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Cochabamba – Gardens and Coffee
The arrival in Cochabamba bus terminal reminded me of the airport in Cairo. There was sheer chaos, hundreds and hundreds of people swarming about the place with no less than two dozen different bus companies offering rides to all parts of Bolivia. Eventually I escaped the throng of bodies and emerged into the night with…
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La Paz – Our Lady of Peace
The entry into La Paz is something to behold. When you first come into the city it’s like any outskirts of a South American capital – dirty and full of chaos. You can’t help but wonder if the rest of the city is going to be the same. And for themost part, La Paz doesn’t…
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Lake Titicaca –The Bolivian side in Copacabana
Music and fashion are always the passion at the Copa! Well not quite, Copacabana in Bolivia is a small town sitting on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The main street that runs through the centre is full of tourist orientated cafés, markets selling trinkets and what seems an endless parade of travel agencies selling tickets…
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Lake Titicaca – the Peruvian side
I’m not sure I’d call Lake Titicaca a lake. We have lakes in Australia and Titicaca is more like an inland sea than a small body of water. It’s the highest and largest navigable lake in the world and at times all you can see it water on the horizon – no land or even…
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Arequipa to Puno
Maybe it was the fact I was away from the tourist mecca of Cusco, or more likely it was the amazing selection of food, but I ended up staying almost a week in Arequipa. It’s dubbed the White City due to the stone used from the nearby volcano and it has all the charm of…
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Cusco and Machu Picchu
The city of Cusco was once the Inca capital – they called it the Belly Button of the World. It was here the Inca were first invaded by the Chanka people where the current Inca (King) fled in fear his small fledging nation would be hopelessly defeated. His son, Pachacutec, believed otherwise and rallied the…
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Nasca
With the insanely overpriced Ica behind me I hoped Nasca wouldn’t be in the same situation for Semana Santa. I wasn’t sure if Nasca was a place people went for the holiday break and with Semana Santa almost over I had high hopes for find a decent hostal at a decent price. My wishes were…
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Lima Part 2 – Museums and Moving On
On the Plaza San Martin sits an old an bar called the Cathedral of Pisco. Where better to try pisco sour for the first time than a well population bar that promotesitself as holy place to the drink. Pisco sour is a grape brandy mixed with lime, egg white and I’m not sure what else.…
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Lima – The City of Kings
When the conquistador Pizarro founded Lima some 500 years ago, he dubbed it the City of Kings. It’s certainly a city of more than just kings, for the good and the bad! The city had been inhabited long before the Spanish conquered the area by several cultures, from the Inca and further back centuries by…
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Huanchaco and Huaraz – Coast and Mountains
The illegal miners blocking the Panamerican highway in Casma gave me the excuse to spend a couple of days in Huanchaco, the beach town near Trujillo. To be honest, there isn’t a lot of reasons to stay here more than a day. The beach is grey and not inviting, and there isn’t anything to do…
The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page