Simon's despatch: A very flying visit to Lima. Arrived at 7am after about 15 hours of non-eventful flying. Got taken to a rather nice little hotel in the Miraflores district and immediately bailed on previous plans of a busy day exploring and had a nap! Once sufficiently recovered we strolled down to the pacific coast to a shopping mall built into the cliffs. Apart from providing a nice view to enjoy a drink over it also provides a wonderful insight into the op...

We've actually been to Cusco twice now. The first time round was an adventure in altitude sickness pills, horse riding and Guinea pigs. Cusco was the capital city of the Inca's and it means "navel". It got this name because it sits right in the middle of the Inca empire that was. It's a place to see Inca stonework and drink Guiness whilst watching Peru's favourite sport (which they're not that great at) - football. We arrived after a plan and bus rude from Lima...

Ergh! Fatigue kicking in, another 6am start to the day in order to catch the 7:30 train towards Machu Picchu. Once again we are blessed with beautiful sunshine a miracle really as this is supposed to be the start of the wet season! The train was pretty plush with windows in the roof to admire the mountains through. We sat opposite a nice English couple of retirees from the home counties who described most of South America as "unfinished" especially Bogota! At k...

Simon's despatch: As was rapidly becoming the norm for this trip we were out bright & early to begin our coach ride up the sacred valley, sleep is a luxury practically forbidden it seems! Some only mildly perilous roads took us past sexy woman (admittedly the Peruvians spell it differently but the pronunciation is the exactly the same). Disappointingly this turned out to be an ancient Inca temple but was impressive non-the-less. A stop off at g-adventures ...