Our faces lit up at the line of tuk-tuks outside the hotel which would transport us to the port where our cultural encounter began. Spending a good ten minutes choosing presents for our host families we settled on rice and pasta - hoping they would decide to make this for our dinner (wishful thinking!) Henry (our uber-enthusiastic tour guide) gave us a run-down of the lake and explained how 60% of the lake belonged to Peru and the other 40% to Bolivia although th...

Arriving at the airport for our flight to the Jungle and having already checked in, we were somewhat perturbed to find the rest of our tour had been told the flight was cancelled and were not allowed to check in with us! The group were infuriated to find not only was our Rainforest excursion cancelled but GAP would not be refunding any money and on top of this we would have to find our own accomodation or sleep on the streets if we had no money! (Tour safety trul...

Firstly, we made it! Secondly you will be pleased to hear our photos are now up on facebook (Parents get the boys to show them to you!) What can we say about the last four days? Emma would say challenging, surreal and exciting. Laura would beg to differ! Whilst we both are extremely happy with the achievement, Laura found it slightly more physically challenging than Emma but worthwhile nonetheless. Day one began at km 82 both of us with smiles on our faces and s...

After our 4am wake-up call and holding the group up as we failed to emerge on time, we were all surprised to find our 45 minute flight to Cusco had an hour stopover in a random town. The flight was possibly the most disorganised we have ever taken, with stewardesses checking boarding passes 3 times despite already being in our seats and flying the first part of the journey. Arriving in Cusco and driving down cobbled one-way streets, we could almost have been in ...

After an early wake up and a continental breakfast on the sun terrace (yes, there was sun and breakfast was included!) we hopped on the bus to the Colca Canyon, the world´s second deepest Canyon. En route "Pilar", our tour guide (absolute legend!) gave us the most informative commentary EVER. She knows EVERYTHING about Peru! There were several stops on the way including vast fields covered in stone fencing which she explained locals had claimed as thei...