We were woken by our host at 6am for a 6:30am breakfast. We were provided with a bucket of water and bowl in order to wash. Ollie was still feeling queasy, Vaughan gave him an altitude sickness tablet, but he decided to give breakfast a miss. Breakfast consisted of pancakes with marmalade and coca tea. We then said our farewells to the family, bought the chullo hats we had been knitted and were then escorted to the boat for our 3 hour trip to the floating Uros islands. We visited two of the islands which are made entirely of reeds from the lake to a depth of 2m. Whilst three islands have been around for many years, the locals appear reliant a great deal upon tourism, selling handmade goods from reeds and from weaving. It ... read more

A morning briefing by Luciano before our flight LAN LN100 from Lima to Juliaca via Arequipa. Finally leaving the smog of Lima the airbus 319 refuelled at Arequipa at the foot of many spectacular volcanoes, the highest of which was capped with snow. The city of Arequipa is literally in the middle of a desert, but obviously watered by the melt water and rain from the the volcanoes. When we arrived at Juliaca airport we were greeted by a band playing traditional Peruvian panpipes. We were met by a minibus which took us the 45km through a number of shanty towns until we reached the city of Puno on the edge of Lake Titicaca. Our simple hotel was the "Italia." Climbing just three flights of stairs made us breathless although Oliver was coping better with ... read more

Well the bags are nearly packed, Oliver & I have had every injection known to man, (and more besides,) the malaria tablets, passports, currency, flight tickets and accomodation vouchers for the first two nights have been checked. We fly KLM from Norwich International at 06:15 GMT on 28 June, to pick up a connecting flight in Amsterdam. After a two hour stopover we board a further 13hr+ KLM flight non-stop to Lima. Our accomodation has been pre-booked by GAPadventures at Stefanos Hotel in the Lima suburb of Miraflores. Thanks once again to my fabulous wife Lorraine for her encouragement & support! ... read more