powered by one 75-horsepower outboard motor it took a while for the "ferry" to make it across. Amazed it actually worked at all. Finally in La Paz, we hoped to catch a bus to Cochabamba two days later. Before leaving Peru we had heard about some trouble in Santa Cruz, relating to autonomy demands from the province. Santa Cruz is the more properous province in Bolivia, so naturally its citizens don't want to ... read more

We took a day-trip to Tiwanaku, from . Inca culture is what most people seem to think about when talking about Peruvian and Bolivian history. However, perhaps more important, for Bolivia anyway, is the Tiwanaku period. The Tiwanaku civilisation started around 1500 BC (the earlier parts that is, some people count the start of the Tiwanaku period as being 600 BC, the temples were built around 300 AD) and ended roughly when the Incas came to power, around 1200 AD - a 2,700-year empire. Think about that! The Roman empire lasted for roughly 1,200 years, for example. The Tiwanaku people seemed highly developed in terms of architecture and astronomy, working with a 24-hour division of each day, 365 day year, etc. As one example, they created an observatory pool, in the shape of a giant sun ... read more

Puno & final thoughts on Peru We arrived in Puno after a slightly eventful journey on the overnight bus from Cusco (). We had to stop as a lorry had got stuck in a corner and our bus coudn't get past it without some serious shouting and yelling and lots of reversing (uphill of course!)... Everyone had to get off the bus at about midnight, but we refused, which proved to be good as one girl got all her money stolen... Never leave your bag unattended on buses - or anywhere really!!! Straight from the bus (well, almost) we got on another one that took us to the harbour where a boat waited to take us to Los Uros, the floating islands on Lake Titicaca. These are built from reed, and a whole family can live ... read more

So, we're back after four days of high altitude, pain, low oxygen, rain and 49.5km of hiking in the Andes. Did we pay for this? Most certainly, and gladly. There's a very fine line between pleasure and pain and that's what we've been walking on for four days. It's called the Inca Trail. Day one started with SAS Travel (the tour operator) picking us up 5.45 am at our hostel. After two hours on the bus we stoped at Ollantaytambo for breakfast and to buy walking sticks (bamboo, with wowen handles). The latter became cause for discussion for the next four days, as two schools developed. The people with and the people without a stick - support or extra weight to carry. We both chose the stick. Another hour on the bus followed and we stopped ... read more