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4am came very quickly. We collected our bags and walked through town to the meeting place in one of the squares in Cusco. The Llama path team had Coca tea ready for us. This is meant to help with the altitude. When all 16 of us had arrived we jumped on the bus for 1.5hours till we reached a village. Here we stopped and had a big buffet breakfast. We all filled up on eggs, bread, pancakes and fruit, ready for our long day ahead of walking the first part of the Inca trail. We started to introduce ourselves. We have 10 Americans, 2 Portueguse, 2 Norwegians, me and Phill. After buying last minute supplies of water and ponchos, we jumped on the bus for another hour to the start of our Inca trail at kilometre ... read more

So after a 12 hour night bus from Ica we arrived in Arequipa. We travelled VIP with Cruz del sur, and this made the journey very easy. The seats were big leather recliners, with a telly each and steward. Would defiantly recommend. We checked into our accommodation a Casa called Casa de Avila. It was nice all the rooms are round a central garden that has a pet turtle. We chilled out as the night bus had been long. We then explored the town getting some food. Exploring the food market which was interesting, and seeing all the old buildings. Day two was spent relaxing and shopping for winter woollies for our trek which is fast approaching. Day three we awoke early and were collected by our tour guide Olivia, along with 3 other people we ... read more

We started early again, getting a taxi at 4am to take us to Quito airport to fly to Peru. This will be our 7th country on our journey. The flight was very quick and we landed in Lima at9am. We got a taxi to our hostel which is called Miraflores house. We were greeted by a lovely man called Francis who was very helpful showing us were everything was. Lima is very grey and not pretty. There is a thick white fog over the city which makes everything damp. But we didn't come to Lima for the views, we came for the food. Day one we headed out for a late lunch/early dinner as it being Sunday places shut early. We headed to a lovely bistro called Merced. We started with a local dish of black ... read more

So after a 5 hour Mini bus ride to the airport, a flight to Colombia then a flight to Ecuador we arrived in Quito at 2am. Very tired and worn out from the travel day. We were collected from the airport by our taxi who took us the hour journey to our Hilton hotel. We crashed out for a few hours in a lovely massive bed, then awoke to explore the old town. We walked through the park, saw the lovely church and headed for the food market. We then spent some time walking around the local food market, looking at all the fresh veg, fruits and meats.We then stopped at a stall for a plate of lunch, egg, potato, avocado, salad and chorizo. It was yummy. We had this with the local drink of fresh ... read more

So we had booked the jeep-boat-jeep to get us from LaFortuna to Monteverde Cloud forest as we had been told the road is terrible and this way cuts out a big section of the road. Anyway it is not a jeep but a minibus that takes you the first hour down a very bumpy, pothole filled dirt track to the lake. At the lake we jumped on a boat and sailed for 1 hour to the other side of the lake. We then got in our next minibus to take us the last 3hours to Monteverde in the Cloud forest. We arrived after a very very bumpy journey the roads are the worst ive been on. We checked into our next hostel called Cabinas El Pueblo. Very nice. As we are in the jungle and it ... read more