After our long and relatively comfortable bus journey we arrived in the Peruvian capital Lima at 8am. Lima is massive with a population of around 8m people and some of the most congested roads we have seen. The first day was spent exploring the upmarket district of Miraflores where we walked around the centre, visited the seafront and its parks and went for a look around the shopping centre (for a phrasebook, not just window shopping). Miraflores was very reminis...

We arrived in Trujillo just after midday both feeling shattered and a little unwell and decided to take a tour to some local Pre-Inca sites that we were offered by our hostel. The tour started with a visit to The Temple of the Rainbow, a small Chimu (a pre-incan culture) site just outside of the city that had many engravings on the walls of rainbows, people and dragons. We then headed to Chan Chan, one of the largest archielogical sites in Peru which had a total ...

After lazing about on the beach for a few days we travelled to Chiclayo, a small city 7 hours down the coast. As we were checking into our hostel we bumped into two of our friends (small world) who had been in the city for a few days and got some tips on what to do in the area. On the evening of our arrival we ate at a chifa (chinese restaurant), where we were sat in a small curtained booth. We didnt understand anything on the menu so blindly opted for the com...

From Piura we took an early morning bus to Máncora, a small beach town on the northern coast of Peru that reminded us of Newquay. We checked into a hostel on the beachfront and then made the arduous 15 yard trek to the beach where we bumped into the people we had met in Ecuador. The beach was incredible and the sea was really warm with some great surf as well so we spent plenty of time swimming in the 4 days we were there. Another highlight was finding a restaur...

From Cuenca we took a 6 hour bus to the city of Loja in southern Ecuador where we were transferring to an overnight bus into Peru. Unfortunately, it was during the waiting time between the two busses that Ashley had her handbag nicked. Thankfully nothing of vital importance was in it but there were some valuables stolen and we had a lot of trouble communicating with the police! We met a group of English people who went to great lengths to help us with the whole s...