The dry season arrives I've complained in previous Ecuador blogs about how bad the weather has been, but on 1st June, almost like clockwork, the clouds cleared, the rain stopped and the sun made its long awaited appearance. The dry season in the mountains is supposed to start in June, but I didn't expect the changeover to be this precise. This was excellent timing as we had chosen that day for our first summit attempt in Ecuador. We found ourselves in the market town of Otavalo, a couple of hundred kilometres north of Quito, and together with Trudy from Australia and Denis, our guide, originally from Ohio, but now living in Otavalo, we attempted to climb Fuya-Fuya, a 4365 metre volcano just south of town, overlooking the impressive Laguna Mojando. There is no public transport to ... read more

Getting to know the lesser visited parts of Ecuador The old town area of Cuenca is one of only four UNESCO world heritage sites in Ecuador, which might lead you expect to see crowds of tourist and backpackers. But despite the abundance of churches and colonial buildings, we saw very few tourists in Cuenca, and enjoyed a few days break from the usual "Gringo Trail", as we explored the city and the surrounding countryside. Cuenca is Ecuador's third largest city (after Guayaquil & Quito), the largest city in the southern highlands, and is a good place to break the journey between the south and north. It's had a long, colourful history, being an important pre-Incan city, first known as Guapondeleg (the land as big as heaven) after being founded in 500AD by the Canari tribe. The ... read more

Peru's ancient civilisations: More than just the Incas Cloudy skies and desert landscapes are the memories I will take from our time in northern Peru. This region is much less popular with tourists than the south of the country, but, with sights such as the stunning mountains around Huaraz and the pre-Columbian ruins at Trujillo, there are plenty of reasons to visit. We left the mountains of Huaraz behind and descended to Trujillo on the coast via overnight bus. I remember waking up early on the bus and looking out to the contrasting scenes of the Pacific Ocean on one side and the arid desert on the other. Despite being in a desert, I don't think we saw the sun between Huaraz and the Ecuadorian border - the skies were always covered by thick clouds but, ... read more

Back to sea level after two months in the mountains Lima is very different to the rest of Peru. With 8.2 million people it's by far the largest city in the country (next biggest is Arequipa with 760,000), and after spending so long in the lovely city of Cusco, arriving in the capital was a complete culture shock. Two days isn't long enough to fairly judge a city the size of Lima, but in a country with so many other attractions, two days was plenty for us - I think we were both relieved to move on from Lima to the mountains of Huaraz. We travelled direct from Cusco to Lima on an overnight Cruz del Sur bus. The bus left late, at 4pm instead of 2pm, so we missed out on the supposed excellent scenery ... read more

Capital of the Inca Empire In the Popular Arts Museum in Cusco there's an old photo, from 1935, taken by the famous Cusco photographer Martin Chambi, which shows a view of the city from the Inca ruins of Sacsaywaman. It's easy to pick out familiar buildings such as the Cathedral & Plaza de Armas, but the most striking thing about the picture is the size of Cusco. It looks more like a provincial town than the large city it has become today. You can see the edge of the city in Chambi's photo, whereas today, from Sacsaywaman, the suburbs seem to stretch far away into the distance. This one time capital of the Inca Empire, which stretched from Quito to Chile, has, in 70 years, mushroomed into the the essential tourist stop in southern Peru, a ... read more