Southern Peru Our journey started from San Pedro de Atacama at 7.30pm, and ended up being kind of epic. We had to change in Calama, Arica (where the border crossing involved handing our passports over to a taxi driver, who thankfully turned out to be trustworthy, so it all went smoothly) and finally Tacna to get to Arequipa at 5pm. The city is really beautiful. It has clear Spanish influences in the architecture, so the plazas are full of huge white building ...

As time is quickly running out on us at this point we have to squeeze in another Bolivian highlight after 3 consecutive nights on buses. The 6 hour journey obviously ends up being nearer 10, so we get to Uyuni at 4am, then crawl from our warm beds to start the tour of the salt flats for 9. Why we did that? I don't know-because the agency wasn't even open. In fact it didn't open until we kind of broke in, and eventually left at 11! Joining us in the jeep we had...

Potosi From the jungle we had one more hellish Bolivian bus ride to get us to La Paz, where we spend the day frantically running around doing laundry, buying a charango(!) and posting stuff home. It was a stressful nightmare, and left us in no mood for another overnight bus, but time was against us, and we had to move on to Potosi. We arrive in the highest city in the world (4200m) freezing cold at 5am. Our plan is to get a tour of the silver mines then get g...

Cusco to La Paz, The Longest Day… After our grueling Inca Trail/Food-poisoning debacle we spent a relaxing few days eating anything but Peruvian food, exploring Cusco and knocking about with our new friends- the lovely English lawyer girls, Hartini the vivacious Dutch-Indonesian girl, James a Welsh guitar-maker and last but by no means least, Damir the Amazing Croatian Boy Scout-Pirate! I managed to extend our Cusco stay for long enough to watch England and W...

The Inca Trail We arrived in Cusco a couple of days before our Inca Trail departure date to acclimatise to the altitude (3300m) and do some last minute shopping (thermals, waterproof - that will actually keep some water off).Then the evening before we go, we get to meet our group and guide. The meeting lasts all of about 10 minutes as it turns out our group is just Chris and I, and the guide is a tiny Peruvian woman called Flor. (There go my 'small and female' e...