Next stop Potosi. You're supposed to gasp for breath getting into Potosi, being as at over 4,000m in altitude, it is the worlds highest city. However, by this time I was pretty well acclimatised, and to be perfectly honest I felt fine. Which is good news, as I think going down the mine might not have been quite so easy if suffering from altitude sickness. Ah the mines. The reason I was in Potosi, is that it has a very famous, still active, cooperative mine, which it is possible to visit. Back in the day, the Spanish looted it for silver, [View Full Entry]

---

---

Now then, let me begin this entry with an admission. Jurassic Park ranks a lot higher in my list of favourite films of all time than it probably really should for a 23 year old male. So when the opportunity came to go to a real life Jurassic Park near Sucre, I jumped at it. Or rather I jumped on a bus to it. Which I kind of told you about last time. Anyway, arriving in Sucre, I naturally had slept like a baby on the bus, so was full of beans and wanted to jump straight on the "Dino Bus" [View Full Entry]

---

---

... until the protestors decide to let buses pass that is! And so back to La Paz. This is probably going to be a short entry, as what I did after Huayna Potosi more or less mirrors what happened beforehand. That's right, more wandering the streets, taking advantage of the delicious street food and 5 boliviano smoothies. It's a tough life. As I mentioned, Rob, Sam and Aussie Beth from Salkantay had arrived, and shortly we also bumped into Chris from the trek too. So one night, we all went out to get something to eat, and were very happy when [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hello again. You must be surprised to be getting regular updates mustn't you? Well herer's another, fresh off the press. But enough with the intro, lets just get going. So, I'd heard that minibuses from Copacabana to La Paz were slightly dodgy, and thus had booked a big bus for the journey. Imagine my surprise when in the morning I'm told the big bus is full, so therefore I have to go in a minibus. Despite being tempted to skip it, I took the plunge, and was very glad I did, as it was a very safe journey, and I was [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hello again. Nice to see you. How are you doing? So, before I set off for my trip, I had a couple of goals. One of them was to become as close to fluent as possible in Spanish. Another was to climb a 6,000m mountain. The first one is coming along alright, and in the next few paragraphs you'll find out whether my attempt to achieve the other one was successful or not. Day 1 I'd always earmarked Huayna Potosi as the one I was going to make my attempt on, as standing at 6,088m, it has a reputation as being [View Full Entry]

---

---

So on into Bolivia. Our bus from Cusco to the Peruvian border was very comfy (well I thought so anyway). But despite being told we had a direct bus all the way to Copacabana in Bolivia, we were unceremoniously dumped off at a roadside, with directions to get a minibus. This we did, and after the simple border formalities were completed, another minibus took us to Copacabana. So perhaps the bus company didn't do everything they said on the tin, but we got there successfully nonetheless. In Copacabana, we soon decided that we'd rather spend the night on the Isla del [View Full Entry]

---

---

And so our time in Peru had to draw to a close. But after a good nights sleep, there was still one traditional tourist activity to tick off - it was time to eat some guinea pig, or cuy as its known here. We'd been tipped off that there was a place called Tipon just outside Cusco which was the best place to try the local delicacy, so myself, Beth, Rob, other Beth, Sam, Vincent and Bernhard found ourselves a bus out there. Upon arriving in Tipon we weren't disappointed. We were met at the bus stop by a Cuyeria propietor, [View Full Entry]

---

---

How come everytime you want to do something incredible around these parts, you have to get up at silly o clock to do it? Already tired from a 4 day hike, having your alarm go off at 4am is a bit of an inconvenience to say the least. Nevertheless, our group successfully convened at our designated meeting spot at 4:30am to drop off bags and pick up our packed breakfasts. Except there was a slight problem, noone was there to open up and let us in. After much running around, we eventually left our bags elsewhere, and set off late towards [View Full Entry]

---

---

That may seem like a bit of a bizarre title for an entry about a trek to Machu Picchu, but being as this is what our guide, Pio, insisted on calling me for the entirity of the trek, I thought it kind of appropriate. So in answer to the poser at the end of my last entry, yes, I did wake up and drag myself down to wait for our pickup. It was kind of wierd being up and going just as a lot of people from the hostel were getting in from a night out, but thats how it goes [View Full Entry]

---

---

First of all, before my mother goes off to phone the British Embassy, it wasn´t really a kidnap. It´s just an over the top headline to grab your attention and make you keep reading. And it worked didn´t it? Good. Let's continue. The night bus from Arequipa to Cusco was apparently really noisy and uncomfortable. I'm having to go on what Beth said to tell you that, as I slept throughout the entire journey. When I awoke at around 6am, we were just pulling into the old Inca capital city of Cusco. Our rooms weren´t quite ready upon our arrival at [View Full Entry]

---

---