Geo: -12.0931, -77.0465Lima was huge, but not as challenging as expected, largely because we stayed in an apartment type hotel in a quiet suburban street and were upgraded to a suite which gave us lots of room. Tempertues were up again - sweaty and hot and we spent a lot on taxis, travelling long distances in Lima traffic jams.We began with a taxi into the old town and found ourselves watching the changing of the guard outside the presidents palace in the blazing heat. Then we went into a monastery and up the bell tower to get a birds eye view of the old city and on to the gruesome inquistion museum, but the notices were only in Spanish as was so often the case. After admiring grand buildings but finding a palace closed to the ... read more

Geo: -0.223151, -78.5127Quito was both a start and end place for our Galapagos trip, and a place from which to go to Otavalo (2 hours way) for its famous craft market on Saturday, and a city in its own right - actually the second highest city in the world after La Paz so we were back on altitude alert.The high point was our tour of the old city (one of the earliest UNESCO world heritage sites) organised by the Metropolitan Police. Not very well known those tours so we had our young, female policewoman all to ourselves -made us feel quite important!After leaving her we took a very crowded trolley bus to the cultural centre to go to the City Museum, and after we had been there about 10 minutes Peter went to get something out ... read more

Geo: -15.6452, -71.6055There were only 2 other couples in the minibus that picked us up at 7.00am for the trip to Colca Canyon.The German, married to a Russian woman were our age and the Canadian from Montreal was with a Peruvian girlfriend from Lima. The guide was fine, but with no personality or particular enthusiasm and the driver drove cautiously over tough terrain. The road to the canyon went over a mountain pass at nearly 5,000 meters. We made a few stops on the way up to take photos of llamas, alpacas and vicunas,, but peter felt a bit shaky at the top and it was cold, bleak and wet, with a recent fall of snow on the ground. Then we wiggled for miles down the zig zag road into the river valley. This was beautifully ... read more

Geo: -12.6034, -69.1919Again much of the experience of visiting the jungle was in the getting there and back, with just one day of activites there - a very long day beginningat 4.00am!So we left Cusco by plane to Puerto Maldonado - only 45 mins, but lots of waiting around before hand. Willian, our guide, met us as we walked out into the steamy carpark onto a mini bus, shared with a german couple and their daughter and guide.We then drove for an hour along a very bumpy, muddy track to the river and onto a smooth open boat with an outboard engine for another hour and finally walked up loads of wooden steps and along a jungle track to the lodge, arriving mid afternoon. We were very well looked after, with bags carried for us, snacks ... read more

Geo: -13.52, -71.99We arrived inCusco,the grand capìtal of the Inca Empire, by a 10 hour coach ridefromPuno. It was an interesting day,in a luxury coach with other tourists from all over,including an American couple from Colarado we talked to, stopping at 5 different places en route, including an archeological museum of pre- Inca/Columbian remains, an Inca settlement, a Spanish church with great frescoes,under renovation, and a lunch stop by a waterfall -the beginning of the river Urabamba, leading down to Cusco. The guide was very enthusiastic, full of her spiritual Mama Pacha beliefs, held by the Andean people before they were converted by the Spaniards to catholicism,which sounded less and less rational as the day progressed.Weleft mostof our luggage at our friendly hotel in Cusco the next morning and set off very early again with a ... read more