Huacachina is an oasis in the desert of Southern Peru. Being a suburb of Ica it is close enough for convenience but far enough to escape the packed city. Surprisingly, being in the desert, the region is home to the majority of Peru's wine and Pisco wineries or Bodegas as they are called locally - hence our visit. The vineyards are irrigated by the Rio Ica which channel water from the Andes to the Pacific. We arrived at our hostel late afternoon, quite a lively place with a younger crowd and loud music. This is not normally our prefered environment but [View Full Entry]

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On our travels we have met a number of travellers who have been robbed while in Peru. This has led us to become rather wary and to travel through the country predominantly as a means to reach Chile. However while we are here we couldn´t miss the opportunity to see a couple of the main attractions such as Machu Picchu. We were thus hoping to do the 4 day standard Inca Trail, but unfortunately due to failing technology and the inefficiencies of Western Union our deposit was never accepted and the Inca Trail is now booked up until June. Whilst this [View Full Entry]

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Riobamba is an Andean city in the middle of Ecuador. Being 4000m above sea level the climate is a lot cooler and wetter than that of Quito, making the 5 hour journey there quite pleasent. The rolling Andean mountains were covered in every shade of green imaginable and the higher ones white tipped. We passed a disproportionately large number of militaty and police schools on our journey too. We arrived at our hostel mid afternoon, a bit of a dumpy place but no doubt beautiful in its colonial hey day, high ceilings, central enclosed courtyard and much wood. The reason for [View Full Entry]

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Don't be fooled by the title, Guayaquil is a huge city which holds 2.6 million people making it Ecuador´s most populated city. It centre is in the mouth of the river Guayas. The city is currently under-going a massive civil engineering project which involves the building of a new metro and new roads. All this buiding chaos just added to the busyness and dustiness of this city. The journey to Guayaquil was hair raising. There was plenty of fog and it seemed the bus driver was in a hurry. We screeched around hair-pin bends as they suddenly appeared in the mist. [View Full Entry]

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It wasn't until after we had booked our flights to Quito that we read on the BBC website there was some civil unrest in Ecuador. The indigenous population were angry with the government over a trade agreement with the US and had taken to the streets protesting and creating blockades. We read on the foreign Office website that as of the previous day the trouble had spread as far as Quito and was concentrated in the historic part of the city. Not knowing how bad the problem really was, on arriving at the airport we took the advice of the taxi [View Full Entry]

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We arrived at Tabatinga and headed straight for the travel agent advertised in the Lonely Planet. It was very hummid and +35 degrees c. We had to lug our bags quite a distance before we found the place and the three sets of incorrect directions we had been given didn't help. If it hadn't had been for a friendly tout we would probably never have found it. The travel agent turned out to be a man who knew someone with a boat and plane, the plane did not run for another 4 weeks and the boat had already left. We were [View Full Entry]

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The purpose of the boat trip to Tabatinga was two-fold: 1. To sail down the Amazon (Something I could only have dreamed about as a child) 2. To get to Tabatinga on the Peruvian/Columbian/Brazilian border in order to go west. We got a taxi to the docks then a boat to our boat (?) It was in the process of being loaded with goods to the lower deck, goods which we had to fight through with our heavy bag of provisions (ours including bananas and 18 litres of water) to the get to the next deck. We were shown to our [View Full Entry]

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There are a few possible threats in the Amazon Jungle; diseases like Malaria, Onchocercias, Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis and Schistoniasis aside, you still have to be careful of the many potentially deadly snakes and spiders, possibly volatile jaguars and pumas (that’s if you are LUCKY enough to see them) as well as lesser irritants like leeches and insects.... ..... so Noel and I decided to do a four day jungle trip in an isolated rustic camp where we slept in hammocks and bathed in the river. To get to our base camp deep in the jungle we left our hotel and were [View Full Entry]

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We arrived at Manaus airport at about 1pm. On the way we were lucky enough to see the 'Meeting of the Waters´from the plane window. The 'Meeting of the Waters´ is where the Rio Negro meets the Solimoes and becomes the Amazon. As the Negro and the Solimes are of different density and temperature they do not mix immediately and can be clearly seen running side by side. Manaus is one hour behind Salvador so we changed our watches again, the fourth time we have done so in this country. There is a chapter to come on Brazilian time, watch this [View Full Entry]

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Our overnight bus arrived in Salvador at 7am, we had heard the place could be quite dangerous so we took a taxi to our hostel and got our heads down for a couple of hours. When we awoke we went for a walk, the town hosts many beautifully restored colonial buildings and is known as a cultural city where colonialism and the black culture of the imported work-force of Brazil meet. It also has a disproportionate amout of physically disabled people with terrible deformities, begging on the streets. Some of the disabilities are so severe it is a wonder the individuals [View Full Entry]

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