The Santa Cruz circuit is one of the main trekking routes in the Cordillera Blanca and a mighty fine one at that. Along with my trusty sidekick, Lukas, who´d actually beaten me to Huaráz despite me leaving him behind in Cusco, I headed down the valley from Huaráz to Caraz, then on to Cashapampa by colectivo. The night before we´d stocked up on sufficient chocolate, quinua chicken surprise, and in Lukas´s case tuna, enough to feed the japanese army for a week, to get us safely through the 4 day trek. The market in itself was an interesting experience: though i got a photo of the chickens hanging up, I was too chicken to get a photo of the platters of disected guinea pigs, the local delicacy. Caraz seemed a nice place and there we stocked ... read more

Wow! What an incredible last 4 days! It´s going to be hard to do the trek justice with words so I´ve uploaded loads of photos. The trek started with an early 5am start. I found myself sitting on the coach taking us to the trail next to Adam, a 33-year-old guy from Tuscon, Arizona (I´ve been there which helped break the ice!) who it transpired was to be my tent mate for the next 3 nights. An interesting character - studying literature indefinitely at Universtiy of Arizona, and a Shakespeare fanatic. That first night in the tent we had an interesting reenactment of a scene from King Lear with a memorable line about ´barbermongers´! Well anyway back to the story of the trek... Day 1 was an easy going affair with plenty of chance to get ... read more

Well I’ve finally arrived in Cusco, Peru, to start my Inca Trail trek in a couple of days. I had to arrive by today at the latest to pay the full trek fee and to ‘acclimatise’ to the high altitude (of couse the fact I’ve just been through Bolivia should have rendered that unnecessary). So why do I say ‘finally’? Well I’ve had another south american bus adventure to get here. Oh how easy the overnight luxury semi-cama (Cruz Del Sur - one of the better coach companies) should have been. However unfortunately of all days today (or this morning at 2am to be precise) some of the villagers in a town precisely have way between Arequipa and Cusco (i.e. 5 hours from nowhere) decided to hold a strike and blocked the (only) road in ... read more

I'm now back in La Paz after 5 days away in jungle to the north in a place called Rurrenabaque. The flight back took 40 mins, an altitude change of approximately 3500m from a balmy 29 degrees in the shade (according to my watch which tells funky things like the altitude and the temperature as well as telling the time) to a modest 15 degrees in the sun. The plane was a 20 seater, two seats per row. Unfortunately it was also an oven (steamy windows so alas not the best view either), so it was a quite a shock to get out dripping with sweat to the cool Pacena air. But compared to the 34 hour bus journey there it was heaven!! More on that journey below... First, back to Potosi, the world's highest city ... read more

Today we arrived in Potosi, the highest city in the world, standing at approximately 4050m, after a dusty 7 hour bus ride from Uyuni. Alas no longer the luxury buses of argentina; here we mixed with locals (plus the obligatory group of Israelis), in fact rather too close for Lukas' liking. Half way through the journey, a couple of natives sporting typical bolivian dress were squeezed onto the bus, and ended up literally sitting on Lukas, which is apparently acceptable practice in these parts. Unfortunately said typical Bolivian dress had apparently been worn unwashed for the better part of this millenium - a rather unsavoury smell pervaded their locality. Ok, rewind to the last few days in Uyuni, southwest bolivia. We spent 4 days in the region. The first day we awoke too late (after the ... read more