Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru and was mentioned as one of the highlights in my travel guide. Well not Arequipa itself but the Colca Canyon which is apparently the second deepest canyon in the world (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon). Apart from being very deep it also contains a horde of Condors. The way to visit the canyon and to see the Condors is to do a 1, 2 or 3 day tour or trek. Sounds reasonable … well I didn’t do any of that. Can’t really explain why I didn’t want to go and see the canyon. My favourite guess why I didn’t go is that I got a bit sick of sightseeing after my previous “run” through the rest of Peru. Another explanation is that my company kept me ... read more

Lima is as you will know the capital of Peru. It was once the seat of the Viceroy of Peru the most powerful man in South America. He was representative of the Spanish king in South America during the colonial era. My guide book didn’t give me much hope as it described the city as big and overcrowded but also mentioned that it has its nice sites. I started wandering around the streets without much expectation but I have to say that I liked the city in the end. There is not heaps to do but the buildings, which were mostly build 1800 and 1900 look quite nice and give the city something. The only sightseeing I did was to go to the Monastery of San Francisco. They have apart from the usual paintings, tiled walls ... read more

The Chachapoya culture and people were in the region for thousands of years before they were conquered (like the rest of South America) first by the Incas and then shortly after by the Spanish. It is thought that the Kuélap fortress was inhabited for over 2000 (possibly 3000) years. They were great warriors as they constantly had internal conflicts and were later used by the Incas as a kind of SAS (or cannon fodder depends on how you look at it). They left hundreds of now ruined cities in the Chachapoya region. Some estimations go as high as 500 cities. It is likely that this figure is even higher as the region is not well studied (only Kuélap was really studied so far) and the sites are in remote corners of Peru where not too many ... read more

There is just one word to describe the Galápagos Islands which is either AwesomeHasToBeSeenToBeBelievedKindOfPlace or simply wow. Hope you understand that I had to add a million pictures I simply could not decide which to let out. The history of the Islands is the reason why this place is so amazing. The Galapagos Islands are a group of volcanic islands which were created over a couple of million years through a static hotspot in the earths crust. The tectonic plates over the hotspot shift and new Islands are created every now and then even today. Therefore the island the furthest away from the hotspot are the oldest. The last proper volcanic eruption was in 1998. The Islands where never connected to the mainland and the animals and plants migrated at one stage to the Islands but ... read more

Popayán is sold as the white city and again as one of the most beautiful cities in Colombian (I gave up counting how many most beautiful cities they have here). To cut a long story short I didn’t like it that much. It has a lot of old buildings which are mainly white and the usual thousand churches but I’ve seen better in Columbia. Spent only one day here so there is not much more to say about it. One nice thing about stopping over in Popayán was that I could go to the Tuesday market in Silvia which lays 1 1/2 hours away from Popayán. The Tuesday market is famous because the Guambiano Indians which live in the proximity come to town on that day. These Indians are considered one of the most traditional groups ... read more