Following a quick stop in Lima, I took a one hour flight over to Cusco. Despite the fact that Cusco has become a thriving tourist destination since the rediscovery of Machu Picchu in 1911, it is still easy to forget the crowds and become enchanted by the mystery of the fascinating Inca culture that is so carefully protected here. Cusco's elevation is 3300m, and the air feels cool and clean all of the time. It was the Inca empire's foremost stronghold, and remain...

Off trekking for a few wonderful days in the mystic Colca Canyon. The Canyon here, 3 hours inland from Arequipa, is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and the second deepest in the world at 3140m. It's filled with some surreal scenery, traditional Andean farming terraces surrounding mountain towns built into the deep canyon walls, site of the Cruz del Condor where you can view 50 or so condors (3-5 meters wide) soaring above the canyon searching for carcasses, and...

Arequipa, the "White City" named because of the white volcanic stone the city was built with, is said to be the second most important and beautiful city in Peru. The city is built on the slopes of the active El Misti Volcano. A fact I found astonishing is that the actual summit of this volcano, lies a mere 17k away from the town, and as the town's population continues to grow it moves closer to where there are now residences built into the base of the mountain. ...

Crossing the border into Peru was a breeze, for three dollars you hop on a bus in Arica on the border in Chili and the bus driver shepherds you through Chilean and Peruvian customs. Getting into Chile, a man on my bus was interrogated and fined $200 for having an apple in his bag but they didnt seem to care about the forgotten orange I brought into Peru. Yesterday I spent the day in Arica, a fairly good sized city with the Atacama Desert on one side and the ocea...

I'm lying in a hammock, looking up at the stars, in San Pedro de Atacama. The stars here are always brilliant, because the sky is always clear, it hasn't rained in years. San Pedro is a tiny oasis in the middle of the Atacama desert, one of the driest deserts in the world. The population is 2000, of which still conserve the ancestral distribution of cultivated lands called "ayllus" that are irrigated by channeling the Rio Grande. These communities were divided...