Crossing the border into Peru was easier than I expected. It was literally a case of getting my passport stamped on one side walking across a bridge and getting it stamped on the other side. It was a complete culture shock though. I came from the lovely tranquil village of Vilcabamba in Ecuador which was set in a valley surrounded by mountains and famed for the residents' longevity to a mad city which wouldn't have been out of place in India! Crossing the road in...

How do I manage to get lost everywhere I go?!!! I decided to do a bit of walking in one of the national parks - Podocarpus. On the first walk I managed to take the wrong path and head off on an old Inca trail in completely the wrong direction! Luckily, in the middle of nowhere there were some German scientists working on a soil project and they set me back on the right path! On the next walk I started out on what the sign posts said was a 7 hour walk. It was supp...

Since the Galapagos I've spent a lot of time in and around Quito. I was here for the Easter celebrations which were interesting. On Good Friday there were lots of processions through the town with people wearing purple robes with pointy hats covering everything but the eyes. There were also men carrying incredibly heavy wooden crosses with other people beating them as they walked along. I even saw a man with a cross on his back made of cacti which was causing him...

I am in love…………..with the Galapagos!!!! It is such an amazing place! You can get so close to the animals and some of them are pretty strange - the iguanas in particular - they look like something out of a sci-fi movie! I spent the first week on a boat cruise which was brilliant! We were able to visit lots of the islands and our guide was really knowledgeable. We were also able to go snorkeling every day which I loved! Under water is j...

The camping trip was really good fun! We walked for 2-3 hours into the jungle and then decided to set up camp by a river. We constructed our own shelter out of wood and lots and lots and lots of leaves! It took a couple of hours to complete as we needed to have enough leaves to make it water tight. We made a fire and cooked dinner - food that we'd collected on our walk which was supplemented by cooked bananas with chocolate and marshmallows which I had brought ...