I feel this journey deserves a blog entry of it's own - even though nothing major happened it was a significant chunk of my travelling time! I have put it under tumbes in Peru as that is the only place I stayed on the 4 day journey - other than that at all times I was on a bus!! So I got a taxi to the bus station in Riobamba, got a bus to Machala, another bus to Huaquillas, a taxi from the immigration office to the border, another taxi from the border to Peruvian...

It appears that Mancora is is the new year's party capital of Peru. As I said accommodation and transport were quite hard to come by and when I arrived I could see why - it was absolutely full of people! On the bus to MancoraI suffered my first significant loss of the trip - my wallet was stolen so my first morning in Mancora was spent calcelling cards and trying to fill out a police report. That sorted I headed to the beautiful and busy beach. I met an American ...

After what had been a considerable amount of time in cold weather(I know it's nothing compared to being at home - but then the point of this trip is that I want something different to what's at home) I decided for my last days in Peru I would stay by the beach and opted to go first to Huanchaco! I stayed in a hostel called the chill out which I felt was particularly apt. On arrival I had a very chilled out day (sleeping most of it) and searching for accommodation...

Rachel and I arrived in Huaraz at around 7am on Monday the 20th Dec. This was to be my first ever couch surfing experience (Rachel is a bit of a pro at this). On arrival into Huaraz we went and met our couch surfing host Ivan, a nice guy from Huaraz who worked as a tour guide. We went to his place and then soon after another couple of couch surfers arrived (a couple from Australia/France). We had been told about a day trip to see a local(ish) Glacier and decided ...

So we arrived into Lima after most of the day on another (quite luxurious) bus. We were staying in Miraflores in the same hostel I'd stayed in the first time I was in Lima. We had a wander around and went in search of a highly recommended restaurant in the lonely planet - low and behold the information in the lonely planet was out of date and the restaurant was closed! Anyway we finally got fed and headed back to the hostel for a few quiet drinks. Happy hour stru...