First things first..........thank you everyone who has been so kind as to remember my birthday, especially those of you who were good enough to transpose the numbers 5 and 6. Had another adrenalin packed day on the 25th as we (group of four, plus our guide and driver) set off from The White City (Arequipa) named, not because of the stone which features in its buildings, but rather that the Spanish founded the place and wanted to make it clear that it was not...

Hope the windblown windbag in the picture doesn't upset anyone but I had to prove I had been there and, no it is not computer trickery although I have to say I had one eye on where the toilets were - re earlier postcard. Since I last wrote they called a road strike down here on the major cities so we had to leave our hotel (having returned across the lake after nearly drowning) at 7.30 pm and drive till 2am and then get up again at 6.am to catch up with a gr...

Imagine your very first question when reaching one of the wonders of the world was "are there toilets on the site?". Well that was me at Machu Pichu.....suffering from my third day of the Inca Two Step or it could have been revenge being taken on me for eating Alpaca two nights before. Whatever the cause it was interesting to run the risk of climbing all of the site with ones mind always slightly somewhere else. None the less, it was worth the fight and the...