Our first stop in a new country and we stumbed across a big festival of the Virgin of the Cisne which meant the whole town was packed with Ecuadorian tourists and there was hardly any room at the inn for us little backpackers. After scouring the streets for ages we ended up having to check into a four star hotel at a stinging $65 night. Ouch! But not so bad, we had a comfy bed, mini bar and cable TV, we even managed to persuade the management into giving us a di...

Pretty little town with some more pretty little plazas. Then one swift beer in the posh hotel in town and next thing we know we are knocking back chopp beer with plates of ceviche with locals in Alex's chopperia until the early hours! Abandoned early plans to break for the border to nurse our sore heads and eased our pain soaking up the atmostphere in a local pasteleria with brownies and plenty of strong coffee. Finally boarded our 8 hour bus on a beautiful tr...

One of the most super efficient stops of our whole trip so far! Pulled into Trujillo at 7am, eating breakfast by 8am and photographing a famous pile of sand by 9am. Oh OK, Chan Chan was much more impressive than that, it was the biggest adobe civilisation built by the pre-Inca Chimu kings over 28 square kilometres. Most of it is crumbley ruins but one of the former palaces Tschudi has been kinda restored. Nifty. A brief pitstop at a, well, a pit of a ruined pyr...

After a somewhat arse clenchingly nervy drive along the Pan Americano highway which snakes right along the edge, and by edge I mean edge, of the coast, and we trundled into the mountain town of Huaraz. Celebrated the return of blue skies and sun before dumping our stuff at the friendly Way Inn and heading out to explore. Next morning we caught a local collectivo mini bus to the Monterray hot springs where we sat and pickled ourselves for a good few hours in the b...

Delayed for a few hours because of the strong winds, we finally touched down in Lima, Peru's capital city. But bit of a disappointment after sunny Cusco, the whole city was covered with a damp sea mist which lurks around for the whole winter season. Tears. Checked into our hostel in Miraflores suburb and briefly ventured out to feed before retreating to the warmth of our cable TV'd room! In the morning we hopped in a taxi to explore the main plaza in el centro an...