We began today by heading to the Peru Treks office to pay for our trek and receive the pre-trek briefing. 4.30am start on the first day, followed by 5.30am starts on the next two and a 3.30am start on the final day...fun! Following this, we went to pick up our final prep stuff for the trek: ponchos, poles etc. Unfortunately carrying hiking poles made us twice the tourist target as before, with everyone redoubling their efforts to sell us stuff. We hastily led a r...

Today, after picking up more trekking essentials and a lovely set of x10 binoculars, we set of towards the Museo de Cocoa for a workshop on chocolate making. Peru is responsible for 1.2% of the world's cocoa plantation but export largely to Switzerland for production of fine chocolates. Chocolate production begins with the placement of the cocoa plant. Depending on what the plant is planted with, it can pick up different flavours from the natural environment. Aft...

After another 10 hour bus journey from Puno, we arrived at the Pariwana Hostel at 5am. We enjoyed a nap, breakfast and a spot of stable internet connect before heading out for a stroll through Cusco, a very olde world town of Spanish colonial buildings and cobbled streets. Unfortunately we weren't able to explore for too long, after picking up a couple of hats for Machu Picchu we were greeted by a Sao Paulo-esque rainstorm and spent the rest of the day lounging a...

Up early this morning, we jumped in a chartered taxi down to the docks to explore more of the islands of Lake Titicaca. Today we were to head to two sites. Firstly the Uros Islands, a series of manmade floating reed islands on which the Uros people lived, and secondly the Isla Taquile, one of the bigger natural islands on the lake.The Uros Islands were phenomenal. Made entirely from the reeds and roots found on the lake, an island is comprised entirely of roughly...

After our rock rambling in Copacabana, neither of us felt up for very much, with sore muscles and bad sunburn being the flavours of the day: We went for a bit of a wander through Puno's central market, something akin to the Queen Vic Market in Melbourne, but largely spent the day enjoying comfy couches out of the sun, before heading out for an evening stroll, pleasant apart from every restaurant we passed trying to lure us in with free pisco sours. Eventually we ...