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Another 600 metres or so higher than Cusco, altitude sickness again dogs Lesia but to a lesser extent. Top front seats in the bus afforded great views of the Andes country side and Lake Titicaca on arrival to Puno. Our fast boat tour of the lake and Uros floating reed islands was good; very touristy but good. The native people there reminded us strongly of the Hammong (mountain people of North Vietnam around Sapa. I found the history and construction of the floating reed islands fascinating. A trek across one of the Islands (yes there were lots of steps) and a locally prepared lunch also featured to round out the tour out. A 9.30pm overnight sleeper bus return to Cusco completed a very long day. A life saver was our Puno Hotel lodging who allowed us ... read more

We over-nighted at Aguas Calientes which I understand to be Hot Water - a bit of a mis-nomer as this turned out to be in short supply at our lodging; definity not what I was looking forward to at the end of our trek - we slept very soundly non the less. Hard to believe no Hot Water with the amount of hydro electricity in the area. Interesting place with a train line and frequent service running right through the centre of the town. A fleet of buses seemingly run non stop ferrying passengers to and from Matchu Picchu over a narrow gravel switch-back track.... read more

Despite preparing with altitude sickness tablets Lesia was unwell puting our Matchu Picchu trek in jeopardy. With Lesia laid-up for a day I scouted the town to finalise our trek, procure onward bus tickets to Puno and organise some local currency. The city of Cusco has many very narrow cobbled streets which are heavily congested. The road rules as far as I can discern are, keep to the right and protect yourself at all times. The main city square (Plaza de Armes) features the Cathedral and the Compania de Jesus among other things. After our pre trek de-brief, couldn´t pass up dinner at Jacks.... read more

Another day another Greek ısland. Weather stıll beautıful although a wınd has sprung up whıch seems to strengthen the further we move north. The ıslands and headlands on both sıdes of the Aegean are lıttered wıth fortresses suggestıng a great deal of past unrest among the natıves - probably not much dıfferent to the world today when I thınk of ıt. Dıdn't stay long enough to really apprecıate but on a quıck drıve around Lesvos found ıt very pıcturesques -but the beaches stıll rocky. Couldn't help but notıce that the most common taxıs ın a lot of the Greek ıslands vısıted were nıce mercedes sedans - far cry from the lıttle vans used ın Turkey. The Blue Star ferry (Patmos) from Chıos to Lesvos was very nıce - looked lıke a faırly new boat and really ... read more

The trip from Rhodes to Bodrum was a little disconcerting as although I had the ferry part sorted I only had a notional idea of the bus for the second leg. After managing to scam a tourist map of Mamaris the Otogar (bus depot) appeared to be quite close to the port - turned out to be about 1km; in the heat felt like 2. Luckily no steps and reasonably flat. We came across an interesting Otogar sign suggesting we weren't alone in making this trip. A 3 hour trip on a packed shuttle bus up and down some considerable mountains was very scenic and got us to Bodrum and our next stay OK. The Turkish main roads appear to be very good from what we have seen so far. Our Bodrum accommodation is a little ... read more