I left off in Cusco and from there we took our last overnight bus journey to a place called Huacachina, literally a little oasis in the middle of the desert. On first arriving and covering the whole "town" on foot in less than 10 minutes, I was wondering what all the fuss was about but that evening we found out: sandboarding. Huacachina's main attraction is the opportunity to take a twilight trip into the enormous sand dunes in a dune buggy (appropriate), strap a...

As has become our custom, we kicked off our time in Cusco with a free walking tour. Unfortunately this time it was in the pouring rain but nonetheless it was still very enjoyable and interesting; we discovered that the name Cusco is derived from the Quechua word q'osqo which means belly button (because it was considered to be the centre of the world), had probably the best pisco sour to date (sorry Chile, Peru wins), and learned to play a tune on a tiny guitar ca...

After a few weeks of indulgence, we decided to get our legs moving again and took a ferry from Copacabana across to Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca. It's a beautiful little island with no roads or vehicles so the only way to get around is to walk - which we did, from one end to the other. We started in Yumani where we were tested with a steep hike up some Inca stairs before we could find a hostel and eat; doesn't sound like much but at 4,000m, everything is hard. T...

Cartagena is a lovely little walled city with cobbled streets full of multi-coloured colonial houses, great restaurants and designer shops. Of course this all comes at a price so we joined the other backpackers in a more affordable area called Getsemani which was easy walking distance to the upmarket bit and the only downside (perhaps not considered as such by all) seemed to be the higher concentration of prostitutes. The main activity in Cartagena is wandering s...

Our first impression of Colombia was arriving at Bogota airport at night, realising our transfer wasn't there, trying to withdraw some cash for a taxi and being given about half the amount we'd requested from the ATM without warning or explanation. Not a great start but fortunately it didn't take long for the country to win us over. On our first day in Bogota we got an amazing introduction to the city by way of a cycle tour. It was full of Dutch people which I d...