Rio to New York in 6 Months

After Copacabana we headed for Cusco for a couple of days to book our train to go to Machu Picchu. Cusco is a nice city with lots of old Inca buildings as well as some nice churches. It is the tourist capital of Peru so there are loads of restaurants and bars too. We have seen loads of places that sell Guinea Pig but I have not eaten it yet. I will devote a whole post to it including photos when I do. Read the rest of this entry »

The train journey to get to Machu Picchu was a bit tedious as the train had to keep changing lines to climb the steep hill. The scenery was quite nice though. We got a backpacker train ticket which cost $65 (US) each for the 4 hour journey. Read the rest of this entry »

After seeing Machu Pichu we headed straight for Lima. The bus journey was ok and we played bingo on the bus again and I almost won. I only had one number left and I think I missed when it was called thanks to my lack of Spanish skills. The prize for winning was a ticket back to Cusco which we wouldn´t have been able to use anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

After Lima we headed to the north of Peru as we don´t have much time left in South America and need to head towards Equador. It is a shame because we have not seen much of Peru and we won´t be able to see much of Ecuador either. We will have to come back to South America again someday. Read the rest of this entry »

We left Zorritos in Peru and make our way up to the border of Ecuador. We had a bit of a nightmare getting there as we got in a taxi with this guy who seemed really helpful but ending up conning us out of about 30 dollars (US). Read the rest of this entry »

We left Lima and headed up to Otavalo which is famous for its massive Saturday market. We arrived in Otavalo on Friday and had a quick look around and it seemed pretty nice. Read the rest of this entry »

Well I finally managed to eat a guinea pig while we were in Otavalo in Ecuador and I was a bit disappointed. It hardly had any meat on it and I did not really like the taste either. I was glad that I got to try it though.

Here are a few pictures. Check out the size of its front teeth. Read the rest of this entry »

Well we are finally in Colombia. We got over the border ok and without being conned out of any money which was an added bonus. We arrived in the border town called Ipiales at about 3pm and were planning to get a night bus to Cali but as we were walking into the bus terminal to book a ticket we bumped into this English guy who said he lived in Colombia who said we should be careful has be has heard of buses on this route getting stopped at night by gunmen who proceed to rob the bus. He did add that he had made the trip a couple of times and he had been ok but by this time we had decided to stay overnight and get a bus in the morning. Read the rest of this entry »

We left the heat of Cali and headed for the cooler weather of Salento which is a small town right in the middle of the coffee growing region of Colombia. It was a lovely little place that came alive at the weekend when a lot of people come to escape the heat of the big citites. The town is built around a lovely plaza with a church in the middle. All the buildings are painted in different colours which was pretty cool. Read the rest of this entry »

We got a night bus to Bogota that was reasonably comfortable (we judge all buses now by Argentinian standards). Clara and Matt were also going to Bogota which was quite useful as Clara helped us find somewhere to stay and acted as our translator during negotiations. She told us that we should try to negotiate for everything and she really did mean it !!! She should be working in Wall Street. Read the rest of this entry »