There are some places in the world that amaze you no matter how many times you may have seen the photos or how long you have been planning your visit. Machu Picchu is definitely one of those places. I could go into detail about the history of Machu Picchu, but you would be better off watching the National Geographic channel on your TV. Or I could attempt to describe the sights with superlatives that will not do justice to its immensity, character and general awe-inspiring nature. To those who have visited Machu Picchu I hope you understand what I mean, and [View Full Entry]

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As soon as we arrived in Cusco we started to research the best ways to trek to Machu Picchu. The famous "Inca Trail" was sold out but there were lots of other possibilities on offer giving a similar tough trek over a few days but mostly much cheaper and less crowded than the Inca Trail. We eventually decided to hike the "Salkantay Trail" and booked through the company Hiking Peru, which has an office on the Plaza de Armas. They gave us the cheapest quote and we could see no reason as to why we should pay more to go with [View Full Entry]

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Our time in and around Arequipa was like a microcosm of our time in South America: up a mountain one day, in a museum the next and down a canyon the next. This trip is certainly never dull! Arequipa itself is Peru's second largest city and offers stunning examples of colonial architecture. But, straight after our arrival in Arequipa instead of taking it easy we decided to try to climb a mountain instead. Cerro Chichani We had read in our guidebook that Cerro Chichani was an "easy" 6,000+ metre peak and so decided to give it a go. Let this blog [View Full Entry]

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Lake Titicaca (shared between Bolivia and Peru) is the world's highest navigable lake, at 3,812 metres above sea level. It is also South America's largest lake, with a water volume of 893 cubic kilometres. In other words, this is one of the highlights of any trip to South America and we had great fun exploring. The Bolivian Side "At the Copa, Copacabana....". This is one tune that refused to leave my head for our stay at the lovely town of Copacabana, on the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca. Whilst I can't imagine it lives up to its Brazilian counterpart, I was [View Full Entry]

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And so it was time to get back to altitude, this time with a visit to La Paz (Bolivia's "other" capital city). Our time in La Paz was very different to usual. We didn't climb any mountains or ford any streams. Indeed, most of our time was spent either visiting museums, wandering the streets or eating yummy food. We had been hoping to go hiking in the Cordillera near La Paz but sadly end-of-wet-season weather conditions were against us. We visited a number of museums in La Paz including (and in no particular order): * The Coca Museum Fascinating stuff showing [View Full Entry]

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Bolivia is a country that is continually exceeding my expectations. After experiencing Bolivia´s stunning natrual scenery in Tupiza and Uyuni we moved on to explore some of the more cultural aspects of Bolivia by visiting two of its important colonial cities, Potosi and Sucre. Visiting these places took us a little further from the "gringo trail" we had encountered in Uyuni and gave more chance to engage with the locals (see my social comment at the end!). Potosi During the 16th century, Potosi was the biggest city in the Americas, and far bigger than London or Paris. This was mostly due [View Full Entry]

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We crossed from the Argentinian town of La Quiaca to the Bolivian town of Villazon in one of our easiest border crossings so far. In fact, many people were just walking across without even stopping at the immigration police, but we figured it was best to go the official way! Border towns can sometimes be intimidating but Villazon was fine, and after going for a quick drink we hopped on a bus to take us a few hours north to Tupiza, our base for the next few days. Tha majority of travellers stay in Tupiza just a day or two before [View Full Entry]

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Chile´s Atacama desert (the world´s driest desert) is a 24 hour bus journey north from Santiago but worth every minute of travel. Initially we were only going to stay in San Pedro de Atacama (the main village in the desert) for a few days but ended up staying over a week. This is the kind of place that Barry and I love - a nice town with good places to eat and facilities but a mere few kilometres from amazing sights. We took our first days in San Pedro relatively easy as we wanted to acclimatise to its 2,400 metres altitude [View Full Entry]

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When my parents found out that Barry and I were going away travelling for a year, they quickly came to the conclusion that they would have to come out and visit half way through. So, after our return from Easter Island we met up with my Mum and Dad at the very nice Hotel Vegas in Santiago. The next 2 weeks were taken up with Barry and I acting as tour guides and we visited some great places. Of course my parents were generous as always and so we were able to eat lovely meals and stay in hotels better than [View Full Entry]

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We had booked our flights to Easter Island before coming out to South America 6 months ago. However, we only really had a chance to think about the things we were going to see as we sat on our 5 hour flight from Santiago looking down at the endless sea below us. It is fair to say that Easter Island exceeded my expectations - I knew it was going to be good, I just didn´t realise it would be this good. Stuck in the Pacific Ocean, thousands of kilometres from the nearest inhabited islands (the Pitcairns) and even further from mainland [View Full Entry]

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