Day after Inca trail, started with another birthday breakfast cake for Dan. He couldn't disguise his dismay as the rich gooey chocolate gateau was presented to him, which quickly spread to the rest of us too, little sleep, too much celebrating, did not have us in the mood for cake. We stoically requested just a sliver. Moving on, we caught the bus from Cuzco to Puno. The long distance bus stopped to pick up locals on the way and often they travelled in the ...

Rudely early mornings were becoming a habit. We were up at 4 to catch a plane to Cuzco. The plane was late so they decided to skip the midway stop of Juliaca and go there afterwards therefore ensuring all the Gringos got to their destinations on time, but goodness knows what time the poor locals eventually got to theirs. Truely everyone going to Cuzco was a traveller and all seemingly decked out ready for Everest. Goretex walking boots, titanium walking poles...

A handful of dried up leaves and a crumbly stone that acts as activator, to chew on beats hands down the worst thing I´ve consumed on my trip so far (much worse than baby goat, alpaca and prickly pear) but as opposed to just sampling the local delicacies as was the case with those. Coca leaves have a practical purpose, to aid breathing and combat the symptoms of altitude sickness. So I´m in a bus on my way to the Colca Canyon, the deepest canyon in th...

After metropolises, towns, 4 hut jungle villages, beaches, islands, rain and cloud forests, mountains, volcanoes, next came the desert.With this particular desert came earthquake territory too.Ica, the nearest town to our next destination had an earthquake or 8.0 on the Richter scale just 4 months ago.It killed 513 people, injured 1,100, and left as many as 100,000´s homeless.They actually experience earthquakes every day but mostly they are small enough not...

Miraflores, Lima.It´s the surburb where I stayed, but it´s also featured in Mario Vargas Llosa´s ¨La Ciudad y los perros¨, a text I had to study for my degree.Let´s face it I forgot the majority of what I learnt the moment I walked out of my last final, but I do remember the romance and mystery with which Miraflores was portrayed.I didn´t see any of that, I saw a suburb of priviledge with Limeños cruising the boutiques, imp...