RaeDan

We woke up at 4:30am to get ready to leave around 5. We saw the lights of many other vehicles driving in the same direction as us taking their passengers to see the same sights as well. It looked like a pilgrimage of Landcruisers all heading in the same direction through the desert. Our first stop was to see geysers. Dan, Ralph and Chica all went for a walk through the steam sprayed air, whilst Tina, Nat and I made the decision to stay warm and out of the strong wind inside the vehicle. The sun was rising, but was not high enough to supply any heat at the time. We continued on to the hot springs, and were advised by our guide to have breakfast before entering the water to ensure that we got a ... read more

Glad to finally been able to have a sleep in, we rocked up to the office of Andys Salt Expeditions with great expectations for the tour that we had finally been able to book, since the strike in Uyuni ended at 6pm on the previous evening. We were glad to see that we had a 80 series Landcruiser, as it would be more comfortable than the older vehicles that the company uses, but were disappointed to find out that our guide could not speak any English. Having an English speaking guide with only 6 passengers max in the vehicle were the 2 main criteria for our selection process and we found out that both of these requirements were not to be met, as we were loading up our luggage. They wanted to fit a cook in ... read more

We had an extra early start this morning, as we had to eat breakfast and leave the campsite early enough for the porters to be able to pack everything up and run it all down the hill to get to the local public train by 6am. If they missed that train, they would be stuck with having to use an expensive tourist train instead. We also wanted to get to the Winay Wayna guard post to line up to get into the Machu Picchu reserve early. We walked in the dark with many layers of clothes on due to the very cold temperature, using our tourches to lead the way to the guard post. We had to wait 30 mins before the gate would open and process our paperwork for entry, but it was good to ... read more

Originally named Cosco, meaning the "navel or centre of the world", by the Incas when the city was their capital, the city of Cusco today contains a combination of Inca and Spanish architecture. The empire of the Incas extended north to Colombia and south to Chile and Argentina before the Spainards arrived in 1533. The Spanish built on the Inca walls and they followed the lines of the original Inca streets, when they continued to develop the city. The main square of Plaza de Armas was where Francisco Pizzaro claimed the conquest of Cusco and the Spanish added stone arches and other constructions during that period. It is now the tourist centre of town with many hotels, travel clothing stores and agencies nearby. We visited the main markets, where food was the main focus with sections ... read more

Dan and I found that we only had limited time to spend in Colombia and after staying in Cartagena for a few days we only had time to visit one other location in the country, as the buses take a long time to travel through the mountainous regions south of Cartagena. We chose to stay in San Gil, where we were hoping to go rafting or horse riding, as well as to use as a base to visit Barichara and Guane, two small colonial style towns that have white washed buildings and cobbled roads. To our surprise the bus to Barichara was a nice new coaster van and not a chicken bus, but then we hadn't seen many chicken buses in this part of Colombia. We walked around the main square of Barichara, when we first ... read more