So, a few facts about Peru then : Peru is 5 times larger than the UK. Famous for Machu Picchu (Trekking - Inca trail) Capital - Lima Currency - Soles (just over 4 to the £) Population just over 22 million Languages - Spanish, Quechua & Aymara Peru's geography varies hugely between desert, sierra and jungle. Over half of Peruvians live below the poverty line with unemployment out of control and difficult to measure. With many jobless working as street vendors, selling anything from clothes to chocolates. About 45% of Peru's population is purely indigenous, making it one of the 3 [View Full Entry]

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This chapter of the travel blog will be a nice short one for 2 reasons. The first being that I've already been to Ecuador once before heading north to Colombia and secondly as a result of going North I don't have a great deal of time to get to Cuzco in Peru. I don't like making too many plans or sticking to time and dates, however you need to book the Inca trail in Cuzco at least 3 months in advance of going and I've already paid a lot for it, so I'm getting there by the 22nd October one way [View Full Entry]

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Colombia - Capital, Bogotá Famous for coffee, emeralds, plastic surgery, cocaine & the FARC Currency - Pesos, $1 = 2355, £1 approx 3,000 Population 43 million Now first of all the plan was to go south through Ecuador and into Peru after the Galapagos Islands, so my time in Colombia was always going to be rushed. I was very apprehensive about going to Colombia due to the general negativity and paranoia about the place, however everybody that has actually been says how wonderful the place is and the people are. My thoughts were that if I used my common sense and [View Full Entry]

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Friday 4th / Saturday 5th September 2009 - Left Manchester at 5pm to get the 7.15pm flight to Amsterdam. Bit of a nightmare journey after that. The flight from Amsterdam flew over London to Bonaire (which I think is just north of Venezuela, approx 10 hours. We then let off passengers and gained a few having not been let off the plane. We then flew to Guayaquil (S. West of Ecuador) to drop off more people and collect some more, to then fly back on ourselves to Quito. In total about 14 hours and not getting off the plane once. In [View Full Entry]

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14th August - I left San fransisco and flew to San Antonio via Las Vegas, arriving at 1am. Rocky came and picked me up and we went for some food. The first thing that struck me about Texas is just how big it is. It took well over an hour to get to where we were staying. Texas is the 2nd biggest state behind Alaska (i think). Its just massive.. I guess not many tourists come through San Antonia as the accent became a discussion in the diner within an hour of landing. We were staying at one of Rocky's friends [View Full Entry]

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21st July - LA. Just about as far away in people and culture as you can get from Fiji. We had decided to spend as little time in LA as possible. We did the usual trip down to Hollywood, the boulevard, Hooters etc. Myself and Adi had decided that we were going to head down to San Diego, so we hired a car and off we went. Driving in the States is interesting, big cars, big motorways and they drive on the wrong side of the road.. We arrived in San Diego in the late afternoon, a lovely place, very colourfull, [View Full Entry]

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Fiji is a place that i would never have thought of going to if it wasn't for the lady in Trailfinders suggesting it. It's nicely located between New Zealand and the states, oh and its hot. I had no big plans for Fiji except to enjoy the sun and waite for Adi a mate from home to arrive on the 12th. To then travel on to States. (same guy who flew to Oz to do th East coast with me) I left a very windy Aukland on the 11th and arived in Nandi that afternoon. I had decided to head [View Full Entry]

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So i arrived on the the morning of the 20th June in Chrstchurch in the south island of New Zealand and it was cold. I spent most of the day wandering round, had some lunch, few beers, back to the hostel, few beers, food and a few more beers ! 21st June - Up early to get the flight to Queenstown. Only a 30 minute flight over spectacular scenery and lots of snow capped mountains. I arrived at lunchtime and checked in to Bumbles backpackers (to be my home for the next 9 nights) and caught up with Steve (From [View Full Entry]

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So, after a few days not moving it was time to get going and sit on a bus for a while. This next tour was one that very few people do, deciding to fly from Broome to Darwin instead. The Kimberleys were one of my favourite places due to the fact that very few people travel through, a bit more authentic Oz. The tour started on the 25th May (very early). It was a smaller group and a few people i had met before from previous tours, including Brandon and Zara from Grenwich and Valerie from Switzerland (who actually had [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Sydney on the 17th April with Jim. We got a taxi to Bondi where Graham a mate of ours from Uni lives. He treated us to steak and ribs, which after a few months in Asia went down very nicely. 19th April - Decided to give Graham some space as he was moving house and flew to Melbourne. This was my first day of travelling on my own. I got a train to the centre and checked into a dorm room in a hostel . Dump doesn't even come close. I was in a room with 2 girls [View Full Entry]

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