I had originally thought of (thought not planned by any means) flying from Colombia to Rio de Janeiro but having searched high and low for an affordable flight I drew a blank. So a year in South America with no Brazil it is... or is it? International flights might be expensive but a series of internal flights, connecting boats / buses / whatever are a jolly good deal indeed. So I decided to fly from Cartagena in the north of Colombia to Leticia in the Colombian ...

Onwards and upwards (quite literally where Huaraz is concerned), I first had to make a pitstop in Lima to change buses, get a haircut and invest in a funky new laptop. I have finally got my own electronic wheels! The overnight bus from Lima took me high into The Andes and the mountain town of Huaraz, the main point for organising adventures into the Cordillera Blanca, the white mountains with a brimful of peaks breaching the magical 6000m mark, including Cerro H...

So I left Simon and Paul in Mancora and boarded the bus for Trujillo, where I had to make an overnight stop. Upon my arrival the taxi driver informed me that the hotel I intended on had closed down, but smelling a scam I insisted that he took me there. It had indeed closed down. Trujillo itself was nothing to write home about...so I won't . The following day I took the busup into The Andes and the mountain town of Huaraz,from where I envisaged trekking, mountain...

In Piura we boarded a cramped, hot minivan driven by an Ayrton Senna wannabe, destination Mancora. Feeling indifference to the fight we had just caused between the minivan ticket tout and the minivan driver, we just wanted to hit the beach. Mancora is a surf spot on Peru's northern coast, not too far from the border with Ecuador. The terrain is dry and desert like, not dissimilar from the coastline of Southern Spain. Hell, they even speak Spanish here! Aside fro...

I arrived in Lima via the overnight bus from Cusco. I found the Flying Dog Hotel that Paul had booked us into, and found Simon sat at the bar writing his diary. It was lunchtime, Saturday 11th of April, and we headed across the street for a sandwich and soft drink. We were staying in the Milaflores ditrict of Lima, which is quite posh and enjoys great ocean views. The rest of Lima is considered somewhat dodgy, so most visitors stay here on the adjacent suburb of...