Salkantay Trail - If in doubt, follow the mule poo!Which is exactly what we did given that our rogue guide had a habit of disappearing on us.....lucky for us, our mules were kind enough to leave their plops behind like a personalised breadcrumb trail. Over the the 4 day trek, it was an assault on all of our senses and a test of patience, stamina and how long you could hold your breath at altitude whilst visiting the 'hole in the ground´toilet. But it was one of the best experiences we´ve had to date and one that we'll never forget. As [View Full Entry]

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Cusco - United nations of gringos (meaning hassle me on the streets then charge me double)Is it just us or are our blogs getting longer? well then, it must just be you.....we spent an agonising night at lima airport during our transfer to cusco and following the 'night from hell´we arrived in town very sore, sleepy and swollen due to altitude (3500m above sea level!). but Cusco is not the type of city where you play 'lay down sally'....after the initial 24 hours, we acclimatised to the altitude (although our bodies were still auditioning for the wind section of a brass [View Full Entry]

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Quito - You can take the ´mo´s´out of quito and then stick it on the local male population in this townThe country also has a penchance for pan pipe music....this combined with the over zealous facial hair would no doubt rate this place high on the romance stakes. Our visit to Quito wasn´t quite what we imagined with jean being talented enough to pick up the worst lurgy the town had to offer. But we were able to see a few sights in both the old and new town, and check out the local chinese takeaway before sadly leaving ecuador behind....City [View Full Entry]

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Banos - where taffy and karaoke don´t mixWe experienced a mini bus crash on the way to the little town of Banos, and proceeded to watch the bus driver and the butch female ute driver battle it out to determine who was at fault. Whilst it may have been perceived as a traumatising experience for some, the local passengers on the bus, opportunistic as always, saw it as a chance to take a pee break and local hawks bombarded the bus to try and flog us bread rolls for lunch. as per usual, jean slept through the entire thing. Banos is [View Full Entry]

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La Calera - guinea pig, peach wine and 1000 litres of beerDon´t worry, we didn´t get our stomachs pumped at the local hospital; instead we spent 24 hours with a local indigenous indian family to witness their way of life and happened to stumble across not 1, but 2 wedding fiestas. We entered the primitive village of La Calera anxious at what to expect from our homestay, and instead found that in this village of 1200 indigenous indians, there was an abundance of welcome faces (in this situation drunk or passed out from celebrations), sticky faced children and livestock milling about [View Full Entry]

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Otavalo - a wonderful haven for midgetsWhilst the shrunken population of Otavalo lack in stature, they over compensate in hospitality and general cogeniality. We´ve been amazed at how incredibly friendly the local indigenous population have been to whom they perceive as goliath and his asian bride. We were fortunate to have arrived on the first night of a 10 day festival that overtook this small town with its parade, fireworks, regional dancing/bands, bullfighting, cockfighting, foodstalls and markets (reknowned to be the largest in south america!)....and we haven´t even started on [View Full Entry]

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Sao Paulo - Brazil´s answer to America´s NYC....supposedlyOur run of good luck seemed to have expired when we were allocated the squashiest seats on the plane journey back to Brazil from Dublin. But even as we were hobbling our way back to Sao Paulo city, we were still excited at the prospect of being back in a town where the weather is warm, food and alcohol abundant, and the locals as rude as hell! We even had an unexpected medical excursion to excommunicate an unwelcome 'passenger´that paul had picked up from paraty to boot.....City highlights: A visit to the mercado muni [View Full Entry]

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Dublin - home to Guinness and the world´s best buffalo wingsAs you can now tell, our travel blogs probably won´t be able to tell you much about the oldest buildings in the cities we visit, or the most culturally compelling sights to see.....but we can sure sniff out a delicious basket of buffalo wings. and they come with blue cheese dressing! It was paul in a 'jean´sandwich during our stay in dublin (for those unaware, paul´s mum´s name is also jean; great name), and we had the pleasure of spending time with both his mum and his ridiculously tall, good looking [View Full Entry]

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Bellinter House - Alan & Joyce Chiswick´s weddingIt was wonderful to catch up with Paul´s family again, especially for an occasion as exciting as a wedding. We maximised our luxurious 5 star accommodation and tried to scrub up as best as possible following our 6 week tour of south america. Contrary to the wet summer Dublin has been subjected to so far, the weather over the weekend was glorious and everyone (especially us) had a magnificant time.Weekend highlights:The wedding - Alan and Joyce looked picture perfect and had gone to great lengths to ensure that the weekend w [View Full Entry]

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Madrid - Tapas delightIt´s always nice flying business class....but there´s nothing sweeter than flying business class for free!! Following our delicious upgrade, we entered the 34 degree temperature of Madrid city fresher than daisies and were delighted at the comfort of our hotel; our day was getting better and better! madrid is beautiful....this coupled with the laid back lifestyle the locals adopt, the tasty tapas bars and paul's obsession with iberian ham made our visit the perfect pit stop before dublin.City highlights: a lazy walk through madrid´s old town to gawp at [View Full Entry]

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