Ian RP

Well the Atacama has proved a bit of a disappointment. The trips seem a bit lightweight based around lacklustre ruins that have been reconstructed, and the scenery is just much less spectacular than Bolivia. Lagoons with half a dozen flamingos and a thousand tourists, while in Bolivia (oops sorry the Pluricultural Republic of Bolivia) there were four of us looking at a thousand flamingos. They point out a few vicuña (smallest of the llama family, wild and rather deer like) but we saw big flocks of them - you know where! It feels like they are trying to create a tourist destination out of very little but then there are lots of people here so it seems they are succeeding! The one thing I will say for the Chileans is that they developed the tiny village ... read more

Hello Darlings, Greetings from Puno (where?) - on the shores of lake Titicaca - the world's highest navigable lake (though no-one seems to be entirely sure what that means!!!). And this is our last day in Peru! We had a final day in Cusco and they were having a big festival. This consisted of lots of people marching each group accompanied by their band. Pretty much everyone in Cusco seemed to be taking part: the nurses paraded, the lawyers, the accountants. the building workers and auxiliary trades, the young Israelis, various saints, virgins and churches were represented . . . . you name it they were there! Some were colourful and dancing, other goose-stepped in suits - what a bizarre spectacle! I kept wondering if Ceroc Peru were going to turn up but alas no! The ... read more

Hello my lovelies, We have just completed our second big adventure. . . . an enormously long and arduous trek through the mountains to Machu Picchu. We met up in Cusco - a group of twelve - people we were to get to know very well over the next six days! I was very nervous about this part of the holiday as it involves walking up and down hills and vallies at altitude for on average 5 hours a day and is not recommended for "novices". Our fellow travellers were four Germans, two Americans (mother and son), two Mexicans, and another two Brits. The Germans and the Mexicans all turned out to be very fit and completely at home walking at altitude. The oldest in the group (one of the German couples) had both done a ... read more

Hi - this is the last of the blogs from the rainforest (slightly out of order). Flora and fauna. First the jungle was very green but there was little other colour which was unexpected. (I can hear Neil sharpening the keys of his keyboard for an acerbic comment along the lines of what an idiot I am, but I did expect a flower or two.) All the flowers etc. are up in the tree tops and so you only get to see them from the river (sometimes). Whilst treking through the jungle you can sometimes smell a sweet scent and that is a flower or flowers up in the tree although you can´t see them. On the animal front we saw some great things although mammals are hard to come by. We saw some tracks of ... read more

The Achuar traditionally didn't live in communities at all but in isolated family groups. This has changed in the last 20 or so years and the main factor has been the influence of the Catholic church. Traditionally they killed each other a lot, which lead to revenge killings and so it went on .... and on and on. Now they don't kill each other, they sometimes go to church (they didn't worship a God before the arrival of the Catholics) but they maintain their own customs which are all linked basically to the forest and pachamama or mother earth. We went to visit a community which was a very strange experience - especially at first when we were all very nervous and scared of offending. We had been told in advance that we must say hello ... read more