After a few days in La Paz, I said goodbye to our travelling crowd from the past few weeks. Except for Steve and Theresa who were heading to Chile with me. Before setting off into the bowels of Bolivia, we thought we'd have a few days of luxury, indulgence and pampering. We found a glossy pamphlet advertising a luxury spa hotel in the hills. The rooms looked opulent and immaculate, and the whole place suggested comfort and relaxation. So we booked, looking forward to being treated like kings for a few days. Alarm bells started to gently ring when twelve of [View Full Entry]

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Since I first heard about it, I have wanted to cycle down "The World´s Most Dangerous Road". Also known as "The Death Road", it is a 40km downhill mountain road connecting La Paz with the lowlands. Between 200 and 300 people are estimated to die on this road each year. So why is it so dangerous? Basically it is a winding gravel road which has blind bends and crumbling edges, and it only 3 metres wide in some places (which is barely wide enough for one vehicle). One side of the road is the mountain wall, and the other side is [View Full Entry]

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Chaotic. Polluted. Ugly. An unplanned, messy urbal sprawl. Yet somehow intriguing.... Welcome to La Paz, capital of Bolivia! So far, most cities I have visited have had at least a vague gridlike system to their streets. There has been some vague notion of planning to the layout. But not with La Paz. With this city, the layout must have been designed by a blind man on crack. Or maybe by someone dipping a spider in ink and letting it run across a page. The very centre does have some sense to it, but venture further away and you enter a crazy [View Full Entry]

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Have you heard of Lake Titicaca? It's name sounds like it came from a Carry-On film. It is also the world´s highest navigatable lake. The world's actual highest lake is somewhere in Russia, and is only unnavigatable because no-one's bothered to put any boats up there. Lake Titicaca straddles both Peru and Bolivia, and there are great arguments about where the actual border lies. Peru claims to own 60% of the lake, but so does Bolivia! We set sail on the Peruvian side to a rather interesting island called Amantani. The men on this island wear one of two types of [View Full Entry]

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The day was here at last! I was going to be hiking to Machu Picchu on the four-day Inca Trail. Machu Picchu has now been awarded the status as one of the "New Seven Wonders Of The World" by worldwide public vote. I personally voted for Stonehenge, which incidentally got nowhere! Admittedly, Stonehenge is somewhat rubbish, but I thought it would be nice for Britain to have something. Due to erosion of the Inca Trail, only 500 permits are issued each day, and this includes porters and guides (you cannot hike the trail alone now, you have to use the local [View Full Entry]

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After failing to find any condor steaks in South Peru, we headed to the East in search of new and tasty meats. At the indecent time of 5am we boarded a flight to the mountain town of Cusco. Once on the plane I thought it was strange that they didn´t give us a lifejacket demonstration. "Probably because we´re not flying over the sea" someone said. "But what if we overshoot and land in Lake Titicaca?" piped up Steve from the seat behind. "It´s irrelevant anyway" said Gus, and went on to explain why. For flights passing over bodies of water, you [View Full Entry]

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A few facts and observations on Peru.... 1. If you cast your mind back to your childhood, do you remember Paddington Bear? He came from "Darkest Peru" and ate marmalade sandwiches. (I also remember that he used to fix people with a "hard stare" when he didn´t like them). Well, so far I have not managed to find any bears in Peru, and it´s damn difficult to find a decent marmalade sandwich. 2. Peru is full of badly designed toilets, where the door is right next to the urinals. Why just the other day I was having a sprinkle, and the [View Full Entry]

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Our next stop was Colca Canyon, "The Deepest Canyon in the World". This is actually a bare-faced lie. It´s the second deepest in the world, but is generally misrepresented and misquoted. The deepest canyon is a few doors down, but is rarely visited for some reason. Our accommodation was in a nearby village, and it was here that I feasted on a new type of meat. VEGETARIANS PLEASE STOP READING HERE. Every county I visit, I always try the local cuisine and national dishes, and I am particularly keen on trying new meats. On my carnivorous travels I have tried frogs, [View Full Entry]

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On Wednesday 15th August, Southern Peru was hit by an earthquake which measured 8.0 on the Richter Scale. I was due to be in Lima that day, but luckily I was behind schedule by one day, nestled safely in the mountains about 7 hours away. But the earthquake was still felt in the nearest town to me, Huaraz. To put that in perspective, imagine an earthquake in Edinburgh being felt in London! The next day I headed to Lima, which was on the edge of the earthquake zone. And little did I know that more earthquakes were to come.... It was [View Full Entry]

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My next stop was Huaraz, a mountain town known as the "capital" of the Peruvian Alps. This journey involved three buses and twenty consecutive hours of travelling time. At one of my bus changes, I noticed a family with a sheep in the bus terminal. This raises a couple of questions. 1. How did they get to the bus terminal? Trujilan was a large city, so I can´t imagine they walked from the countryside. Perhaps they took a cab. A sheep in a taxi? Imagine 2. They must have been in the bus terminal to catch a bus, since this is [View Full Entry]

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