Going To The Dark Side or the lows and lows of world travel After lake Titkaka, I became quite unwell with altitude sickness. The last night in Puno was horrendous, I couldn't sleep and when I tried I woke up feeling like I was being strangled. (I checked , Ray was sleeping!) The only real cure for altitude sickness is to head to lower ground so the next morning we left on a day bus and headed for La Paz, Bolivia. Not a massive difference in altitude but...

Macchu Picchu's Gonna Gittchu …part 2 The alarm woke us at 4am and in the pitch blackness and with full brass monkey gear on, including rather fetching head torches we started to stomp the steps to the Macchu Picchu citadel. I think my brain was playing tricks with me, even though I had read up on the climb to Macchu Picchu I thought it would be easy. We stomped over 1800 steps and it nearly finished me off!!..some of the steps were knee high which made i...

Macchu Picchu's gonna gittchu!!.......part 1 Ray and I spent the first two days in Cusco researching the best deal for the famous Macchu Picchu tour. We knew we couldn't get onto the four day trek as you must book well in advance , so we had to run the gauntlet of all sorts of shady characters appearing from back alleyways and enticing us into their little darkened cubby holes for business. Some were quite dodgy (and smelly) Anyway it gave us a good chan...

Get Your Thermals On!! ..... On Wed 13th July, we left for the Colca Canyon at 8am and were picked up by the tour company 'Colca Trek' in a 16 seater minibus. We were expecting there to be a coach full but it was just Ray and I and an American couple from Boston called Matt and Erica. Our guide for the next two days was a lovely girl called Salome. As we left Arequipa, Salome started to explain to us about the history of the volcanos; El Misti and Chacha...

Don't mess with El Misti! ... The trip is amazing so far... once recovered from the lurgy, we explored central Lima..absolutely fascinating..a city of haves and have nots...extreme beauty, fun and beautiful people coupled with the most abject poverty. Two blocks away from the lovely parks of colourful fountains doing a spectacular display to classical peruvian music there was a woman in rags breast feeding her baby who was wrapped up in a threadbare green w...