I have survived the Inca Trail! It was hard work but feels good to have done it. Day one we were picked up from the hostel at 5.30am and drove two hours to a town where we bought walking sticks, and coca leaves and had breakfast. We then continued on to the start of the Inca Trail. Our group was small, only five people, as the rest of our group had passes for the day before. We had a guide, a cook and seven porters to look after us. The porters ran ahead with a...

Altitude + cold = ouch. I was feeling a lot better our last day in Arequipa so I got out to see the town a bit. Next day was a drive day with a high pass and even though I felt better I was still all blocked up and for a while on the truck I got a really bad headache. Luckily it went away when I got out and walked around a bit, and didn't come back. We arrived in Chivay for a late lunch and while we were eating it rained and hailed. We haven't seen rain since R...

After a couple of days in Lima, sightseeing, tenpin bowling, and eating way too much, we drove on to Paracas National Park. We ended up stopping for lunch about 3km from our campsite so a few of us took the option of walking the rest of the way. It's a desert park on the coast so rocky and sandy with no trees in sight. It was cool to walk up a rise and see the truck parked in the distance with little people putting up tents around it. At that point we were thin...

Punta Sal was nice. Lots of sun, walks on the beach and whale watching every afternoon. We left early after our third night there to drive to Huanchaco, another beach town, where we stayed the night then had a morning visit to the Chan Chan ruins. The ruins are still being excavated and restored, there was scaffolding and tarpaulins all over the place but it was interesting to learn about the people who used to live there. Apparently Chan Chan is a newer name m...

23/9/2010 Just back from three nights in the jungle. After a long drive from Otavalo we stayed a night in a hostel in Tena with views of the Napa River. The next afternoon we took a boat to the Arajuno Jungle Lodge on the river of the same name. It was an awesome place, we stayed in little cabins, everything was solar powered, the dining room was open and looking out over the river, and a cheeky monkey would steal your food when you weren't looking. The monkey...