Arequipa may be a city of close to one million people, a number that usually gives an image of a chaotic and busy city, in Arequipa however, that it not the case. Arequipa is a perfect introduction to Peru. I arrived with a Dutch girl, Ilonka, in the early hours of September 1st 2011 and checked ourselves into a fantastic little hostel, Daniela Piccola, falling asleep until the a sensible morning time arrived. On waking and vacating the hostel for the day we were stunned to see the pulsating beauty that radiates from the streets of this blinding city. The buildings lining the central plaza and it's extending streets are clean and white, proudly reflecting the suns powerful rays. It is the student capital of the country and an optimistic independent city. To cap off the ... read more

About This Entry This is my longest ever blog entry, which is a little mad considering the actual events documented only cover three days. I have my reasons though, in the run up to the mountain attempt I was unwell in La Paz; not massively so and I don't know why exactly. I was incredibly lethargic and hard a brutal phlegm riddled cough as well as a bit of travellers sickness. Perhaps it was the altitude, perhaps it was something I ate, perhaps it was the foul dust in the air in Adventure Brew's new building - it doesn't matter. The easiest thing to do when you're not feeling well in this sort of situation is to just relax until you regain energy, this can lead to a situation of watching endless television or one where ... read more

The jungle was my personal challenge. Doing a trip into the jungle of South America is probably the most obvious trip for a tourist to do whilst in the continent. The prospect of spending time in an environment that contains giant spiders, snakes and every other creature that lurks in the nightmares, I couldn't wait to get there. The pampas tour is an easy animal spotting tour. The jungle was my personal challenge. We emptied our backpacks of all our possessions except for a couple of toiletries and a change of clothes before heading to Mogli's office and being loaded up with what felt like several tonnes of gear. Included in this heavy was a sleeping bag, a mosquito net and a bag of what we were told was food but felt like bricks. Joining Ciaran ... read more

Before I write about the Pampas Tour itself, I absolutely have to write about the journey from Coroico to Rurrenabaque, one of Bolivia's most infamous bus journey's that travellers on a budget and stupid people must take if they want to see the jungle in Northern Bolivia. Wikitravel informed me that this bus trip can take between 19 and 56 hours, purely dependent on whether there is any rain. Most people fly to Rurre because of this fact. I decided for some morbid reason to check out the bus - it was not a pleasure... We waited at Caranavi, several kilometres from Coroico for the bus to arrive and pick us up. In true Bolivian fashion, it arrived an hour late - it had only been travelling for three hours at this point so an hour ... read more

You have to do it to understand it, to feel it. The very notion of being able to descend 3600m in only a few hours is awesome enough on its own - the idea of being able to do that one one of the world's most infamous and dangerous roads, on a mountain bike, is even better. The Yungas Road from La Paz to Coroico was constructed by Paraguayan prisoners of war in the 1930's, it was required to link the fertile environments of the Yungas valleys to La Paz so the produce could be transported easier. The road is of incredibly poor quality however, clinging to a cliff edge, under a cliff and of course, not even remotely paved. In the mid-nineties it was christened 'The Death Road' due to an incredible average of 250 ... read more