Sitting in a pasta restaurant with Denise during the height of the Inti Raymi Festival parades at 9 o'clock at night in Cusco the ancient capital of the Incas, I look out the window onto some curving stairs to find umpteen men peeing in a steady stream, which cascades down the hill into the ancient Inca drainage system! One can imagine this has been the practice since the 1400's! Now I know why they built it with such meticulous detail! Fortunately Denise is facing the other way. We arrived early in Cusco as we had to prematurely evacuate Bolivia during the [View Full Entry]

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The tout in Cusco (the main tourist town in these parts) assured us there was no way of getting to the Sacred Valley except by taking his 'official' tour, so, being seasoned scam spotters, we promptly dismissed his overtures and wandered down to the local bus station and got on the first bus for $1 and, lo and behold, it went all the way to and through the Sacred Valley! Mind you, getting back at the end of the day was a bit of a nightmare as hundreds of people were waiting for the bus (which was only small) and when [View Full Entry]

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At just after 7am the blinding rays of the sun forked above the towering mountain overlooking the ancient lost city of the Incas, Machu Picchu. A few of us gathered at the site of the original sundial, which captured the falling rays, its only blemish being a corner missing, carelessly knocked off by a visiting film crew some years ago. We wandered around the maze of largely empty buildings and terraces and breathed in the quiet spirituality exuding from every nook and cranny. The location is simply out of this world, majestic beyond belief. It has to be our top site/highlight [View Full Entry]

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Four boys played tennis in the departure lounge of Sucre airport oblivious to the chaos outside. The members of Congress had just flown in to get away from their usual haunt of La Paz and the madness that was ensuing there. The President had just resigned and they needed somewhere to convene to discuss the appointment of a new President. Problem was, the trouble followed them! Crowds of protesters were awaiting them at the airport and we had to struggle past them to go into the airport to get a flight to our friend's in Cochabamba (still in Bolivia). As we [View Full Entry]

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On the 1st of June 2005 we caught a bus from Uyuni (Bolivia) to Potosi (still in Bolivia), the highest city in the world (4100m or 13500ft) and a UNESCO World Heritage City. By this time the campesinos (farmers and rural workers) had mobilised and had set up road blocks around most of the country. There had already been trouble in La Paz, the capital, and now it was spreading to the provinces. The protest's main goals were the nationalization of the gas and oil extraction industries in Bolivia, and the increased participation of Bolivia's indigenous majority in the political life [View Full Entry]

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We crossed the overland border from Argentina into Bolivia on 27th May 2005. I always find land border crossings stressful as there are always 100's of people milling around, a good number of them waiting to scam you in some way before you've managed to work out the correct exchange rate! Then having to negotiate the immigration procedures in a foreign language and endure the eternally rude immigration officers. On the Argentinian side there were indeed 100's of people, forming a huge queue, and nearly all of them with huge sacks of produce on their backs. Ignorance is sometimes bliss so [View Full Entry]

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From Salta in North West Argentina we started our overland leg of the journey up to and through Bolivia and into Peru. Bus travel in Argentina is easy as the buses are normally luxurious double deckers with toilets and all-you-want-help-yourself-coffee, someone told me that the night buses have beds and red wine on offer! We wanted to go on the Tren a las Nubes (Train to the Clouds) which is one of the world's greatest and highest train journeys climbing to 4475m (about 14,680 ft) but we decided against it as it was too expensive and we would have had to [View Full Entry]

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Having got to the last week of our 4 week language school in Cordoba we couldn´t take any more punishment, so we plotted our early escape on the Tuesday! We said our goodbyes and adios´s and fled to Villa General Belgrano, a beautiful Germanesque little village in the sierras. Apparently some German naval officers who escaped the sinking of the Graf Spee battleship during the Second World War settled here (and reproduced!). Defintely the best housing in Argentina! We stayed there for a few days then flew from Cordoba to Salta, in the north west of Argentina (about 1500kms from Buenos [View Full Entry]

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Learning Spanish is ‘murder’, there’s no other word for it! We’re here in Cordoba to attend a 4 week language school. The school is great, our teacher, Blanca, is great, the students are great but the learning is ‘muy dificile’! The whole experience brings back long-forgotten memories of school: homework (and the pressure of getting it right), repeating conjugations of verbs (o, as, es, a, amos, an), little games in class (eg using flashcards), silly simple sentences (‘the dog is in the house’), publicly being put on the spot, the mind going blank and then internal panic! On the 24th April [View Full Entry]

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So back on the trail after a few weeks break back in London and Scotland, great to see family and friends again, but glad to leave behind the foul spring weather. This part of the trip will only be 4 months long and is designed to be a bit different from our first sight-seeing-top-heavy 6 months. This time we’ve factored in a 4 week language school in Argentina, where we will be living in separate homestays (living with local people) and 4 weeks volunteering 10,000ft up in the Andes teaching English and again staying with local folks. Sightseeing won’t be forgotten [View Full Entry]

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