Coroico, what a beautiful place. It reminded me very much of Mindo, but definitely not as good, as I am so very fond of Mindo. The cloud forest is probably one of my favourite places. It has the right climate, beautiful scenery and enough life to keep my wildlife obsession happy! This was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of La Paz, the biggest city in Bolivia. Coroico is just a 3 hour bus ride away driving down a road very similar to the ‘world’s most dangerous road’ that is favoured by bikers with a death wish! The scenery on the way unfortunately was not as the guidebooks suggested, purely because the clouds were so low. All we could see was cloud, but luckily, the view from our hotel room in Coroico more than ... read more

Floating islands... yes they do exist, and there are 40 of them in total, all bobbing about in Lake Titicaca on the Peruvian side. How? They’re made entirely from totora reeds. They pull up the roots, tie them all together to create like a huge raft, and then layer dried reeds on the top. Their houses are made from reeds, they use reeds to light their fires for food, they eat the reeds, and they make boats from the reeds. I was fascinated by the many uses they managed to get out of such a readily available plant! We took a short day tour from the port in Puno, visiting two of these islands. We had apprehension about visiting them due to reading so much about the locals living on these tiny islands made of reeds, ... read more

The inevitable happened....we visited Machu Picchu. It would have been strange to have come all the way to Peru and have missed this iconic destination, being one of the seven wonders of the world. Due to this status, I had hyped it up so much in my head and had so many expectations. Unfortunately it didn't quite live up to what I had expected I would gain from the experience. This slight disappointment has nothing to do with the actual place, rather just that it was far too crowded. I know it sounds hypocritical being a traveller myself, but I found myself loathing the fact that I was surrounded by Americans, English, German, Finnish, French...the list goes on, but no Peruvians apart from the few Peruvian tourists and guides. It felt more like a crowded modern ... read more

When they say the roar of the jungle, I now understand what they mean. We slept for 3 nights in a lodge set deep in the rainforest, right on the banks of Lake Sandoval, called Sandoval Lake Lodge. During these nights we were aided to sleep by the many fascinating and sometimes quite disturbing, noises of the rainforest. You would not believe what sounds can come out of such tiny insects, fragile looking birds and sweet looking monkeys. A racket that is what! A good kind of racket though, not like the disco on the other side of the wall we experienced in Lima. The sounds of the rainforest are definitely more soothing than those of some drunken Peruvians attempting karaoke that is for sure! One particular noise I was fascinated by was coming from the ... read more

To say I felt a bit iffy would be a total understatement! If Id have been in that plane just 5 minutes longer I think all those poor tourists in that plane would have seen what I ate for breakfast! The driver was flying all over the place, taking sharp turns, dips and flying into areas of turbulence for a horrid 30 minutes. My stomach definately didn like it, I only just about managed to glance out the window at each picture for a few seconds as we passed them before leaning back into the middle to desperately try and compose myself. Nonetheless, it was a good experience. The night before wed visited the planetarium in the Nazca lines hotel to be shown a presentation about the various theories on the Nazca lines and Im still ... read more