Our first impressions of Sucre as a pretty town were proven right. Apparently there is a local law that requires all buildings to be whitewashed once a year, and the local mayor owns a gardening store in town and is prone to giving herself a lot of business. The result is a town that seems very clean, bright and inviting. The town centre is also well laid out so we got our bearings fairly quickly. We arrived at our hostel in Sucre at 8am after the night bus. The owner kindly let us leave our luggage there until our room was [View Full Entry]

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The trip into Bolivia was quite well organised by our tour company Tour Peru. We boarded a bus in the Puno bus station at 7.30am and several hours later we had to disembark to walk across the border into Bolivia. Having already completed the neccesary paperwork on the bus, we then had to queue in two different buildings. At the first building we were okayed by the National Guard (ok to leave?!) and then next door we got our passports stamped by the Peruvian authorities. We then walked about 300m under the arch in no mans land into the Bolivian immigration [View Full Entry]

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Leaving La Paz was not as easy as we had thought it would be. Firstly our alarm was somehow accidentally turned off instead of snoozed, then when we did manage to get out of the hostel, the town was packed with locals who had turned out for the Independance Day parade. What was supposed to be a direct walk to the bus station turned into a maze as we twisted and turned to avoid marching straight through the parade. Thankfully our local knowledge picked up during our wanderings in Paz proved invaluable and we made it to the station in one [View Full Entry]

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After taking a day to recover, check emails and do laundry in Cusco we boarded a First Class tour bus to Puno. The bus was set to stop at several Inca sites en route. We had pretty much enough of Inca sites and were probably the least enthusiastic tourists on the trip. It was a bi-lingual trip though, so we did at least improve our Spanish comprehension! Although given that it was a nine hour bus trip we were grateful for the opportunity to stretch our, still stiff, legs. As we went over the mountains on the bus we again noticed [View Full Entry]

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We knew what we would be doing on July 22nd even before we had booked our RTW flight tickets. Way back then we committed ourselves to the 4 days 3 nights Classic 45km Inca Trail. We had been told that spaces on the tour are very hard to secure, and this only increased our determination to include it as part of the trip. No one told us, however, just how tough a trek it was going to be! Our Machu Picchu experience began at 7pm on the 21st July when we attended our pre-trek briefing in the Llama Path Office where [View Full Entry]

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No Gracias! I don't want a shoe shine, a massage, a pedicure, a manicure, a sweet, cocoa leaves, a photo of you and your Llama, a postcard, a painting, a hat, gloves, a pack of cigarettes or a finger puppet! Oh, and I'd like to pick my own restaurant thanks very much. Cusco is a beautiful town slightly marred by the need to swat away street sellers more often than you would mosquitoes in the jungle. And there is no available repellant. We arrived from the Jungle about a week ago and spent the first three days doing nothing but watching [View Full Entry]

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Jaime bashed on our door at 5am the first morning and nearly gave us a heart-attack. As it happened I had been awake for the previous 30minutes listening intently to some sort of animal loudly munching the grass at the back of our lodge. I figured it had finally decided to attack... Breakfast was at 5.30 and after picking up our rubber boots we left in a motor-canoe at 6am. Jaime advised us to bring insect repellant, snacks, a hat, sunscreen and lots of water. Boy, did we need lots of water. About five minutes into the rainforest we were both [View Full Entry]

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The Health Office official was also thinking better safe than sorry, as he handed us face masks and demanded our tour operator information. He then disappeared into the back and made a flurry of phonecalls. When he emerged we had found our luggage and were wearing the facemasks, willing to do whatever he instructed. All we wanted to do was get to see a doctor. When we met our tour guide he didn't even flinch at the news that we would most probably be detouring the whole bus via the doctors surgery. Right oh, just hop on the bus there. Hopping [View Full Entry]

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Burger King, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut. To describe Miraflores as the tourist area of Lima is an understatement. The flight went well and we made it safe and sound to Miraflores, Lima. We managed to share an extortionately expensive executivo taxi from the Airport with two English backpackers and as we arrived at our pre-booked bunkbeds in the Loki Hostel in Lima, out of the window was a blanket banner advertising McFlurries. We could have been in any major city. Loki Hostels are part of a growing chain of irish-ish hostels in Peru. Just after we bo [View Full Entry]

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