The Moped Diaries

You´d think that the guide / drivers for a tour like ours would be big, burly chaps with leathery skin, bulging muscles and chins like Desperate Dan. Well you´d be wrong. Here are our guides…

Lips Luscious and Busty Pleasures (some names have been change to protect identities) are two feisty chicks that not only drive the great big truck we travel around in but they also organise us bunch of useless gringos, bribe the local police, quell rioting locals and even find us bushes to wee behind. We´d literally be lost without them!

As you will gather from this blog entry we survived the “Death Road” and now have the t-shirts to prove it. It was a terrifying decent starting from an altitude of 4,650m (in the snow next to a glacier) finishing at an altitude of 1,350m (in a tropical forest) almost entirely down hill on a gravel track road riding a mountain bike with front and rear suspension and hydraulic disc brakes. The package included a photographer but as we were all wearing the same safety gear and riding identical bikes we can´t tell who is who in the photos (if I can make us out I will post one!). This wasn´t as terrifying as the ride back to the hotel in a minibus though where we were aquainted with the Bolivian custom of ignoring red traffic lights.

We´re touring salt flats for the next couple of days then camping for five nights so the next blog entry may be some time away.

There are certain essentials that you would bring on a trip like ours (such as passport, immodium etc.) but you wouldn´t necessarily think of cough sweets! Whilst travelling in Southern Peru towards lake Titicaca we ran in to some ... [Continue reading this entry]

We have now been living at altitudes in excess of 10,000ft for some time and have become familiar with the peculiarities this brings. These include:- Indigestion - The altitude slows your metabolism slightly so the alpacha curry I ate two ... [Continue reading this entry]

Here in South America the unemployment rate is extremely high (around 50%) so people turn to alternative forms of employment to get money. This usually involves selling local crafts (alpacha wool socks have proved to be very warm) but ... [Continue reading this entry]

I have left Dulcie in charge of the camera for this trip and she appears to have developed (no pun intended) a strange disorder which can only be described as bullimic photography. When we are somewhere picturesque (e.g. the ... [Continue reading this entry]

We have now completed the famous Inca Trail and experienced the pleasure of portered treking. This means for the 18 of us treking there were 24 porters, one chef (with two assistants) and three guides! On arrival at ... [Continue reading this entry]

As a warm up for the Inca Trail we decided to hike the Colca Canyon (the deepest canyon in the world) as a two day trek. We hiked down in to the canyon on day one and had the ... [Continue reading this entry]

If you think that "El Bus" in Quito is terrifying you should try "El Taxi" in Lima. This adventure entails cramming four passengers into an old, yellow VW Beetle and then hurtling through the traffic until you get a ... [Continue reading this entry]

We have survived the Amazon jungle and it is the ecological experience you would expect complete with tarantulas, parrots and piranha fishing. I am, however, struggling to survive the malaria tablets which have blessed me with the unfortunate side ... [Continue reading this entry]