What a couple of days we've had. Our bus journeys have often provided entertainment - normally with people selling food, drinks, toothbrushes, dvds, arthritis creams and assorted other stuff, but from Cartagena it was something else again. As the journey started the 2nd bus driver gave a little speech, he started off talking about the toilets, rubbish bins etc but then he started to get excited, after a while we realised he was preaching !!! after about ten minutes he led the bus in prayers !!! he was like a Colombian version of the American preachers you see on the tv !!! Crossing the border was straightforward on both sides, although the taxi fare in Colombia was more when we got out than he'd quoted when we got in, but I guess that's life. The interesting ... read more

Bogota to Cartagena is ~1000km on single lane twisting roads and takes 20 hours, it's long. We were lucky with the bus company we picked, the seats were comfortable, the aircon worked but wasn't too cold, and the price was pretty good (US$35 each), although we have no idea why they chose to use pants as headrest covers :-))))) We didn't know whether there would be food onboard or how often we'd stop so to make sure we were OK we bought a couple of sandwiches each. Things started pretty well, we left on time, traffic wasn't bad, but then the guy one behind and across the aisle from Atsuko took his shoes off - putain, they smelt like a farmyard :-((( we can only guess at the last time he washed them !!! After 3 ... read more

We're spending a couple of days in Quito. We've found a really great place to stay - Casa Bambu which has a roof terrace that we've been making full use of to eat breakfast, have drinks in the evening and supper, it's a great price as well, US$20 per night for both of us :-) We spent our 1st day in the old town visiting museums, looking around the plazas and one or two of the best churches. It was OK but not as good as the 2nd day when we went on the teleferiqo cablecar, did a couple of hours walking up the side of the mountains overlooking the city and, best of all, visited the basilica. Compared with what we're used to all of the South American countries have a very relaxed view on ... read more

The beach at Zorritos, Peru was great, just what we needed. After that we headed north into Ecuador and after changing buses four times got to Cuenca, which is another nice colonial city (yawn). The Sunday markets at Sig Sig, Chordeleg and Galaceo are supposed to be interesting - they're not, but the countryside getting to and from them is very nice. Although it's quite high (2500m) because we're further north it's warmer, wetter and greener. Cuenca has some good museums which we enjoyed before heading to Alausi. The only reason we went to Alausi was to take the train to Sibambe and back - up and down the Nariz del Diablo (the Devil's Nose). The station is in the middle of the town and for the first few hundred metres runs through the streets before ... read more

Heading 600km north to Trujillo we were glad to see the back of Lima. The main attraction here is Chan Chan a mud city built in the early 14th century, there are a couple of other archaelogical sites as well and the city itself has a nicely restored centre - which is painted in bright colours, so nice after the grey of Lima. After the bad experiences we've had with organised tours we DIY'd it today which is a bit more difficult but it gives us the control we want and the flexibility to do things in our own time - we weremuch happier :-) This area is so dry Chan Chan has survived to various degrees for ~700 years, pretty cool. Only one part of it is open, but the whole site is huge, it ... read more