Bright and early we were awoken from our partial slumber on the bus at 6am arriving in Cusco. A short minibus journey took us from the bus station to our hotel where our rooms were not quite ready. After registering, we left our bags behind as Eli took us on a quick tour of the town starting at the main square, Plaza de Armas around the corner. He showed us the Basilica before pointing out the 12 pointed rock, a very famous stone in a very famous Inca-built wall...

21/11/12 After a fairly nice breakfast at the hotel we were collected by our tour guide for our trip. We said goodbye to Eli and collected a few others before driving a short way to a little shop where we bought some colca sweets. These are made from coca leaves and help with altitude sickness. I was willing to try anything having woken up with a head ache and tummy ache. We then drove up through the Andes and stopped at a little cafe for some coca tea to prepa...

20th November A short minibus ride from the bus station and we got to our hostel rather bleary eyed. We checked in, showered and freshened up before reconvening as a group an hour later. We then walked around Arequipa very quickly as Eli showed us the main highlights before we arrived at our main destination, a restaurant for some brunch together. After a couple of delicious sandwiches we said goodbye to the group and started our home-made walking tour starting...

The bus offices here are so much like airports with check in desks, luggage area and boarding gates - so weird. On the bus Neil and I had two of the front seats so we settled into the 7/8 hour journey. I enjoyed watching the films - pleased they had English subtitles - while Neil listened to his MP3 player and watched Peru from the window. We travelled along the Pan American highway with the sea to the right and the sand dunes to the left before turning inland in...

15/11/12 After being reunited with our backpacks we grabbed a taxi with the dutch girl heading towards the Miraflores area of Lima. Lima is a city larger than London and the rush hour traffic threatened to make it a painful journey but our taxi driver got us quickly to Miraflores where we arrived in even bigger jams caused by road closures. A quick chat with the driver confirmed that we had arrived during a full earthquake evacuation drill. Shops and offices as...