Whilst on Lake Titicaca we visited the Uros Islands, which are floating reed islands anchored to the bottom of the lake, on which communities live, go to school, trade etc. Although the compacted reeds are 2 metres thick its still a strange floating sensation when you are on them. After some shopping opportunities our group made their way to another island - Amantani. Here we stayed the night with a local family in their house. At the dock we were met by our ´mama´in her traditional dress and taken for lunch to her home. It was basic but we were lucky [View Full Entry]

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Whilst relaxing in northern Peru, the owner of our hotel invited us to visit her house on the beach in Colan. The journey there was an adventure in itself as the final part involved speeding down the highway at 110kph whilst both squashed in the front seat of the taxi with no seatbelt! However, the house was directly on the beach with only the crashing of the waves to disturb the peace. So much so we both fell asleep on the decking in the sunshine! We then flew to Lima the capital of Peru and fortunately we stayed in a really [View Full Entry]

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We stayed at Baños staying in a hotel at the foot of an active volcano on the edge of the amazon jungle, let´s hope it doesnt erupt (it´s more likely that Andrew´s temper will erupt than the volcano). The town is set in a beautiful valley but the town is not much to look at. What was nice though was an 18km cycle ride along La Ruta de Las Cascadas (route of the waterfalls) set amidst the mountains. We have also enjoyed our first zip line across a canyon, a real adrenaline rush. On the way to Baños we visited La [View Full Entry]

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Arrived safely in Quito, Ecuador´s capital after a short transit flight into Panama. We passed the swineflu check at immigration and had a pleasant surprise as our bags also arrived. We had a lovely room in the loft at our Hotel with just the 4 beds and after settling in we caught the local trolley bus to the historic centre for some sightseeing. After all our fears about safety, its was no different to Commercial Rd at lunchtimes (well maybe a bit safer)! Now in Otavalo, a town in the mountains, with our tutor after a rather crazy bus journey from [View Full Entry]

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The weather in Miami greeted us with torrential thunder storms with forked lightning (not what we expected). The local bus took us to where our Hotel was situated, an Art Deco Hotel that should have read not updated since the 1960´s and where the breakfast came with a complimentary heart attack! But we enjoyed our time there, getting over jetlag and relaxing with a swim in the very warm sea and watching the thunder storms on the beach at night. A little hot for us though, our walk along the SouthBeach promendade was somewhat taxing due to it being 107f! We [View Full Entry]

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