26-27th April ’13 Arequipa Our final couple of days in the lovely city of Arequipa, but before I go into that I have to add in a bit I missed about our Colca Canyon Trip. The whole of the time we were in the minibus Howard was opening and closing the window so he could stick his arm out and take pictures – infact he took well over 200 pictures on this trip! He was so attached to the camera I had to virtually prise it out of his fingers to take the few snaps I wanted. Anyway despite taking pictures on the journey there he had to then take pictures all the way back again to Arequipa – as ‘we were now on the opposite side of the road so the view would be different’, ... read more

22/4/13 Arequipa I slept the whole night through, no gasping woo hoo! Today we did next to nothing, just getting acclimatised or rather sitting in the garden being lazy! Hunger eventually drove us out and we ate with the locals in a tiny little place with about 8 tables squashed into it, luckily one was free. For £1.30 we had a huge bowl of Peruvian broth (like scotch broth with lots of lentils), followed by chicken, rice and salad, a glass of orange squash and 8 slices of banana for pudding! Bargain!! We walked back up to the main square and had a bit more of a mooch around the city streets looking at the lovely white buildings and architecture before heading back for more lazing about. Arequipa is known as The White City, with building ... read more

17th April ’13 San Pedro de Atacama to Iquique, Chile It was in some ways quite sad to be leaving the cute hostel and the little town, which we are now quite fond of but oxygen beckons so we caught the Tur bus to Calama and so left town. We drove through the desert passing lots of salt mines and spent the journey chatting with a lovely, broad cockney lass who now lives in Australia, who was sitting in front of us. We had an hour and a half to kill in Calama before our next bus so we wandered out of the bus station and found a little place to eat, this time watching the Spanish version of Judge Judy while waiting for our grub. The bus to Iquique arrived and left bang on time ... read more

14/3/13 Purmamaca to San Pedro de Aticama, Chile Ate breakfast off the table, said our goodbyes and walked up the road to the bus stop point (it was just a bit of gravel in front of a hotel sign), soon we were joined by a young French girl and an older lady originally from Canada who literally never stopped talking!, it was quite a relief as we reckoned we couldn’t all be wrong about where the bus would stop. 10 minutes after the time the bus should have arrived another young couple ran up the road to join us, guess they overslept! And 45 minutes late the bus turned up. So we settled in for the long haul – about 10 hours, with a border crossing. The road wound its way backwards and forwards, higher and ... read more

9/4/13 Cordoba to Salta Once again another mile long walk to the bus station, found our stop, got on the bus, got handed ‘breakfast’ and off we set for the 13 hour marathon to Salta. We had the front seats at the top which meant great views but being baked in the sun, there was a tv screen near us and films were shown continuously. The bus did actually stop once for 30 minutes – so the driver could eat and then the non-stop filmathon continued until we arrived in Salta. We walked to our hotel (the San Francisco) in the company of Rick from Orlando who was also on our bus and by the time we arrived we were totally knackered! 10 – 13th Salta, Argentina Feeling better after a good night’s sleep we set ... read more